A land dispute with the British governors in the 1760s resulted in the formation of the Green Mountain Boys malitia. Ethan Allen led this group as Colonel Commandant. He began purchasing land which British authorities in New York claimed to own, with the Green Mountain Boys driving away tenants who were paying rent to the British in New York. 

A riot in Westminster led to Allen authorizing and publishing a 200-page tract defending the rights of the Green Mountain Boys and their friends, as Thomas Jefferson and the founding fathers were drafting the Declaration of Independence. Once the Revolutionary War started, American patriots asked Allen and the Green Mountain Boys for help capturing Fort Ticonderoga.

Allen succeeded in capturing the fort along with Colonel Benedict Arnold without firing a shot. The capture of Fort Ticonderoga proved consequential, shielding American forces from the British attacks from the North, in addition to providing the Continental Army with valuable cannons and munitions.

The Continental Congress later made the Green Mountain Boys and official regiment in the Continental Army. When Ethan Allen returned home from the fighting in the war, he found that the land he had defended so passionately against British authorities in New York had been organized into the independent Vermont Republic.

One time, the story goes, Allen asked to use the restroom while dining with British soldiers. The British had placed a portrait of George Washington above the toilet but, when Allen returned, he made no mention of it. Impatient, his British host asked him what he thought of the portrait and it's placement. He was shocked when Allen said it was "appropriate." The Revolutionary War hero said that the portrait would "do good service" there, quipping, "The world knows nothing will make an Englishman shit quicker than the sight of George Washington."