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Senate Years of Service: 1837-1849 Party: Democrat
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ALLEN, William, a Representative and a Senator from Ohio; born in Edenton, Chowan County, N.C.,
December 18 or December 27, 1803; moved to Lynchburg, Va., and attended private schools; moved
to Chillicothe, Ohio, in 1819; attended Chillicothe Academy; studied law; was admitted to the bar in
1827 and commenced practice in Chillicothe; elected as a Jacksonian to the Twenty-third Congress;
unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1834 to the Twenty-fourth Congress; elected as a Democrat to
the United States Senate in January 1837; reelected in 1843, and served from March 4, 1837, to
March 3, 1849; unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1849; chairman, Committee on Foreign
Relations (Twenty-ninth Congress); retired to his estate, Fruit Hill, near Chillicothe, Ross County,
Ohio, and engaged in farming and stock raising; Governor of Ohio 1874-1876; unsuccessful candidate
for reelection in 1875; resumed agricultural pursuits; died at Fruit Hill, July 11, 1879; interment in
Grand View Cemetery, Chillicothe, Ohio.
BibliographyAmerican National Biography; Dictionary of American Biography; McGrane, Reginald C. William Allen: A Study
in Western Democracy. Columbus: Ohio State Archeological and Historical Society, 1925.
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