Frances Margaret "Fanny" Allen was the first New England woman to become a Catholic nun. The daughter of Revolutionary War officer Ethan Allen, she converted to Catholicism and entered the Montreal convent of the Religious Hospitallers of St. Joseph in 1811.

Ethan Allen was an American farmer, businessman, land speculator, philosopher, writer, lay theologian, American Revolutionary War patriot, and politician. He is best known as one of the founders of Vermont and for the capture of Fort Ticonderoga early in the Revolutionary War. He was the brother of Ira Allen and the father of Frances Allen.