Bassett Family Association Database

Collins Bassett Allen

Male 1866 - 1953  (86 years)


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  • Name Collins Bassett Allen 
    Born 9 Aug 1866  Salem County, New Jersey Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Gender Male 
    _UID 4B0017645067CD49B5358B208DFC2AC8A307 
    Died 12 Jan 1953  Salem, Salem County, New Jersey Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Buried East View Cemetery, Salem, Salem County, New Jersey Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Notes 
    • Biographical History of the First Congressional District of New Jersey
      Collins B. Allen

      Although a young man who has not yet reached his prime, Mr. Allen is a farmer of prominence and influence in Salem county, New Jersey, where he was born August 9, 1866. His birthplace was the old Bassett homestead, in Mannington township, and his parents were Samuel B. and Hannah D. (Bassett) Allen, well-known farmers of that township. His great-grandfather was Enoch Allen, of Mullica Hill, Gloucester county, where he owned two farms and resided all his life, following the arts of husbandry. He was a member of the Society of Friends, and died May 18, 1934, at the age of eighty-three years. His children were as follows: William, born November 26, 1775, died November 11, 1817; Martha, born March 13, 1778, died October 12, 1822; Hannah, born August 11, 1780, married Samuel Moore, and died January 17, 1808; Rosanna, born April 20, 1783, married Thomas Cole, and died March 23, 1862; Enoch, Jr., born May 3, 1785, died April 8, 1831; Rachel, born February 4, 1788, married Benjamin Bacon, April 29, 1807, and died October 26, 1813; Priscilla, born December 8, 1789, died August 20, 1833; Samuel c. was the grandfather of our subject; Ann, born February 4, 1796, married A. Guarward, and died April 24, 1859, and Isaac was born February 17, 1802.
      Samuel C. Allen was born July 28, 1798, at Mullica Hill, Gloucester county, this state, and became one of the foremost farmer of his section of the country. He owned a large farm of two hundred acres and was very successful in his farming operations. He was a member of the Society of Friends, and his life was such that he commanded universal respect. He married Sarah Pancoast on February 2, 1820, who presented him with four children, namely; Martha P., born November 17, 1820, and married John W. Hazelton; farmer of Mullica Hill, by whom she had seven children ? Stacy, Samuel, Sarah, Collins, Ella, Abbott and John; Hannah Ann, born December 17, 1822, and died September 25, 1828; Collins, and Samuel P., the father of our subject.
      Samuel P. Allen was born January 2, 1828, in Gloucester county, and for forty-five years has cultivated land in the neighborhood. He was one of the most prominent men of the county and a staunch Republican. He was a freeholder, served on the township committee, was assessor of the township for three years, overseer of the highways, surrogate of Salem county and held a number of minor offices. In 1894 he retired from active life but retained his active interest in the Society of Friends of the Salem meeting. In January, 1851, he was joined in matrimony with Miss Hannah D. Bassett, who is now in her sixty-eighth year. Their children are Anna V., who was educated in the Bristol Boarding School, and married Jonathan B. Grier, by whom she has noe child, Frank; two sons were born to them and named Frank, one dying in infancy and one at the age of five years; another child died in infancy; and the fifth, Collins B., is the subject of this sketch.
      Collins B. Allen received his education in the district schools of his native township and those of Salem. Leaving school he entered upon his career as an agriculturist and has followed that vocation since with the greatest success. He was appointed an officer in the state prison at Trenton, New Jersey, and lived there whil discharging the duties of his office, but again returned to his farm and has since been engaged in its management. This farm comprises one hundred and seventy-five acres of good land, which Mr. Allen has kept in the high state of cultivation in which it has been placed by his father-in-law, Wyatt W. Miller. He conducts this work on a business basis and reduced it to a science, instead of doing as so many so-called farmers who follow in the beaten paths and make a bare living by their labors. He studied the diseases and care of stock under Dr. Cooper, and is a castrator of skill who does a good deal of work in this line throughout the southern part of the state.
      Mr. Allen was married February 3, 1892, to Miss Hettie M. Miller, a daughter of Wyatt Wistar Miller, whose sketch appears elsewhere in this volume. Three bright children have been added to their family circle ? Elsie M., born October 22, 1893; Mary Griffin, born July 9, 1896, and Elizabeth Wistar, born February 10, 1899. The family are members of the Hicksite branch of the Society of Friends and are among the most respected and esteemed citizens of the county. Mr. Allen is a Republican and takes an active part in the political situation here. He is the district clerk of the school board of Mannington township and as such has charge of the schools of the township. He is also acting in the capacity of town clerk and on the executive committee, and loses no opportunity, often making the opportunity in fact, of advancing the interest of the county. It is such men as Mr. Allen that have been a power in the past, that pushed Salem county to the front in the commercial world and gave her the standing she now enjoys.

