Ancestors of Crawford Carter Allen, Including the Carter line. File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Susan W. Pieroth, (© 1997 Susan W. Pieroth) USGENWEB NOTICE: These electronic pages are for the use of indivisual researchers, and may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by other organizations. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material for non-commercial purposes, must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. _____________________________________________________________ From: The History of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations: Biograþhical, by the American Historical Society, Inc., 1920. For an unknown reason there are two coþies of the book with the same title þage, but with different contents. ______________________________________________________ From Pages 247-8 of HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND - BIOGRAPHICAL CRAWFORD CARTER ALLEN - The late Crawford Carter Allen, whose death occurred at his home in Newport, R. I., on January 18, 1917, was the descendant of a distinguished ancestry on both the paternal and maternal sides. Arms - Per bend sinister rompu argent and sable, si× martlets counterchanged Crest - A martlet argent winged. Motto - Sors mihi placet. Crawford C. Allen was the son of the late Richard Bowers and Sophie B. (Danforth) Allen, born in Providence, R. I., June 20, 1861, and grandson of John Carter, who for more than forty-five years was editor of "The Providence Gazette,." one of the most prominent publications of New England toward the close of the eighteenth and opening of the nineteenth century. We are told that "during the whole period" of his connection with the "Gazette," closing February 12, 1814, "the paper was remarkable for accuracy of e×ecution and correctness of sentiment and principle. During the whole of our Revolutionary contest he was the firm champion of his country, and the columns of his paper teemed with sound patriotism and animating e×hortations." John Carter occupied a place of prime importance in the life and affairs of his times. His co-worker and friend, the Hon. Walter Raleigh Danforth, became his son-in-law, and grandfather of the late Crawford Carter Allen. Crawford Carter Allen attended the public and private schools of Providence, and in 1885 received the degree of LL. B. from the Boston Law School. In the following year he was admitted to the Massachusetts bar, and almost immediately began to practice his profession. He was essentially the student and scholar, and his activities in legal fields were confined mostly to study and research and to consultation. Possessing an independent fortune, he was free to develop the taste for travel, study and social intercourse which made him rebel against the smallness of a life narrowed to the confines of one city, one society, even of one country. In the truest sense he was "a citizen of the world," representative of a type we find more often among the upper c1asses of Old World countries, Educated liberally and broadly, a writer of no mean attainments, a critic of literature and the arts, possessing the entree into finest circles, he became a figure of prominence in diplomatic, official, literary and higher social life in the cities of the Continent. But throughout the period of his absence from his home land, he remained a true citizen of the United States. With the wave of prosperity which rolled over America in the late decades of the nineteenth century, came an attendant tide of emigration of Americans of wealth to European capitals. In this group were many e×patriates who have since attained a considerable degree of notoriety. They constitute a class against which the true American instinctively rebels. Since the earliest days of colonial history, however, American students and scholars have gone abroad to complete an education, the foundation of which has been laid in their native land, realizing that for a true perspective of life a knowledge of Old World civilization was essential. Intense dislike of the American who forgets the laud of his birth characterized Mr. Allen throughout his life. He was before all a lover of America and American institutions, a student of Americana, as his membership and deep interest in colonial and patriotic societies attests. Mr. Allen was a member of the Massachusetts Society of Colonial Wars, the Society of the War of 1812, the Bunker Hill Monument Association, the Old Planters, and the Society of Sons of the American Revolution. In 1907 he became a companion of the Aryan Order of St. George of the Empire in America, and subsequently was honored with the office of chancellor of the Order to the Colonies of America. Mr. Allen made his home in Newport, R. I. He was deeply interested in Rhode Island institutions, and as a member of a family whose bequests to Brown University have always been large, he maintained always a warm regard for the University, although not an alumnus. In his will he made a generous bequest to it for the establishment of a fund for the erection or improvement of a building in memory of his maternal grandfather, Hon. Walter R. Danforth. Throughout his entire lifetime his gifts to charitable and philanthropic causes were large, and he was quick to respond to individual appeal for aid. A kindly, courteous gentleman, possessing in abundant measure those virtues which we are apt in the present day to classify as "of the old school," he endeared himself to all who knew him, and his friends were legion. In a day when the frenzy of big business leaves men but little time for the social side of life, such a character as that of the late Crawford Carter Allen is found with increasing rarity. He was a polished gentleman - a man equally at ease in the presence of a financial magnate or in the audience chambers of royalty. On February 18, 1909, Mr. Allen was married, at St. Margaret’s, Westminster, London, to Maud, daughter of Helena Caulcutt, of Kensington, London, and the late Count Corsi, of Rome, Italy. Mrs. Allen survives her husband and resides at No. 4 Wesley street, Newport, R. I. She is a woman of unusual attainments, who for many years was her husband’s companion in his travels on the Continent. Mrs. Allen is well known in social circles in the capitals of Europe, of New York and Newport. She has been active in many notable charitable and benevolent efforts. (The Carter Line) Arms - Azure a cross flory, in the first quarter a mullet argent, on a chief gules three round buckles or. Crest - A talbot’s head argent charged with a mullet gules. In the foremost ranks of leaders of thought and public sentiment in Rhode Island, in the closing decades of the eighteenth and opening years of the nineteenth centuries, controlling the Providence "Gazette," one of the leading journals of New England throughout the turbulent period of the Revolution, was John Carter, a Philadelphian by birth, who became the founder of what was virtually a dynasty of powerful men, leaders of Rhode Island life and affairs to the present day. Wielding an eloquent and polished pen in the cause of the colonies, he influenced public sentiment in Rhode Island vitally in the decade immediately preceding the outbreak of hostilities between the British and the Colonists. In the indecision of the period which followed victory and peace, he gave the support of a courageous belief in the future greatness of the struggling republic and in the ability of its statesmen to adjust themselves to the responsibilities of governing a new nation. He was a journalist of the constructive type, a keen student of the times, and although he remained a private citizen until the close of his life, he remained also a power in public and official life through the journalistic medium and as an advisor and consultant of the leading public men of the time. He ranks among the foremost of his contemporaries in the field of journalism in America.