Allen, William, 1710-1780
jurist; born in Philadelphia about 1710; married a daughter of Andrew Hamilton, a distinguished lawyer of Pennsylvania. whom he succeeded as recorder of Philadelphia in 1741. He assisted Benjamin West, the painter, in his early struggles, and co-operated with Benjamin Franklin in establishing the College of Pennsylvania. Judge Allen was chief-justice of that State from 1750 to 1774. A strong loyalist, he withdrew to England in 1774. In London he published a pamphlet entitled The American crisis, containing a plan for restoring American dependence upon Great Britain. He died in England in September, 1780.
educator and author; born in Pittsville, Mass., Jan. 2, 1784: graduated at Harvard College in 1802. After entering the ministry and preaching for some time in western New York, he was elected a regent and assistant librarian of Harvard College. He was president of Dartmouth College in 1817-20, and [106] of Bowdoin College in 1820-39. He was the author of Junius unmasked; a supplement to Webster's dictionary; Psalms and hymns; Memoirs of Dr. Eleazer Wheelock and of Dr. John Codmand: a discourse at the close of the second century of the settlement at Northampton, Mass.; Wunaissoo, or the vale of Housatonnuck, a poem; Christian sonnets: poems of Nazareth and the cross: sacred songs; and numerous pamphlets, and contributed biographical articles to Sprague's Annals of the American pulpit. He also prepared the first edition of the American biographical and Historical dictionary. He died in Northampton, Mass., July 16, 1868.
