When Fanny Met Ethan: Fanny Allen's Sojourns in Westminster (Free Monthly Lecture)

The Ethan Allen Homestead Museum presents our Free Monthly Lecture: "When Fanny Met Ethan: Fanny Allen's Sojourns in Westminster" by author & President of Westminster Historical Society Jessie Haas.
This event is in-person in the museum's tavern. Free for all to attend. Complimentary refreshments provided. The program will be recorded by CCTV and later available on the museum's YouTube channel (@EthanAllenHomestead).
This event is part of Fanny's Weekend, with free admission on Saturday July 16th 10am-4pm, and special activities 11am-2pm, including a reenactor, flax harvesting, and kid-friendly games.

ABOUT THIS MONTH'S LECTURE:
Fanny Montresor Buchanan Allen Penniman lived in Westminster, in southeast Vermont, during three consequential periods of her life. At fifteen she witnessed the 1775 Westminster Massacre, long claimed by Vermonters as the first bloodshed of the American Revolution. In 1783 as a young widow she returned to recover her Tory stepfather's confiscated lands, met Ethan Allen, and married him. After his death in 1789 she moved back to raise the Allen children and met Jabez Penniman, who became her third husband. The forces that brought Fanny to Westminster made the town a political power center that inevitably drew her and Ethan Allen together. This talk will set the context and tell the story of Fanny's three Westminster sojourns.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER:
Jessie Haas grew up in Westminster in a house built by historian Benjamin Hall's great-uncle, on a farm first settled by a minuteman who fought at Bunker Hill. As a child she was lured into a love of history because historical novels frequently had horses on the covers. (This is true.) She studied English and history at Wellesley and sold her first novel, a children's horse story, a month before graduating in 1981. Horses and history account for most of her 43 published books. She has written two histories of Westminster. REVOLUTIONARY WESTMINSTER covers the period from settlement to statehood, and it was while researching this book that she learned that the future Fanny Allen was living a few hundred feet from the courthouse during the Westminster Massacre. Fanny and her stepmother Margaret encountered the sheriff's posse a few hours before the Massacre, according to Fanny's own account. This little-known fact forms the basis of Haas's historical novel DEAREST BLOOD, which covers the first two of Fanny's three sojourns in Westminster. Jessie Haas is president of the Westminster Historical Society and spearheaded the 250th anniversary commemoration in 2025. That effort included drafting a resolution passed by the Vermont legislature which describes the Massacre in 330 words, which she considers one of her greatest writing achievements. She lives in an off-grid cabin with husband Michael J. Daley.