Ancestors

Benjamin Allen

Benjamin Allen was born in 1724, the third of the seven children of Caleb Allen, a weaver, and Hannah Eaton of Haverhill. His father was living at Suffield, on the Connecticut River, from 1717 to 1725, so Benjamin was very probably born there. His grandfather Edward Allen had been one of the committee that settled Suffield.

He went north to No. 4, the northernmost English settlement on the Connecticut River, which became Charlestown, New Hampshire. Its fort had held out against a French and Indian siege under Captain Phineas Stevens in April 1747. Benjamin was on the roll of Stevens's company from 10 March to 30 October 1748, and again in 1749 and 1750.

On 6 November 1751 he married Peggy Spafford, daughter of Captain John Spafford and his wife Hannah. Saunderson's History of Charlestown (1876) places the wedding at Rowley, Massachusetts, where Peggy was born, and remarks that the bride was "sweet 16". A lineage paper prepared for a hereditary society places it at Charlestown. Peggy's father had built the first mills at No. 4.

He was a proprietor of the township, one of the men who held its land under the New Hampshire charter, and at the first town meeting, on 14 August 1753, he was elected one of its officers.

They had ten children: Eunice, 1754; Olive, 1755; Lucy, 1758; Asa Spafford, 1762; Nathan, 1768; Prudence, 14 May 1769; Benjamin, 1770; Abigail; Caleb, 1776; and Fanny, 1779. Asa carried his mother's family name, and Caleb his grandfather's given name. Caleb served in the War of 1812 and in the navy. Prudence married Isaac Farwell, son of William and Bethiah Farwell, and Abigail married his brother Jesse. Saunderson gives her birth as 1774; an 1853 Charlestown history gives 8 February 1784.

The lineage paper calls him "the Revolutionary ancestor". His death is not given in the town histories.

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Cite: Heirology, "Benjamin Allen (b. 1724)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/benjamin-allen-1724-bec847.