Issues → March/April 2008 → Home & Garden →

House For Sale: Sunderland, Vermont

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Since we don't have a Vermont fishing license, we didn't fish the Batten Kill that day. Instead we simply sat on a bench next to a 12-foot-deep spring hole where, according to Maria, Ed has spotted some really large brown trout. We pictured the river flowing along from there, mile after mile, crossing the New York line to eventually empty into the Hudson a little way below Glens Falls. And we thought about Ethan Allen.

Why, we wondered, did he leave this beautiful property in 1787? We're aware that he'd been severely criticized by local clergymen for his religious tract Reason: The Only Oracle of Man, written in this house. In it, he maintained a person's destiny was up to him or her, not God. That was blasphemy in those days. So maybe he was plain sick of hearing the talk throughout the Sunderland area.

Ethan Allen eventually moved into a house on 1,400 acres along the Winooski (Onion) River in Burlington, where, in 1789, he died suddenly, remaining controversial and colorful to the very end. His last words? When a local minister whispered to him on his deathbed, "The angels are waiting for you, General Allen," Ethan bellowed back, so loudly it made the minister jump: "Waiting for me, are they? Well, goddamn 'em, let 'em wait."

Obviously, "the Voice of Vermont" was not always the voice everyone wanted to hear. But would Vermont be Vermont without Ethan Allen? Well, you know, probably not ...

For details, contact Dale Elizabeth Merriman, Montage Properties LLC, New York, NY. 866-778-6836, 212-627-7614, 917-846-5889 (cell); picturerealty.com