Often our greatest heroes aren’t in capes and tights. Seldom do we see greater courage than in
those who sacrifice to preserve their families.
I found one such hero today when I looked up my relation to Ethan Allen,
the patriot. One historian fingers Ethan’s
grandmother, Mercy Wright Allen, as the source of his extraordinary
courage. For Mercy held her family
together under very trying circumstances.
When Mercy married her cousin Samuel Allen, she made a grave
financial error. The marriage may have
been correct in every other situation, but Samuel proved to be a poor provider
for their family together. Not only did
he lose the inheritance his father passed to him, but he promptly died
thereafter, leaving Mercy and their 7 children literally destitute.
In 1705, Samuel invested his inheritance in cheap land;
cheap because no one wanted to live on it.
He didn’t even want to bring his family to live on it. Having had 38 people killed and over 100
kidnapped in Native American attacks the previous year in Deerfield,
Massachusetts devalued the land substantially.
Speculating that the land would recover its value, Samuel invested his
fortune in the little fertile valley.
But the natives remained a threat; Samuel and his family couldn’t
develop a farm or homestead the rugged frontier there. After several years, Samuel and Mercy
retreated to Coventry, a small farming community in Connecticut. The family acquired a small parcel of land
where the family barely subsisted. Samuel’s
death in 1718 simply exacerbated the problems; the estate had little provision
for the family and no inheritance for the children.
Most women in the early 1700’s would simply apprentice the
children out. This gave them skills in a
trade but usually broke up the family.
Mercy could live on the small estate left to her if the kids were self
sustaining. But she wanted to keep her
family together.
After what must have taken considerable thought, Mercy
traded her small estate in Coventry for a larger parcel of newly acquired land
in the frontier of what became Litchfield, Connecticut. This act made ‘Widow Allen’ the only woman to
own land in the area. She was breaking
the social norms, a testimony to her determination and strength.
This speculation was risky, as had her husband’s
unsuccessful attempt, but this time Mercy carefully chose the land. This parcel was newly purchased from Native
Americans; no terrible history dampened its value. And she put the kids to work to homestead
it. She had one grown son, Nehemiah; the
rest of the kids were too young for the physically demanding work of felling
trees and clearing stumps. They could
help build a small cabin. They plowed
the land and brought in livestock. Mercy
and her children had to work hard to build a homestead.
Fortunately, in 1721, Mercy won a land lottery, granting her
a house lot in the town’s first land division.
That gave her additional holdings that would help her hedge her bets on her
homestead speculation. She even helped
build the town garrison as protection from the Native Americans.
Trouble with the Native Americans cropped up in Litchfield over
the next several years, as was common in all of the settlements. One settler was scalped! When the Natives attacked in 1723, three
years into their habitation, Nehemiah fled east, leaving Mercy and the younger
kids to defend themselves and continue to homestead without him.
Although it was nearly impossible to continue homesteading with
only teen and preteen children to help her, Mercy fought it out. Now in her mid fifties, this was backbreaking
labor. But she soldiered on.
Mercy lived only a few more years, but they were very
productive years. She managed to compensate
for her husband’s mistakes. She ensured that
her children had farms of their own or married well. And she did all of this during a time when purchasing
land and farming was left to the men in society. It would have taken considerable courage to
venture into this foreign world uninvited.
As historian Michael Bellesiles wrote, “Widow Allen made the
necessary economic negotiations for her young family in a doubly hostile world—a
wilderness adverse to settlement and a male-dominated society suspicious of
women. In an age when women generally acted
only with male guidance, Mercy Allen held her own on the frontier.”
Mercy was unwilling to see her family dissolve after the
poor financial decisions of her husband and his subsequent death. Instead, she made wise choices and put her
family to work, compensating for her husband’s errors and keeping the family
together. To her children, there could
be no greater hero.
Works Cited
Bellesiles, Michael A. Revolutionary Outlaws:
Ethan Allen and the Struggle for Independence on the Early American Frontier.
Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 1993. Print.
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