Author: Craig Robert Rich
Gideon was born on 12 Dec 1730, at Brimfield, Massachusetts, the son of Jabez Warren and his wife Mary. He married in about 1751 in Massachusetts, Ann (perhaps Bishop). They had eight children before his wife died. He then married Eunice Chipman, sometime after 1769 in Salisbury, CT. They had five more children.
American rebel leaders focused their attention on Fort Ticonderoga, which had been a major point of contention during the French and Indian War. It was now an inviting target since it occupied a strategic point between Lake Champlain and Lake George, held a supply of cannon and other artillery (items badly needed by the rebel forces) and was lightly defended, mostly by older or disabled British soldiers.
Connecticut's Governor enlisted the services of Ethan Allen, a frontier land speculator and agitator. Allen gathered his Green Mountain Boys at Castleton, Vermont, and prepared for a strike against Ticonderoga. One of those men was 45 year old Gideon Warren.
So, 83 of the Green Mountain Boys made the first crossing with Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold at the lead. As dawn approached, Allen and Arnold became fearful of losing the element of surprise, so they decided not to wait for more to arrive, and attacked with the men at hand.
Nobody was killed in the assault. The only injury was to 45 year old Gideon Warren, my Patriot ancestor, who was slashed on the arm by a sentry with a bayonet or saber.
The American haul in this nearly bloodless victory was impressive: six mortars, three howitzers, 78 cannon and supplies of cannon balls, powder and flints.
Two days later, the rebel forces took nearby Crown Point; and on May 16, St. John’s, Canada fell.
Fort Warren, Vermont is named in Gideon Warren’s honor, was built in 1779, and the Vermont militia stationed there to guard the northern frontier. The fort is near Castleton, VT.
Gideon Warren’s injuries were well documented in an official “pension payment” at Arlington, Vermont on January 27, 1779, as follows: “Please pay unto Colonel Gideon Warren forty pounds lawful money, it being in part pay for what the General Assembly of this state ordered to be paid Colonel Warren for his being wounded at the taking of Ticonderoga in May, 1775.” Signed by Thomas. Chittenden. Later another one hundred and ten pounds was acknowledged as being paid on same claim.

In 1781, Colonel Warren was a member of the convention that met at Cambridge, New York, for the purpose of uniting the territory east of the Hudson above Troy with Vermont, and was also a delegate from that body to the Vermont assembly, which met the same year. That assembly appointed him one of the commissioners on the part of Vermont to adjust the boundaries between Vermont, New York and New Hampshire.
He died April 4, 1803 in Hampton, Washington, New York, and was buried in Hampton Hill Cemetery. His wife Eunice died in 1831.