Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 01.djvu/91

ALLEN.ALLEN. ALLEN, William, governor of Ohio, was born, at Edenton, Chowan county, N. C, in 1807, and being orphaned in the first year of his life was taken by his sister, Mrs. Thurman, mother of Allen G. Thurman, to Lynchburg, Va., where he received his education at a private school and at the Chillicothe academy. He studied law with Edward King, by whom he was taken into partnership on his admission to the bar in 1827. His forensic ability early brought him into prominence at the bar, and his success as a political speaker gave him a nomination for representative in Congress when only twenty-three years old. In 1833 he was elected as a democratic representative to the 23d Congress, where he took a leading part in the prominent discussions, making a notable speech on the Ohio boundary line question, in which he antagonized John Quincy Adams. In 1837 he was elected to the U. S. senate to succeed Thomas Ewing. Before the close of his first term he was re-elected and held his seat until March 4, 1849; was chairman of the committee on foreign relations, and distinguished himself in the dispute, between Great Britain and America in regard to the Oregon boundary; he was the originator of the phrase, "Fifty-four forty or fight." In 1873 he was elected governor of Ohio, the first democrat elected to that office for many years. He was in favor of the strictest economy in the administration of the affairs of the state, and of reduction in taxation. He was re-nominated in 1875, but having espoused the greenback cause he failed of election. He died July 11, 1879. ALLEN, William, philanthropist, was born at Windham, Conn., May 23, 1810. His early years were passed in Rhode Island, whither his parents had removed soon after his birth. The straightened circumstances of the family prevented his receiving anything more than a rudimentary education, but by private study he acquired sufficient knowledge to enable him to assume the editorial management of the Rhode Islander. At the age of nineteen he removed to Ohio, and edited first the Ohio State Journal and later the Cincinnati Gazette. After leaving that paper, he engaged in agriculture, and became active in advocating the establishment of a law by which western settlers could obtain a homestead from the government. After travelling throughout the country delivering lectures and spending more than $60,000, he had the satisfaction of seeing the homestead law adopted by Congress, allowing one hundred acres of land to each actual settler. This expenditure of time and money crippled him financially, so that he never rallied, his last years being spent in abject poverty. Under the homestead law more than 122,000,000 acres of land were given away in the first twenty-five years. Mr. Allen died in the Franklin county infirmary at Columbus, Ohio, Nov. 29, 1891. ALLEN, William, jurist, was born at Brunswick, Me., March 31, 1822, son of William Allen, president of Bowdoin college, and grandson of Thomas Allen, the "fighting parson" of Bennington fame. At the age of sixteen he entered Bowdoin college in his native town, but removed to Northampton before completing his studies, and entered Amherst college, where he was graduated in 1842. The following year he spent in studying law at Yale college, and in 1845 he was admitted to the bar in Northampton, where he practised twenty-seven years. In 1872 he was appointed a judge of the superior court and in 1881 he was raised from that position to the bench of the supreme court of Massachusetts, holding the office during the rest of his life. He died in Northampton, Mass., June 4, 1891. ALLEN, William Francis, educator, was born at Northborough, Mass., Sept. 5, 1830. He was graduated at Harvard in 1851. He was a private tutor in New York city, 1851-'54, studied in Europe, 1854-'55, interesting himself in historical and antiquarian subjects, and taught in a private school in West Newton, Mass., 1855-'63 In 1863 he entered the employ of the Freedmen's and Sanitary commissions, and collected material for a book, "Slave Songs," published in 1867. After the war he taught a year each at Antioch college, Ohio, and at Perth Amboy, N.J. He was professor of ancient languages and history, 1867-'70, professor of Latin and history, 1870-'76, and professor of history, 1876-'81, in the University of Wisconsin. He wrote the annals of "Tacitus" and a "Short History of the Roman People." He died at Madison, Wis., Dec. 9, 1889. ALLEN, William Frederick, metrologist, was born in Bordentown, N. J., Oct. 9, 1846; son of Col. Joseph Warner Allen, a civil engineer, state senator, deputy quarter-master-general and colonel of the 9th New Jersey volunteers, who, while serving with his regiment in Burnside's expedition on the coast of North Carolina, 1861-'63, was drowned off Hatteras inlet while endeavoring to report to the commanding general during the storm, Jan. 13, 1862. William Frederick attended the Protestant Episcopal academy