Benjamin Allen, Sr.
b. July 15, 1761 Rehoboth, MA d. September 9, 1824 Hudson, NY
Revolutionary Service: served Berkshire Co., MA militia under Captain Enos Parker; Colonel Benjamin Symond, in all-Berkshire Regiment; and Captain Peter Porter in General Fellows’ Brigade
___________________________________________________
Lives Cut Short and his Sons the Pastors
There is no record of when Allen came to Hudson but he and his wife Mary Rawson Allen (1763-1801) had six children. Three children died in their first year including their daughter Sarah Allen (May 13, 1792 - May 13, 1792) who died before she was a day old. Only two sons survived to adulthood. The names of all their children are on each of their tombstones.
The two sons who lived in adulthood became reverends: Benjamin Allen, Jr. and Thomas G. Allen. As a child, Benjamin Jr. worked at his father’s store and, when it closed, continued at Marchal Jenkins & Sons for room and board. As evidenced in his brother Thomas’s Memoir of the Rev. Benjamin Allen, late rector of St. Paul's Church, Philadelphia, Benjamin was quite religious even as a young child. Thomas also recalled, in his brother’s biography, the tribulations of his mother who died at 37 from a pulmonary disease.
This was a family that met a great deal of tragedy. Many of the tombstones of this time are etched with the dates of young children dying of diseases that are now preventable; each one was a tragedy for that family.
Benjamin under a nom de plume, Osander, wrote Miscellaneous Poems, On Moral and Religious Subjects including the poem below:
Benjamin Allen, Sr’s grave,
Section 1B, Hudson Cemetery