It has come to my attention that when you google “Ethan Allen,” the top result is a website for America’s leading manufacturer of iconic, expertly crafted home furnishings and decor. And sure, I’m proud my name is synonymous with top-grain leather recliners and hand-tufted mattresses.

But as we prepare to celebrate our great nation’s Sestercentennial, it behooves me to make it known that I am not merely a Raymour or Flanigan. I am also a Revolutionary War Hero, without whom you would not have the many comforts, in terms of both personal freedoms and subgluteal cushioning, you enjoy today.

So sit back and relax in your great-great-grandmother’s Baylee Leather Barrel-Back Swivel Chair while I tell you how I, Ethan Allen, changed the course of American history and therefore, your right to refurbish your living room every three to five years.

It was the spring of 1775. Colonial seating remained uncomfortably austere, and we had yet to claim a victory. Ever the visionary, I assembled a ragtag band of locals (and that rococo-cabinet-loving turncoat, Benedict Arnold) to capture Ticonderoga, a small—albeit, well-appointed—British fortress.

We stormed the gates, burst into the bedchambers of sleeping soldiers, and seized their muskets, their sabers, their ash-burl veneer nightstands. And while Benedict chummed it up with the British, I charged upstairs where I found Captain William Delaplace, asleep.

His bed: four-postered, solid walnut. The sheets: a fine, hand-spun ivory linen—possibly antique cream.

He awoke with a start and said, “By what authority is this fort being entered?” I slammed my fist against his mahogany armoire, setting the brass ring pulls a-rattle, and replied, “In the name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress!”

And before you could say, “Slipcovered Sleeper Sofa,” Delaplace surrendered his sword, the fort, and a one-of-a-kind cherry dining set.

Some say there’s nothing heroic about taking a fort from a bunch of soldiers in their breeches and bedgowns. Others claim I was only in it for the furniture.

Benedict Arnold would tell you that the only casualty was a sleepwalking soldier I concussed with my cutlass and that I couldn’t have held my own in a “real” battle.

But by golly, in the name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress, I say: What is a bed without that first swing of an axe, but a tree? And what is a nation without that first swing of a cutlass, but a tree-covered wilderness just waiting to be hewn, joined, and varnished into a beacon of modern democratic ideals?

So were it not for me, Revolutionary War Hero Ethan Allen, you’d still be suffering under the tyranny of spindle-back seats while a wealthy despot—with truly garish taste—sits on a throne puffed with tariffs and toadies–

Come again?

In that case, please remember me for my eye-catching arm chairs, my deftly woven upholstery, my timeless home decor and furnishings—designed for every remodel and regime.