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St. Clair County, Michigan
History & Genealogy

BIOGRAPHIES

Source:
Biographical Memoirs
of
St. Clair County, Michigan

A Comprehensive Compendium of National Biography -
Memoirs of Eminent Men and Women in the United States,
whose Deeds of Valor or Works of Merit have Made their Names Imperishable.
Illustrated
Embellished with Portraits of Many National Characters and
Well-Known Residents of St. Clair, Michigan
Published Logansport, Indiana:
B. F. Bowe, Publisher
1903

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
  DARIUS ALLEN was born September 8, 1842, in Armada township, Macomb county, Michigan, and is a son of Douglas and Phebe (Conger) Allen, both natives of Dangersfield, New York.  Douglas Allen came to Michigan in 1836 and located in Armada township, Monroe county, which at that time was a wilderness, the nearest market being Mt. Clemmens.  He died in 1850, leaving his family a piece of land of forty-five acres, with only three acres cleared.  He was a Democrat and was an active, daring pioneer, one of the first settlers in that section of the state.  The maternal grandfather of the subject was Jesse Conger, who came from New York and settled in Michigan in an early day. Douglas Allen raised a family of nine children: Sylvester, Hezekiah, Alexander, Harriett, Jesse C, Darius, Phoeba, Clarissa and Roswell.  All had common school education and have acquired good homes for themselves and are a robust and hearty set of men and women.
     In early life Darius Allen started out for himself, at the same time assisting his mother and the family all he could.  He earned his first suit of clothes by trapping beaver and other fur-bearing animals, and also worked in lumber camps and assisted in clearing up their own land.  The first real estate he ever owned was a ten-acre tract.  He was married, in 1865, to Mary Jane Stanlake, who died in 1896.  She was a daughter of Thomas Stanlake, one of the early pioneers and a well-to-do farmer of Berlin township.  Darius Allen and wife settled on section 28, in Berlin township, on forty acres of land, and he has added to this, from time to time, until he now has six hundred acres of well improved land.  He has a family of five children: George, Elsie Jane, Lula, Ina and Ethan.  Mr. Allen has always been known as a famous hunter.  He says, and others bear out his assertion, that the number of deer that he has killed will run over the thousand mark, and he has also killed dozens of bear and other game of all kinds.
     Darius Allen has long been and is now one of the leading citizens of Berlin township and St. Clair county, and is enabled to trace his family lineage back to that of Ethan Allen, of Ticonderoga fame.  In his farming operations he follows the system of mixed, or general stock, farming, in which he has been eminently successful.  In the carrying on of work on his farm, he requires and oversees the labor of twenty-five men and possesses the most complete truck farm in St. Clair county.  His crop of this year will give an idea of the magnitude of his estate and his farming operations: Of potatoes, he has out sixty-five acres; corn, sixty acres; chickory, thirty acres; onions, thirty acres; sugar beets, five acres; oats, ninety acres; wheat, twenty acres; and peppermint, a hundred acres.  He has also twenty-five acres of clover and one hundred and fifty acres of timothy.  He favors a rotation of crops, and is an ideal stock raiser, having five hundred Shropshire sheep and many registered Durham cattle.  He built a peppermint distillery in 1896, and produces nearly ten thousand pounds of peppermint oil per year, finding in this a profitable source of income.
     Mr. Allen is a Democrat and is very active in township and county politics.  He has been drainage commissioner and commissioner of highways, justice of the peace, etc.  He purchased the first gravel pit ever opened in Berlin township, and had the contract for building and fencing ten miles of the Pere Marquette Railroad.  He also furnished thirty thousand ties for the same road, has done other extensive contract work and has been interested in several lumber deals that involved large amounts.  He is a man among men, and a typical example of the sturdy, honest pioneer class.  He is the best type of a successful, self-made man of the world.  He commenced life, as so many of the young men of our country do, with no capital save an ambition to excel, backed by an energetic will and the brawn and muscle which the coarse fare and hardy outdoor life gave and which was the foundation for the future achievements of the descendants of the pioneer fathers of our country.
     Darius Allen is endowed with the mental acumen which enables him to take advantage of the natural tendencies of the times in which he lives and the circumstances by which he is surrounded and to adopt that course which is productive of best results.  In all professions and in every line of business the tendency of the age has been along the line of concentration.  Experience has demonstrated the fact that in the profession of farming, the application of these ideas is no less successful than in that of others; and the successful, we may say the brilliant, results attained by Mr. Allen are among the striking illustrations of the accuracy of the theory.  Starting in life with the comparatively trifling amount of ten acres of land, he has added to this by his industry and successful management, until now he has six hundred or more acres of land in a high state of cultivation.  To his general and mixed system of stock raising and cultivation of the staple cereals and grasses, he has added the specialty of market-gardening, with the addition of some products that are comparatively rare and from which he is realizing good results financially.
     Mr. Allen has at times during his life also had charge of and has been engaged in contract work for corporations and public works, which proves the bent of his mind, his ability to grapple with problems of more than average magnitude; and his disposition to engage in the larger concerns of life.  He has also in his busy life found time to devote to his civic duties, being an active worker in his party, in which his interest in the public affairs of his township and county, with his ability and inclination for public service, has been recognized by his selection to fill various township offices and to act as delegate in numerous conventions of his party.  He is an intelligent and active citizen, fully alive to all the topics of the day, and especially interested in all questions which concern the interests of the community in which he lives.  He is a busy man of affairs, possessing the respect and confidence of the public, and being in the prime of life in regard to years, and sound in mental and physical qualities, many years of future usefulness seem to be vouchsafed to him
Source: Biographical Memoirs of St. Clair County, Michigan - Published Logansport, Indiana: B. F. Bowe, Publisher - 1903 - Page 267
   

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