Editing Ethan Allen (section)

==Later years==
As the war had ended with the [[Treaty of Paris (1783)|1783 Treaty of Paris]], and the United States, operating under the [[Articles of Confederation]], resisted any significant action with respect to Vermont, Allen's historic role as an agitator became less important, and his public role in Vermont's affairs declined.<ref name="Jellison301">[[#Jellison|Jellison]], p. 301</ref> Vermont's government had also become more than a clique dominated by the Allen and Chittenden families due to the territory's rapid population growth.<ref name="Jellison302">[[#Jellison|Jellison]], p. 302</ref>

In 1782, Allen's brother Heber died at the relatively young age of 38. Allen's wife Mary died in June 1783 of [[Tuberculosis#Names|consumption]], to be followed several months later by their first-born daughter Loraine. While they had not always been close, and Allen's marriage had often been strained, Allen felt these losses deeply. A poem he wrote memorializing Mary was published in the ''Bennington Gazette''.<ref name="Jellison303">[[#Jellison|Jellison]], p. 303</ref>

===Publication of ''Reason''===
[[File:Ethan Allen book.jpg|thumb|right|Allen's ''Reason'', at [[Center for Inquiry|CFI's Library]]]]In these years, Allen recovered from Thomas Young's widow, who was living in Albany, the manuscript that he and Young had worked on in his youth and began to develop it into the work that was published in 1785 as ''Reason: the Only Oracle of Man''. The work was a typical Allen polemic, but its target was religious, not political. Specifically targeted against [[Christianity]], it was an unbridled attack against the [[Bible]], established churches, and the powers of the priesthood. As a replacement for organized religion, he espoused a mixture of [[deism]], [[Spinoza]]'s naturalist views, and precursors of [[Transcendentalism]], with man acting as a free agent within the natural world. While historians disagree over the exact authorship of the work, the writing contains clear indications of Allen's style.<ref name="Jellison305_8">[[#Jellison|Jellison]], pp. 305–08</ref>

The book was a complete financial and critical failure. Allen's publisher had forced him to pay the publication costs up front, and only 200 of the 1,500 volumes printed were sold. (The rest were eventually destroyed by a fire at the publisher's house.) The theologically conservative future president of [[Yale University|Yale]], [[Timothy Dwight IV|Timothy Dwight]], opined that "the style was crude and vulgar, and the sentiments were coarser than the style.  The arguments were flimsy and unmeaning, and the conclusions were fastened upon the premises by mere force."<ref name="Jellison310">[[#Jellison|Jellison]], p. 310</ref> Allen took the financial loss and the criticism in stride, observing that most of the critics were clergymen, whose livelihood he was attacking.<ref name="Jellison311">[[#Jellison|Jellison]], p. 311</ref>

===Second marriage===
Allen met his second wife, a young [[widow]] named Frances "Fanny" Montresor Brush Buchanan, early in 1784; and after a brief courtship, they wed on February 16, 1784. Fanny came from a notably [[Loyalist (American Revolution)|Loyalist]] background (including [[Crean Brush]], notorious for acts during the [[Siege of Boston]], from whom she inherited land in Vermont), but they were both smitten, and the marriage was a happy one.<ref name="Jellison314_5">[[#Jellison|Jellison]], pp. 314–315</ref> They had three children: [[Fanny Allen|Fanny]] (1784–1819),<ref>[[#Goesbriand|Goesbriand]], p. 12</ref> Hannibal Montresor (1786–1813), and Ethan Alphonso (1789–1855).<ref>[[#Brown|Brown]], p. 279</ref> Fanny had a settling effect on Allen; for the remainder of his years he did not embark on many great adventures.<ref name="Jellison315">[[#Jellison|Jellison]], p. 315</ref>

The notable exception to this was when land was claimed by the Connecticut-based owners of the Susquehanna Company, who had been granted titles to land claimed by Connecticut in the [[Wyoming Valley]], in an area that is now [[Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania]].<ref name="B248">[[#Bellesiles|Bellesiles]], p. 248</ref> The area was also claimed by Pennsylvania, which refused to recognize the Connecticut titles. Allen, after being promised land, traveled to the area and began stirring up not just Pennsylvania authorities but also his long-time nemesis, Governor Clinton of New York, by proposing that a new state be carved out of the disputed area and several counties of New York.<ref name="Holbrook217_9">[[#Holbrook|Holbrook]], pp. 217–219</ref> The entire affair was more bluster than anything else, and was resolved amicably when Pennsylvania agreed to honor the Connecticut titles.<ref name="B251">[[#Bellesiles|Bellesiles]], p. 251</ref>

