Biographical Sketches of Leading Citizens
Lawrence County Pennsylvania 1897
[p. 298] a prominent farmer and dealer in lumber, residing in Chewton, Wayne township, was born in the above township July 1, 1847, and was a son of Davis and Mary (Van Emanen) Allen, grandson of Jacob and Eleanor (Munson) Allen, and great-grandson of George Allen. The last-named gentleman came from New Jersey to the Genesee Valley, New York State, and from there came to Chewton, where he took up a settler's claim, which property never passed out of the hands of the Allen family, and is now the estate which our subject occupies and farms. He was thrice married, to a Miss McCullon, Miss Newton and a Miss Daldine. His first wife bore a son, Jacob, during the family's residence in New Jersey. This son, grew up in the Genesee Valley, married his wife there, and brought her with him to Chewton, settling where B. W. Cunningham lives. Jacob Allen later owned the James Guy place, and the first store ever opened in Chewton belonged to him. Mrs. Allen died in middle life, and Mr. Allen, the grandfather of our subject, reached the age of sixty-two before his demise in 1825. They left a family, consisting of George, John M., Joseph, Daniel, Susanna, Zabina M., Davis. There were others in the family, but they did not live to grow to maturity. Mr. Allen was in the War of 1812, and was present at the engagement with the British at Black Rock, which is now a part of the City of Buffalo, N. Y. He was a man of good character, strongly religious and possessed in short all the characteristics of an excellent law-abiding citizen. He was a Presbyterian, and was one of the founders of the Slippery Rock Church.
Davis Allen, father of the present scion of the Allen family, whose life-history we have undertaken to briefly outline, bought a farm at Chewton, where he entered upon a life of toil near to nature's heart, but was summoned to the better country while in his early manhood, leaving a wife and four small children to mourn his departure from their midst. Jacob S. was the eldest; Ann Eliza married William Kirkland of West Bridgewater, Pa.; Mary and David died in childhood. Mrs. Allen lives with her son, and has seen the passage of seventy-two years, fraught with mingled joy and sadness.
Very early in life, Jacob S. Allen became employed in the lumber business, and in 1873 bought fifty-three acres of the Egner farm, that he chose for a family residence, and set about improving and beautifying the place. For many years he has been associated with William Kirkland, his brother-in-law, in the lumber business; their mode of procedure is to buy tracts of timber, cut down the trees that are suitable for good lumber, saw the lumber with portable mills, and place the finished product on the market. They have operated both in Lawrence and Beaver counties, and have always been attended with successful results. Mr. Allen married Mary Irwin, daughter of Nathan Irwin, and she had two daughters, Cora and Grace, and passed away at the age of twenty-nine. Edna Groover became the wife of our subject, and she left a son Howard, at her death when twenty-two years old. Mr. Allen a third time contracted a matrimonial alliance, the bride being Clara Beck, daughter of Christian Beck. Mr. Allen follows the bent of the family in religious views and is a Presbyterian, while in political affairs also he adheres to the faith of his fathers and is a strong Republican, decided in his opinions and courageous in the utterance of them.
Biographical Sketches of Leading Citizens Lawrence County Pennsylvania
Biographical Publishing Company, Buffalo, N.Y., 1897
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Updated: 21 May 2001