Isaac Allen

Isaac Allen (1820-1902), PF lot 1285

Hagar Allen (1834-1917), PF lot unknown

William Allen (1863-1883), PF lot 1147

Israel Allen (1859-1904), PF lot 799

Isaac Allen (ca. 1820-1902) and his wife Hagar Allen (ca. 1834-1917), both enslaved in Kentucky, married in 1848. By 1865, they had settled in Lawrence, where they raised three sons Israel, William, and (James) Robert¹. In 1871, Mr. Allen purchased a lot on New York Street from a white realtor E. D. Ladd for $65 ($1,588 in today’s dollars)². Although he and his sons labored at unspecified jobs, this property debt may have kept the family impoverished, forcing their burials in potter’s field at Oak Hill Cemetery³.

In 1883, son William “Willie” Allen (1863-1883), who had recently married, died unexpectedly of pneumonia at his parents’ home. As John L. Waller wrote in the Western Recorder, “He was a fine young man of some twenty-three summers, and his death . . . will be a sad blow to his widow and parents, as well as by the hosts of friends which he has in the community. [His] death will remind [many] young people that the young die as well as the old. The widow and parents of the deceased have our most tender sympathy, and it is hoped that they may be reconciled to the fact that ‘Jesus doeth all things well.’” His funeral at St. Luke AME Church, conducted by Rev. B. F. Bates, “was very solemn and impressive” and “well filled” with friends⁴.

Son Israel Allen (1859-1904) played baseball in the local Eagles club and also sang in a glee club⁵. Beginning in 1883, he and other Black men began working the Third Ward polls, in which they were “simply invincible, and should not be forgotten”⁶. He was also a Prelate in the Masonic Knights of Pythias⁷. In 1885, he married Dora Cosby at Rev. Bates’ home, where the couple received “many beautiful and useful presents” from a large number of friends⁸. While working as a brick hod-carrier and plasterer in Sedalia, Missouri, he died from falling off a scaffold in 1904, having recently plastered his mother’s house⁹.

Two years earlier, in June 1902, the fire department was called out to the Allen’s small frame home at 1343 New York Street when sparks from a flue caught fire on the old splintery roof. Although Isaac Allen was not seriously injured, he died that evening of “old age and general debility.” The city paid $13.50 ($468) to dig his grave and provide his coffin and burial at Oak Hill’s potter’s field¹⁰.

Although son Robert Allen (1867-?) was reportedly living in Lawrence at the time of his father’s death, his life story remains somewhat unverifiable. In 1885, at age 18, he married 17-year-old Ann Eliza Penetione (1866-?) who bore a daughter Rosa¹¹. Ten years later, a “Robert Allen” was deemed guilty for assaulting Marcus Hamilton, the same Black man whom Hagar Allen had had arrested for disturbing her peace in 1885¹². This Robert Allen may have been sent to the Lansing penitentiary for his crime¹³. Alternatively, Robert and Ann Allen may have moved to Kansas City, Missouri, but their common names make their death years uncertain¹⁴.

Hagar Allen also adopted a daughter Mabel Allen (1884-1928?), who married Fred F. Stewart in 1908 and then moved to Des Moines, Iowa¹⁵. In 1916, Mrs. Stewart wanted to care for her elderly mother, so she sent “Aunt Hagar” money to pay her expenses to Des Moines¹⁶. Mrs. Allen died there one year later, and her body was returned to Lawrence for her funeral at St. Luke AME Church and burial in potter’s field at Oak Hill Cemetery¹⁷.