My Genealogy Hound

C. L. Allen, attorney, real estate and insurance agent at Bolivar, was born in Dover, Ky., December 13, 1837, and is the son of John and Elizabeth (Lyne) Allen. John Allen was born in North Ireland, and raised in Philadelphia, Penn., of Scotch-Irish parents. His wife was a Kentuckian. Grandfather Lyne was a soldier during the Revolutionary War, and in the War of 1812. Mr. Lyne was a native of Virginia, and left with the first emigrants from Virginia for Kentucky, where he was a companion of Daniel Boone and Simon Kenton. His wife was a Duncan; the two families are numerous and influential, and most of them are still in Kentucky. Grandfather Allen was a physician in Philadelphia. When a young man John Allen, father of our subject, moved to Kentucky, was there married to Miss Lyne, and afterward moved to Ripley, Ohio, when C. L. was but a year old. John Allen was a merchant and tobacco manufacturer by occupation; was a Whig in politics, and both he and wife were members of the Methodist Episcopal Church. In their family were six children, three of whom died in infancy, and one, a sister, Anna Zetta, who was married to Mr. Warren Johnson, of Warrensburgh, Ohio died at that city in 1868. One, Dr. J. C. Allen, is a dentist at Cincinnati, Ohio. The father lived to be sixty-two years of age, and the mother sixty-four; both died at Ripley, Ohio. C. L. Allen is the only one now living in the West. He received his education in the public schools of Ripley, Ohio, and then attended, for two years, the Ohio Wesleyan University at Delaware, Ohio He also read law at Ripley. April 23, 1861, he enlisted in Company H, Twelfth Ohio Volunteers, U. S. A., and was in several battles in Kanawha Valley, West Virginia. In the second battle of Bull Run he was made color guard for bravery. He was associated with the Christian Commission that supplied the army with tracts, etc., and this good work he continued during his time of service.’ In the battle of South Mountain he was wounded through the left thigh. In May, 1863, he was made chaplain of his regiment, without solicitation, and previously had had a license to preach sent by the Methodist Episcopal Church of Ripley, and served in that capacity until the regiment was mustered out in July, 1864. In September of the same year he married Miss Anna Letitia Craw ford, a native of Georgetown, Ohio, and to them have been born four children, two of whom died in infancy, the other two now being with them: Ada, who took first honors of her class at South west Baptist College, and Bessie Lyne, who is a student at that institution. Mr. Allen discontinued preaching on account of throat trouble, came to Missouri in 1865, and was admitted to the bar at Memphis, Scotland County. In 1868, at Macon City Mo., he was nominated by acclamation for circuit attorney by the Conservative Democrat party, he then being a Liberal Republican, opposed to disfranchisement. In 1869 he came to Salem, Dent County, where he was for four years probate judge and ex-officio president of the county court, and two years mayor of Salem. He presided at the opening of the railroad to Salem and in 1877, moved to Marshfield, where he was city attorney and was one of the sufferers in the terrible cyclone that swept that city. In 1880 he came to Bolivar, and has been president of the town board. At present he is justice of the peace He is a member of the I. O. O. F., also the G. A. R., and is a prominent man of the county. He is a Republican in politics; and he and wife are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church.