Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Joseph Richandson Allen



Joseph Richardson Allen.

Birth: Dec. 14, 1832, Monmouth County, New Jersey.
Death: Apr. 19, 1917, Lawrence, Douglas County, Kansas.

Joseph Allen was an abolitionist and worked for the underground railroad. He took a job on a plantation in NC as a horse trainer and assisted slaves to escape. He was caught and escaped by horseback with the authorities on his heals. He came from Quaker parents. He married a bride 11 years his junior in 1857. She came from another abolitionist family, the Pearsons, who had moved from Indiana to Iowa where Joseph and Emmaline married.

They moved to Lawrence Kansas to support the side of anti-slavery and were there during the famous Quantrill raid on that city. The citizens, at one point, wanted to lynch a man they thought to be a southern spy, but Joseph's Quaker upbringing helped him dissuade them from murdering a man who might be innocent and the incident was written up in the local paper. He was well respected, worked as a farmer and rancher, raised fine horses and raised fine children. His wife, Emmaline, has a cyber grave here as well. They had 7 children in all.

This was Created by: Kate Lund, “Thanks Kate!”

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