Charles Allen

Who was Charles Allen?

Charles Allen, was a United States Representative from Massachusetts.

He was born in Worcester, Massachusetts on August 9, 1797; he attended the Leicester Academy and Yale College and studied law. He was admitted to the bar in 1818 and commenced practice in New Braintree; he returned to Worcester in 1824 and continued the practice of law.

Allen was a Member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives; he served in the Massachusetts State Senate. He was a member of the Northeastern Boundary Commission in 1842; a judge of the Court of Common Pleas and a delegate to the Whig National Convention at Philadelphia in 1848. He was elected as the Free-Soil Party candidate to Congress and did not seek renomination in 1852. In 1849 he edited the Boston " Whig," afterward called the "Republican."

After leaving Congress, he resumed the practice of law in Worcester. He was a member of the state's constitutional convention in 1853. He was Chief Justice of the Sufolk County Superior Court'

He was a delegate to the peace convention held at Washington, D.C. in 1861, in an effort to devise a means to prevent the impending Civil War.