Allen was also approached by [[Daniel Shays]] in 1786 for support in what became the [[Shays's Rebellion]] in western Massachusetts. He was unsupportive of the cause, in spite of Shays's offer to crown him "king of Massachusetts"; he felt that Shays was just trying to erase unpayable debts.<ref name="Holbrook243">[[#Holbrook|Holbrook]], p. 243</ref>

In his later years, independent Vermont continued to experience rapid population growth, and Allen sold a great deal of his land, but also reinvested much the proceeds in more land. A lack of cash, complicated by Vermont's currency problems, placed a strain on Fanny's relatively free hand on spending, which was further exacerbated by the cost of publishing ''Reason'', and of the construction of a new home near the mouth of the Onion River.<ref name="Jellison320">[[#Jellison|Jellison]], p. 320</ref> He was threatened with debtors' prison on at least one occasion, and was at times reduced to borrowing money and calling in old debts to make ends meet.<ref name="Holbrook221">[[#Holbrook|Holbrook]], p. 221</ref><ref name="Jellison321">[[#Jellison|Jellison]], p. 321</ref>

Allen and his family moved to Burlington in 1787, which was no longer a small frontier settlement but a small town, and much more to Allen's liking than the larger community that Bennington had become. He frequented the tavern there, and began work on ''An Essay on the Universal Plenitude of Being'', which he characterized as an appendix to ''Reason''. This essay was less polemic than many of his earlier writings. Allen affirmed the perfection of God and His creation, and credited intuition as well as reason as a way to bring Man closer to the universe.<ref name="Jellison325_6">[[#Jellison|Jellison]], pp. 325–326</ref> The work was not published until long after his death, and is primarily of interest to students of Transcendentalism, a movement the work foreshadows.<ref name="Jellison327">[[#Jellison|Jellison]], p. 327</ref>

=== Death ===
On February 11, 1789, Allen traveled to [[South Hero, Vermont]] with one of his workers to visit his cousin, [[Ebenezer Allen (Vermont politician) | Ebenezer Allen]], and to collect a load of hay. After an evening spent with friends and acquaintances, he spent the night there and set out the next morning for home.<ref name="Hall198">[[#Hall|Hall (1895)]], p. 198</ref> While accounts of the return journey are not entirely consistent, Allen apparently suffered an [[apoplexy|apoplectic]] fit en route and was unconscious by the time they returned home. Allen died at home several hours later, without ever regaining consciousness.<ref>{{Cite book| title = Bold Leaders of the American Revolution | author = Colonel Red Reeder | publisher = Little, Brown and Company, Boston | page = 22}}</ref><ref name="Jellison330">[[#Jellison|Jellison]], p. 330</ref> He was buried four days later in the Green Mount Cemetery in Burlington.<ref name="Jellison331">[[#Jellison|Jellison]], p. 331</ref> The funeral was attended by dignitaries from the Vermont government and by large numbers of common folk who turned out to pay respects to a man many considered their champion.<ref name="Jellison331"/>

Allen's death made nationwide headlines. The ''Bennington Gazette'' wrote of the local hero, "the patriotism and strong attachment which ever appeared uniform in the breast of this ''Great Man'', was worth of his exalted character; the public have to lament the loss of a man who has rendered them great service".<ref name="Holbrook253">[[#Holbrook|Holbrook]], p. 253</ref> Although most obituaries were positive, a number of clergymen expressed different sentiments. "Allen was an ignorant and profane Deist, who died with a mind replete with horror and despair" was the opinion of [[Newark, New Jersey]]'s Reverend [[Uzal Ogden]].<ref name="Jellison331"/> Yale's Timothy Dwight expressed satisfaction that the world no longer had to deal with a man of "peremptoriness and effrontery, rudeness and ribaldry".<ref name="Jellison331"/> It is not recorded what New York Governor Clinton's reaction was to the news.<ref name="Jellison331"/>