Will County IL Archives Biographies.....Allen, Chester S 
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Deb Haines ddhaines@gmail.com October 4, 2007, 11:10 pm

Author: Genealogical and Biographical Record of Will County 

CHESTER S. ALLEN. On the western bluff of the Desplaines valley, in Lockport 
Township, is the home of Mr. and Mrs. Allen. Their brick residence, erected by 
Mr. Allen in 1879, not only affords them a comfortable dwelling place, but 
also gives a fine view of the valley stretching beyond. On the farm will be 
noticed a large number of sheep, the Oxford Downs leading numerically. There  
are also several full blooded English horses, among them a colt two years and 
five months old, weighing sixteen hundred and thirty pounds. For several years 
after 1870 Mr. Allen was a heavy dealer, wholesale and retail, in ice,  
cutting the product from an artificial pond on his place, and continuing in 
the business until that part of the farm was condemned by the drainage board.

The father of Mr. Allen, Martin, a native and lifelong resident of Vermont, 
served in many local offices, and in politics was first a Whig and later a 
Free-Soiler. His occupation was that of a farmer. He and his brother, Reuben, 
were the principal members of the Goshen Methodist Episcopal Church, in  
Addison County, and helped to build its house of worship. However, owing to 
his views on the slavery question, in 1846 he identified himself with the 
Wesleyan Methodists and built for them a church that is still standing and in  
constant use. His son, Wilson, aided in re-shingling the building in 1895. By 
his marriage to Hannah Smith he had five children, namely: Eliza, deceased;
Wilson, a farmer at Ripon, Wis.; Andre M., deceased; Chester S.; and Luther, 
of Kansas. The grandfather, Noah Allen, settled in Goshen in an early day, 
removing there from another part of the same state.

The subject of this sketch was born in the town of Goshen, Vt., February 20,  
1830. He remained on the home farm until he was twenty-four. For some years he 
was in very poor health, the result of an attack of measles when he was 
eighteen. As soon as he recovered sufficiently to start out for himself he 
began farming, and this occupation he has followed ever since. In 1864 he came 
to Illinois and settled on the place he still owns. Since then he has bought 
and sold considerable land. In politics he was formerly a Republican, but now 
votes with the Prohibitionists. For the past thirty-four years he has been an 
officer in the Methodist Episcopal Church of Lockport, and until 1897 was also 
connected with the Sunday-school work.

A remarkable evidence of the over-ruling Providence that saves a life when God 
has further need of it in the world, is shown in Mr. Allen's career. His life 
was preserved in a moment of greatest peril. May 11, 1882, he drove two teams 
to Joliet, for the purpose of securing drain tile. When he arrived there he 
found the tile he had previously selected was gone, so he started through the 
tile factory, looking at the kilns on each side. The place where the elevator 
worked was six or eight inches lower than the path where he was walking. This 
fact he did not notice, and when he stepped into it he was thrown forward into 
the elevator pit. At that instant the elevator (weighing twelve hundred  
pounds) dropped with two men in it. They jumped from the elevator just before 
it struck. The foreman saw the falling elevator and a man under it. He
gathered his men, lifted the elevator and pulled Mr. Allen out. When the 
latter came to his senses he saw ten or twelve men looking at him, as if a 
dead man had come to life. Not a bone or a blood-vessel was broken. After a 
little time the men loaded up his tile for him and he returned home. He did 
not get out again for two weeks, and was lame and bruised for three months, but
the fact that he escaped uninjured is certainly remarkable. The reason for the 
falling of the elevator was the breaking of a bolt connected with the main 
shaft, so that the elevator could not be controlled. Had Mr. Allen fallen a 
second later he would have been completely crushed.

The maiden name of our subject's wife was Prudence S. Baker. Her father, 
Anthony, son of Anthony, Sr., of English extraction, was born in Rhode Island, 
October 9, 1788. He married Prudence Gaines, who was born in Massachusetts, 
August 15, 1786. Both had moved to Sudbury, Vt., and they were married there 
in 1809. From that place they moved to a farm in Goshen, Addison County, Vt., 
where they lived for many years. He was prominent in local affairs and held 
numerous offices until failing eye-sight compelled him to withdraw from such 
work. He was active in the Democratic party, and later was an Abolitionist. 
Both he and his wife were connected with the Christian Church. Of their ten 
children two died in infancy. Eight attained mature years, married and had 
families. Their names and dates of birth are as follows: Almon G., November  
27, 1810; Anthony S., July 9, 1813; Polly M., April 25, 1815; Oliver H. P., 
December 11, 1816; Olive S., April 23, 1818; Loren H., March 26, 1821 (a 
soldier in the Civil war); Harry H., December 3, 1826; and Prudence S., April 
13, 1829. In 1850 the parents sold their farm and moved to Forestdale, Vt., 
where they spent their remaining years. The father died July 25, 1873, and the 
mother November 29, 1874. Mrs. Prudence Allen was born in the town of Goshen, 
Addison County, Vt., received a good education, and began to teach school at
the age of fifteen years. She was married to Andrew M. Allen in her home town 
April 23, 1850, but her husband died of consumption, July 14, 1851, at the age 
of twenty-three years, nine months and nineteen days. Afterward for two years 
she taught school, making her home with her parents when not engaged in 
teaching. Her second marriage took place October 24, 1854, and united her to 
Chester S. Allen, a brother of her first husband. They lived in Goshen for
nine years after their marriage and then moved to Illinois, settling on their 
present homestead, March 10, 1864. They are the parents of two children. Their 
son, Delbert C., who was born in Goshen, Vt., May 19, 1858, in now a farmer at
Tecumseh, Neb. Their daughter, Etta P., who was born in Lockport, September 
13, 1868, is the wife of Allen T. Dille, and resides in Mitchell, Iowa.

The lives of Mr. and Mrs. Allen have been full of useful lessons of devotion 
to the cause of the church and humanity. They can look back on the past years 
and be satisfied with the view. As the shadows lengthen in life's evening, and 
the rough places become smoothed, the thought may dwell with them that a new 
generation will revere their memory, and their names will live in the 
historical records of Will County.

Additional Comments:
Genealogical and Biographical Record of Will County Illinois Containing 
Biographies of Well Known Citizens of the Past and Present, Biographical 
Publishing Company, Chicago, 1900

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