Bios: JACOB S. ALLEN: Lawrence County, Pennsylvania
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Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Lawrence Co transcribers.
Prepared by Ed McClelland
Copyright 2004. All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
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Biographical Sketches of Leading Citizens
Lawrence County Pennsylvania
Biographical Publishing Company, Buffalo, N.Y., 1897
An html version with search engine may be found at
http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/lawrence/1897/
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JACOB S. ALLEN
[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.