Seth Warner

Life

He was born in Roxbury, Connecticut. In 1763, he moved with his father to Bennington in what was then known as the New Hampshire Grants. He established there as a huntsman.

Warner proved his qualities to the local community, and was elected Captain of the Green Mountain Boys, the local militia formed to resist New York authority over Vermont. With his cousin and the militia’s founder, Ethan Allen, he was outlawed, but never captured.

During the American Revolutionary War, he fought on the side of the Continental Army, though later in the war his regiment was considered a foreign unit belonging to the Vermont Republic, and was granted a commission as a colonel. He made a mark in such engagements as the capture of Fort Ticonderoga, the Montreal campaign, the Battle of Hubbardton and—perhaps most famously—the Battle of Bennington.

Then, in 1782, with his health failing, he returned to Roxbury. Warner was never skilled in financial matters, and failed to make money on land speculation as many others did in the new territories. At the end of his life, his wife Hester had to apply to Congress for charity. After a long delay a grant of 2,000 acres (8 km²) in the northeast of the state was made, the so-called Warner's Grant. The grant, however, came too late; Warner had already been dead for four years. A further honor came with the Bennington Battle Monument, which includes a sculpture of Warner on its grounds.

Warner's great-grandnephew Olin Levi Warner, was a well-known sculptor.