MERCY BURT. — 1647-1705.

Married, in 1667, Judah Wright. Mercy, born September 27, 1647, was the youngest of the children of Henry and Eulalia Burt. She married January 17, 1667, Judah Wright, b. May 10, 1642, son of Deacon Samuel Wright of Springfield and Northampton. Samuel, another of Deacon Wright's sons, had married in 1653, Elizabeth Burt, sister of Mercy. Judah and Mercy Wright lived in Northampton where she died * * * 1705 and he married (2), July 11, 1706, Sarah, widow of Richard Burt. He died November 26, 1725, and his second wife, Sarah, March 31, 1713.

The children of Judah and Mercy Wright were:
1. Samuel, b. November 6, 1677; d. February 18, 1688, unmarried.
2. Mercy, b. March 14, 1669; m. * * * Samuel Allen. Their grandson, the famous General Ethan Allen, was born at Litchfield, Conn., on January 10, 1737. He engaged in the manufacture of iron at Salisbury in his native state, but his adventurous spirit induced him to move to Vermont in 1766. There had been for several years a dispute between New York and New Hampshire as to the possession of the territory which now forms Vermont. The former province had laid the territory out into counties and its officers tried to enforce their authority, which was vigorously resisted by the settlers. The latter formed a military organization known as "The Green Mountain Boys," and recognizing the energetic qualities of Allen, elected him as their colonel. So formidable did he make his forces that Governor Taylor of New York offered a reward of £100 for his arrest.

The news of the first bloodshed in the Revolutionary engagements in April, 1775, at Concord and Lexington, opened a broader field for Allen's intrepidity and enterprise. Rapidly gathering a force of eighty-three men, among whom were Benedict Arnold and Seth Warner, he surprised and captured on May loth the strong English fort at Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain, summoning its astonished commander to surrender "in the name of the great Jehovah and the Continental Congress.'' Thus within a month after the firing of the first hostile musket at Concord this great post was taken "in ten minutes by a few undisciplined volunteers, without the loss of life or limb." This great strategic post had cost England greatly in money and lives and guarded the communications with Canada. Its immense supplies of cannon and other war material were of incalculable service to the revolutionary forces. This and the highly dramatic incidents of the capture have made Ethan Allen's name immortal. Soon afterwards, in September, Allen made an unsuccessful attack upon Montreal with a small force, but was captured and sent to England, and subsequently to prison-ships at Halifax, N.S., and New York, being treated with great cruelty as a contumacious rebel. He was most of the time heavily ironed and treated as if a felon. The British authorities tried in vain to bribe him to induce the Vermonters to join the royal side, but he skilfully contrived by his negotiations to keep the British troops out of Vermont. He was not exchanged until 1778. He was a man of strong intellect and wrote pamphlets against the domination of New York in the territorial contest, a narrative of his captivity, and a work entitled "Allen's Theology, or the Oracles of Reason." He was a man of humane and generous impulses, courageous, impetuous and eccentric. He died at Burlington, Vt., on February 12, 1789.

3. Hester, b. August 18, 1671; d. March 25, 1674.
4. Judah, b. November 14, 1673; d. December 25, 1673.
5. Judah, b. May * * * 1677; m. * * * Mary Hoyt, and settled at Deerfield and was the ancestor of the Wrights of that town, where he was captured at its destruction on February 29, 1704, and carried to Canada in company with his cousin Benjamin Burt, and many other relatives.
6. Ebenezer, b. September * * * 1679; m. * * * Mary* * *. He lived at Northampton and was in the "Meadow Fight" in 1704.
7. Thomas b. April 8, 1682.
8. Patience, b. April 18, 1684; m. * * * John Stebbins of Springfield.
9. Nathaniel, b. Mays, 1688. He lived at Deerfield, where he d. November 17, 1711.

Judah Wright received several grants of land in addition to his homelot on Bridge street, indicated on the map of Northampton which accompanies the biographical sketch of David Burt, on an earlier page of this volume.

EARLY DAYS IN NEW ENGLAND. LIFE AND TIMES OF Henry Burt of Springfield AND SOME OF HIS DESCENDANTS. GENEALOGICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL MENTION OF JAMES AND RICHARD BURT OF TAUNTON, MASS. AND THOMAS BURT, M.P., OF ENGLAND. HENRY M. BURT of Springfield. SILAS W. BURT of New York. SPRINGFIELD, MASS.: CLARK W. BRYAN COMPANY, PRINTERS, 1893.