The Remarkable Fanny Allen
In celebration of Burlington women who were ahead of their time, the name Fanny Allen brings to mind Vermont royalty. Not once, but twice. Frances Montresor was born an illegitimate child in 1760 in NYC and privately tutored and educated there. Fanny, as she was called, learned several languages, music, and botany, among other things, at a time when most girls wouldn’t be able to have a public education for another hundred years. Her mother died when she was young and she moved in with her aunt. At 16, Fanny’s fiancé drowned while crossing a river. Not much later, her first husband, John Buchanan, a British soldier, was killed in battle. Their child died in 1784.
Fanny came to live in Westminster, which would later become Vermont. Her stepfather, British Col. Crean Brush was a major nemesis to Ethan Allen, the Colonel of the Green Mountain Boys. In fact, Brush put a bounty on Allen’s head.
After Allen’s first wife died, Fanny met Ethan, who was more than 20 years her senior. There was an instant connection between them and a romance followed. The two married and moved to Burlington. Fanny became the mother of Ethan’s existing children and they produced three children of their own. But not before Ethan passed away in 1789.
Fanny moved back to Westminster and met a widower named Jabez Penniman. They eventually married and produced three more kids! Fanny’s daughter, Fanny Allen, Jr., fathered by Ethan Allen, attended a convent and became a Catholic nun and nurse in Burlington during the War of 1812. Fanny Allen Hospital in Colchester was created in her memory by the Edmundites of Montreal in the late 19th century
While Fanny Penniman lived in Colchester on the Penniman farm, near the site of the future hospital across the road from St Michael’s College, she and her youngest daughter Adelia created a native wildflower collection of 200 species, complete with scientific names. That collection is stored in UVM’s Pringle Herbarium. Ethan and Fanny’s two sons both attended West Point. You might say Fanny was a high achiever.
Pictures include Fanny Montressor at age 11, Fanny, Jr., a picture from Fanny and Adelia’s herbarium and Fanny Penniman’s grave marker in Elmwood Cemetery in Burlington. It lies next to Jabez and Adelia. Fanny’s father, British General Montressor, never admitted paternity, hence Fanny used the name ‘Montezuma’ instead of Montressor. You can buy a hard copy of Fanny’s short color nonfiction biography, with a link to her online book here: https://ethan-allen-homestead-museum.myshopify.com/collections/books/products/fannys-flowers
