American School, 19th Century

Robert Clotworthy Allen (1794-1859) was a prominent member of Virginia society. A graduate of Washington College (now Washington and Lee University), he became a lawyer who practiced in Woodstock, Virginia and later served as the Prosecuting Attorney of Shenandoah County. He was elected to the Virginia State Senate from 1821-1826 and the United States Congress from 1827-1833. In 1839, he and his wife, Frances R. Harvey, moved to Bedford County to raise a farm and a family (Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774-2005, Washington D.C., 2005). Together, they had three sons: James Walkinshaw Allen (1829-1862), Robert Clotworthy Allen (1834-1963), and Donald Allen (1848-1908). The first two sons served and died with distinction as Colonels during the Civil War. The surviving son, Donald Allen, was a young Cadet of the Virginia Military Institute during the war who fought gallantly in the New Market Battalion (Jennings C. Wise, The Military History of the Virginia Military Institute from 1839-1865 (Lynchburg, Virginia, 1915), p. 433).