"Early History of Thurston County, Washington; Together with Biographies and
Reminiscences of those Identified with Pioneer Days." Compiled and Edited by
Mrs. George E. (Georgiana) Blankenship.  Published in Olympia, Washington, 1914.
p. 280.
 
JOHN BEARD ALLEN

     John Beard Allen was born at Crawfordsville, Montgomery County, Indiana,
May 18, 1845.
     He was the son of Joseph S. Allen, a prominent physician and surgeon of
that town and Hannah (Beard) Allen, daughter of Hon. John Beard of the same
place.
     John Beard was called "the father of Montgomery County" from the fact of
his having represented it for some twenty odd years in the Legislature.  He was
a strong figure in the early political annals of Indiana.
     John Allen received his education in the common schools of his native town
and at Wabash College, located there.  He showed at school a great fondness and
attitude for mathematical studies, also for history, especially political
history.
     He cared, apparently, but little for the languages and literature.  During
the "Morgan Raid" into Indiana and Ohio, one of the exciting episodes of the
Civil war, John Allen served as a "Minuteman" until the capture of Morgan.  He
also enlisted in the 135th Indiana Infantry, under a call for five months
service in 1863 and served over seven months.  He was honorably discharged from
both these enlistments.
     In 1865 the family removed to Rochester, Minnesota.  Here after a year
spent in business, principally in buying wheat, he entered the law office of
Hon. C. C. Wilson, as a student, later attending a course of law lectures at the
University of Michigan.
     In 1868 he began legal practice at Goshen, Indiana, in partnership with the
late Hon. J. J. Brown, of Spokane, who had been a schoolmate at Wabash and Ann
Arbor.
     He was recalled to Rochester by the last illness of his mother, who died in
December of that year.
     Yielding to the persuasions of his family, he determined to remain at
Rochester.  Here he was elected City Attorney in 1869, when barely twenty-four
years of age.
     Early in 1870 he came to Washington Territory, bringing with him a very
considerable sum of money, which had been entrusted to him for investment by his
father and businessmen of Rochester.
     The money was invested with remarkably good judgment, considering the then
undeveloped state of the country and his entire lack of experience in that line
of business.
     After looking over the "Sound" country he selected Olympia as his home,
considering it likely to be selected by the Northern Pacific Railway Company as
its western terminus.
     He opened a law office in the old "Good Templars Hall," paying office rent,
by acting as janitor of the building.  He did not remain long in this location
for in the early fall of 1871, he was found in the Cushman Land Office building
with a pretty fair office equipment and a considerable law practice.  This
progress seems quite remarkable when we recall the great strength of the Olympia
Bar, which at that time carried such names as Selucius Garfielde, O. B.
McFadden, J. E. Wyche, Elwood Evans, B. F. Dennison, Elisha P. Ferry and Henry
G. Struve, all strong men and some of them giants in the law.
     In September, 1871, he was married to Miss M. Cecelia Bateman, of Lamont,
Michigan, a woman of great intellectual ability and unusual force of character.
He continued to reside at Olympia until 1881, when he removed to Walla Walla.
In 1875 he was appointed U. S. Attorney for Washington Territory, which office
he held by successive appointments, for ten years.
     In 1889 he was elected delegate to Congress on the Republican ticket and
the Territory having been admitted as a State before he took his seat as
delegate, he was elected the first U. S. Senator, drawing a four year term.
Ex-Gov. Watson C. Squire was the other Senator elected.  He was a candidate for
reelection to the Senate in 1893, but by a strange combination of circumstances
and political factors, the session was deadlocked and there was no election.  He
was appointed by Gov. McGraw to fill the vacancy, but the appointment was
unavailing, under the rule and precedents of the Senate.
     Mr. Allen was the overwhelming choice of his party both in State and
Legislature, but a sufficient number of Republicans refused to go into caucus to
prevent his election.  On the expiration of his Senatorial term in 1894, he
removed to Seattle, where he practiced his profession until his death, January
28, 1903, from an attack of angina pectoris.
     He was a member of the firm of Struve, Allen, Hughes & McMicken during all
this time.

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Submitted to the Washington Bios. Project in May 2007 by Diana Smith.
Submitter has no additional information about the person(s) or family mentioned
above.