Thursday December 1, 2011
No doubt he heard this often: "Mr. Allen, I knew your grandfather well." It might be why he got out of Dodge. Maybe not.
But for the grandson of the Rev. Thomas "The Fighting Parson" Allen -- the pro-Colonist and first pastor at First Church who was a Revolutionary War hero in his own right (see Wednesday's Pittsfield 250), it was a tough shadow to live within.
Did I mention the grandson's name was also Thomas?
The younger Allen was born in Pittsfield in 1813. And when he died in 1882, he was buried in Pittsfield Cemetery. He was educated locally at the Pittsfield Academy and the Berkshire Gymnasium (not really what it sounds like) before heading to Union College where he studied law and later was admitted into the New York bar. He then left Pittsfield and though he was indeed fond of his hometown, his business and travels took him west.
But let's get to the punch line. The reason Allen makes the cut for this series was the fact that after he retired he came back just long enough to be the financial muscle -- along with Calvin Martin and Thomas Plunkett -- in purchasing the property and then fronting the cost of the original Berkshire (Pittsfield) Athenaeum on Park Square. The building now houses Probate and Family Court, but the Gothic-style structure served as the city's library for more than a century. For the record, the wood building that was the Agricultural Bank had owned that spot previously.
So what about Allen? He went first to Washington, D.C., where he published "The Jeffersonian," a liberal newspaper that "Grandpa" Allen would have embraced. Between 1837 and 1842, he became the official printer of both the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate.
He then went west to Missouri, where he became involved with both financing and the railroad. He ran a banking house, but his work as president of what would become the Pacific Railroad is what kept him pretty much on track. He was on the first steam engine train that crossed the Mississippi River. Giving politics a try late in life, he served as a state senator in Missouri for a few years and was then elected to the House of Representatives in 1891. He died a year later, having failed to serve out his first term.
His final ride back to Pittsfield to be buried was by train, and one can assume all was done to make him comfortable.
