- W ILLIAM ALLEN, the prominent lawyer, judge and legislator of Greenville, Ohio, was born in Butler county, this state, Aug. 13, 1827, and died July 6, 1881, in Greenville. His father, John Allen , was a native of Ireland, born Jan. 26, 1800, and came to America in 1812. After residing six years in New York, he located in Butler county, Ohio, in 1818, and in February, 1838, moved his family into the sparsely settled forests of Darke county, where he erected a log cabin, having a split-log floor and mud and stick chimney. He died on the 2d of October, 1858, a very much respected citizen. He possessed fine conversational powers, and in the latter part of his life was a preacher of the United Brethren church.
Our subject was favored with the advantages of the common schools only, yet by earnest personal application he qualified himself to teach the English branches at the age of fifteen and in this way for several years employed his winters. At the age of nineteen he began reading law under the late Felix Marsh , of Eaton, Ohio, was admitted to the bar in June, 1849, and the following October began practice at Greenville. He met with success in his chosen calling and became one of the most prominent and successful lawyers of Darke county. On the 30th of September, 1851, Mr . Allen married Miss Priscilla , daughter of John Wallace , a native of Pennsylvania, and an early pioneer of Butler county, Ohio, who settled in Darke county in 1834, and died in the summer of 1863, at the age of about eighty years. He was always recognized as an upright man and an excellent citizen. The children born of this marriage were five sons and three daughters, of whom only one son is now living. (His sketch is given next ). Four of the children died of diphtheria under the most afflicting circumstances, and within the brief, space of two months. This was in the winter of 1861, when Mr . Allen was summoned home from Washington city to the scene of bereavement.
Early in life Mr . Allen became prominently identified with public affairs, and has been called upon to fill several important official positions. In the fall of 1856 he was elected prosecuting attorney of Darke county, and re-elected in 1852. In the fall of 1858 he was elected representative to congress from the fourth district of Ohio, comprising the counties of Miami, Darke, Shelby, Mercer, Allen and Auglaize, and re-elected in, 1860, thus serving in the thirty-sixth and thirty-seventh congresses. In the winter of 1865 he was appointed by Governor Cox as judge of the court of common pleas of the first subdivision of the second judicial district of Ohio, composed of the counties of Butler, Darke and Preble, to fill an unexpired term in the place of Judge David L. Meeker , resigned. In 1872 he was a member of the Grant electoral college, and also an elector for Garfield in 1880. The electors of Ohio, after casting their vote for the latter, paid him a visit of congratulation at his home in Mentor, Ohio. Mr . Allen was again nominated for congress on the Republican ticket from the fifth congressional district of Ohio in the summer of 1878, but declined the honor on account of ill health. Of local positions, it may be mentioned that he was president of the Greenville Bank, then a private enterprise, conducted under the firm name of Hufnagle , Allen & Company; Mr . Allen began the world in poverty, was reared in a rough log cabin, and enjoyed none of the golden opportunities for social and educational improvement which are lavishly, bestowed on the youth of today, but he always made the most of his advantages, and without the aid of influence or wealth rose to a position among the most prominent men of his county, his native genius and acquired ability being the stepping stones on which he mounted. As a lawyer his career was successful, while his record as a statesman was creditable to himself and satisfactory to his constituents.
Source: A Biographical History of Darke County, Ohio, Compendium of National Biography - Illustrated - Publ. Evansville, Ind. - 1900 - Page 653
|
.jpg)
.jpg)
1827 - 1881 (53 years)
[1] 
William Allen, b. 1724, County Down, Ulster, Ireland
