‘Ethan Allen in Castleton’ includes parade, free flags for kids

“Ethan Allen in Castleton” is a 250th anniversary event that is set to begin with a 6 PM patriotic parade in the village of Castleton on Friday, May 9, 2025. The Town of Castleton and the Castleton campus of Vermont State University are co-sponsoring this free-admission public celebration of the May 1775 achievements of the Green Mountain Boys militia soon after the outbreak of the War for American Independence.

Three weeks after the war began between the American colonies and Great Britain, patriots from New England quietly prepared to seize British forts, which overlook Lake Champlain, in order to take cannon away from enemy strongholds. A council of war, held in Castleton several hours before the first of two forts were liberated, was the gathering where Ethan Allen was chosen to lead the expedition and where he sent Samuel Herrick to Whitehall (then Skenesborough) New York and where he dispatched Major Beach to alert patriot men of the need to gather in Shoreham and then take control of Ticonderoga and Crown Point. In 1925, 1953, and 1975, this 1775 historical event was celebrated, so now volunteers have produced a 250th anniversary celebration for this generation of Vermonters and Americans.

For a rain-or-shine parade at 6 PM, participants from Castleton’s American Legion post, the Castleton Historical Society, the Noah Lee Masonic Lodge, the Ann Story chapter of Daughters of the American Revolution, the Vermont Society Sons of the American Revolution, the Castleton Woman’s Club, and the Crown Point Road Association, will walk along Main Street from the former Village School to the Castleton village green. The first 150 children to assemble for the May 9 parade will be issued a U.S. flag to wave en route.

The rest of the Friday, May 9 program will take place in daylight on the green, or inside the magnificent Federated Church of Castleton in the event of downpour. Everyone attending should bring lawn chairs.

Vermont state Representative Zachary Harvey will read a one-page state legislative resolution, to honor the 250th anniversary of the May 1775 achievements of Green Mountain Boys. The entire assembled gathering will very briefly pose for a group portrait to mark the occasion.

At around 7:00 p.m., master of ceremonies Mike Jones will introduce a live dramatization that will portray the final decisions of the Green Mountain Boys, only hours before they completed their clandestine approach to Fort Ticonderoga. Ten men will play the roles of 1775 Green Mountain Boys secretly meeting in Zadock Remington’s tavern at Castleton. Some tasteful souvenirs will be available for purchase at the green. Atomic Pro Audio has been hired to provide excellent sound quality for the entire audience.

Behind the flatbed trailer, which will serve as the stage, is the “old churchyard cemetery” where there are eleven burial sites, the graves of eleven Revolutionary War patriots. To honor them, representatives from eleven organizations will each stand beside those graves and mark them with Green Mountain Boys flags. Then living history re-enactors fire a musket salute and legionnaires will fire a rifle salute.

The next morning, Saturday, May 10, 2025, the public is invited to cheer one dozen cyclists who will depart the Castleton village green with a 9:00 send-off. They will be led, initially, by Mike Canty of Proctor, who launched the May 9, 1975 re-enactment of the +60-mile run completed by Major Gershom Beach (or perhaps his son, Major Samuel Beach) on May 9, 1775. Major Beach ran from Castleton village to Rutland, Pittsford, Brandon, Salisbury, Middlebury, Cornwall, Whiting, and through Shoreham to Hand’s Cove on the east shore of Lake Champlain. He did this to send and bring additional Green Mountain Boys from these towns to meet at the rendezvous location which would serve as the pre-dawn lake crossing. Major Beach’s legendary feat happened three weeks after the shorter, yet more famous “Paul Revere’s ride” on horseback in Massachusetts.

In early May of 1775, patriots from Connecticut and Massachusetts arrived in Bennington in the New Hampshire Grants (renamed “Vermont” in 1777) and met with Ethan Allen and other Green Mountain Boys. They agreed to quietly journey to Castleton by May 8, to receive final instructions for crossing Lake Champlain and the capture the British artillery at Ticonderoga and Crown Point before the British in those forts were alerted to the fact that a war had broken out at Lexington, Massachusetts on April 19. From Castleton, Ethan Allen sent 30 Green Mountain Boys to seize boats at Skenesborough (now Whitehall NY) at the south end of Lake Champlain. It was also from Castleton that Ethan Allen dispatched – on foot – Major Beach, to gather more Green Mountain Boys to join the expedition to the lakeshore at Hand’s Cove. Of course, the patriots were successful in liberating 78 cannon from Ticonderoga on May 10 and 111 cannon from Crown Point on May 11. Of these 189 artillery pieces, 59 were hauled overland to Boston, during the first winter of the Revolutionary War, which resulted in the British ending their naval blockade of Boston harbor.

The public celebrations of Ethan Allen in Castleton on May 9, 1925, in 1953, and on May 9, 1975 are well-documented by old news articles, photographs, and souvenir programs. The town’s Castleton Bicentennial Committee enlisted then 25-year-old Mike Canty to portray Major Beach at the start of his run from Castleton village 50 years ago. Volunteers from Castleton and beyond have made plans and preparations for this upcoming 250th anniversary commemoration.