Andrew Allen
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Andrew Allen (1740-1825) was a British North American Loyalist from Pennsylvania during the American Revolution. Before the Declaration of Independence, he represented Pennsylvania in the Continental Congress of 1775 and 1776.
Andrew was born into a prominent Philadelphia family in June of 1740. His father, William Allen, was already a successful merchant and lawyer, and would later be the Chief justice of the Supreme Court of colonial Pennsylvania. He graduated from the City College of Philadelphia (later the University of Pennsylvania) in 1759, the went to London where he completed a legal education at the Inner Temple. He returned to Philadelphia in 1765, was admitted to the bar, and began the practice of law.
That same year Allen was elected to the Pennsylvania Assembly. In 1766 he was appointed the colony's Attorney General and joined the Governor's Council. When tensions increased before the American Revolution he was one of those critical of the acts of parliament, known as the Intolerable Acts. He signed the non-importation agreement boycotting English goods in protest of the Boston Port Act. As a result, he was made a member of the Committee of Safety by the assembly.
He was a delegate representing Pennsylvania in the Continental Congress sessions of 1775 and 1776. But he hoped for reconciliation and the redress of grievances. When Congress took the vote for independence in June of 1776, he voted against it, and withdrew when it passed. He avoided the arrests meted out to other Tories by escaping to New Jersey. Later that fall when the British Army occupied New York City, he made his way through the lines, and affirmed his oath of allegiance to the King.
In 1777 he returned to Philadelphia with the forces of General Howe, but his stay only lasted as long as their occupation, and he returned with then to New York. From there he made his way to England, and lived out his life in London.
The Pennsylvania Assembly attainted Allen of treason in 1781 and confiscated his properties, along with those of others in his family. After the war, the British government reviewed his losses, and the 'Commission for Claims and Losses' awarded him a lifetime pension of £400. Andrew later practiced law in London, and died there on March 7, 1825.
External link
- Allen's Congressional Biography (http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=A000113)