Judge John J. Allen

Judge Allen for many years was one of the most distinguished lawyers and jurists of Western Virginia. He was born at Woodstock, Shenandoah County, Virginia, September 25, 1797. His father, Judge James Allen, was also an able lawyer and jurist and was eminent in his day and generation. The subject of this brief sketch was educated at Washington College, Lexington, Virginia, and Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He read law under the guidance of his father and was admitted to the practice in the courts of the Valley of Virginia. In 1819 he located at Clarksburg in the western part of the State and began the practice of his profession in Harrison and adjoining counties. Being thoroughly equipped he was not long in forging to the front and securing employment in important litigations of those early days. Indeed by ability and learning he very soon found employment on one side or the other in most big law suits in the three or four counties in which he practiced. Late in the twenties he formed a partnership with Gideon D. Camden, also a lawyer of prominence at Clarksburg, which continued for eight or ten years, until Mr. Allen in 1836 was appointed a Judge of the Circuit Court of Virginia, when he retired from the firm.

In 1827 Judge Allen was elected to the State Senate, and while a member of that body he introduced a bill, which afterwards became a law, for the settlement of land titles, in trans-Allegheny, Virginia. In 1834 he was elected Commonwealth's Attorney for the counties of Harrison, Lewis and Preston. At the same time he was a member of the 23d Congress, serving from 1833 to 1835. In all of the public positions he held he was faithful, honorable and able. He married in 1824. Although he was extremely reserved while in public life, he was gentle, affectionate and communicative in his social relations with his family and friends, and was firm and sincere in his religious convictions. He was appointed a Circuit Judge in 1836, and removed his residence to Botetourt County, and was promoted to the Supreme Court of Appeals in December, 1840. He died at Fincastle in 1871. He was an ardent secessionist at the beginning of the war, and retired from active life in 1865. He was a member of the Supreme Court for a quarter of a century, and his opinions show him to be a man of vast erudition. He was, beyond question, an able and just Judge, and his private and public life were above reproach.

SOURCE: George Wesley Atkinson, Editor, Bench and Bar of West Virginia, p. 19