      Prominent Families of New Jersey, Volume 1
      By William Starr Myers
      Collins Bassett Allen

      Collins Bassett Allen ? Treasurer of the South Jersey Port Commission, Collins Bassett Allen, of Salem, Salem County, New Jersey, is doubly distinguished as a citzen of his community and county. For many years he was active and prominent as a farmer, specializing in dairying and in duck production. Twenty years ago, he moved from the farm in order to devote himself to public service and in the past two decades he had held most of the offices within the gift of his county and community as well as being also a State official.
      Collins Bassett Allen was born August 9, 1866, at the old Bassett homestead, at Mannington Township, the son of Samuel Pancoast and Hannah Davis (Bassett) Allen, both of whom were member of old Jersey families. Samuel Pancoast Allen, who died in 1900, was a farmer, the son of Samuel Ellen, of Gloucester County. Samuel Allen lived at Mullica Hill all his life. Hannah Davis (Bassett) Allen, who passed away in 1903, was born at Mannington Township, Salem County, New Jersey.
      After obtaining his education in private schools, Collins Bassett Allen followed the family tradition of farming, while he also practiced as a veterinarian, having learned the science when a young man. While his farm was operated as a general farm, he came to specialize in duck production, raising the birds on such a large scale that he often sold as much as fifty tons of meat annually. He was also one of the leading dairy farmers in his neighborhood, owning a fine herd of dairy cattle of grade stock, which often numbered in excess of a hundred head. After spending his youth and middle age as a farmer, in 1921 he left the farm and moved to his present home in Salem in order to devote himself entirely to public service, a field of activity which he had entered as early as 1890, when he was elected clerk of Mannington Township. He was elected a member of the Mannington Township School Board in 1896. He was elected district clerk in 1897, an office which he has held ever since. For three years, beginning in 1905, he served Salem County as sheriff and in 1914 he was elected State Senator, an office which he retained until 1924 and for one term was president of the Senate. In 1925, he was appointed by the President of the United States as Collector of Customs for the Philadelphia District, with headquarters in Philadelphia, an office which he held for eight and a half years. In 1925 a bill was passed establishing the Delaware River Commission to study the advisability of establishing a permanent authority to control river and harbor installation. This commission?s report resulted in the founding of the South Jersey Port Commission and Mr. Allen was appointed one of the members of the commission. He retained this post until 1937, when he resigned to accept appointment as treasurer of the commission, and has occupied this office through the present time. He is a director and a former vice-president of the Salem National Bank & Trust Company. He belongs to the Society of Friends. Mr. Allen has gathered one of the largest and best collections of Indian relics in south New Jersey and possessed of a rare talent for winning the confidence of animals of all kinds, he find his favored recreation in his association with and study of birds and four-footed creatures.
      Collins Bassett Allen married, first, in 1892, Hety Hall Miller, of Mannington Township, Salem County, New Jersey, who passed away in 1900. Mr. Allen married again on June 10, 1941, Helen Thompson, born in Cape May County, but resided most of her life in Gloucester County. By his first marriage, Mr. Allen became the father of three children; 1. Elsie M., a graduate of the local schools, who married Morris Fowser, of Salem. 2. Mary G., a graduate of the local schools, who married Roy E. Patrick, of Salem, and has two children: 1. C. Allen, who married Marion Haskett on May 1, 1942. ii. Elizabeth who married David Fogg and is the mother of two daughters, Mary and Harriett. 3. Elizabeth, who died when eight years of age.


    Person ID I1687  4B William Bassett of Lynn, Massachusetts
    Last Modified 2 Jul 2020 

    Father Samuel P. Allen,   b. Gloucester County, New Jersey Find all individuals with events at this location,   d. 21 Dec 1901 
    Mother Hannah Davis Bassett,   b. 7 Jan 1830,   d. 12 Mar 1903  (Age 73 years) 
    Married 6 Feb 1851 
    Family ID F419  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

    Family Hester M. Miller 
    Married 3 Feb 1892 
    Children 
     1. Elsie M. Allen,   b. 22 Oct 1893
     2. Mary Griffin Allen,   b. 9 Jul 1896
     3. Elizabeth Wistar Allen,   b. 10 Feb 1899
    Family ID F574  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart