Randolph County, West Virginia Biography of JAMES EDWARD ALLEN, A. B. This file was submitted by Valerie Crook, E-mail address: The submitter does not have a connection to the subject of this sketch. This file may be freely copied by individuals and non-profit organizations for their private use. All other rights reserved. Any other use, including publication, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission by electronic, mechanical, or other means requires the written approval of the file's author. This file is part of the WVGenWeb Archives. If you arrived here inside a frame or from a link from somewhere else, our front door is at http://www.usgwarchives.net/wv/wvfiles.htm The History of West Virginia, Old and New Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, Volume III, pg. 623-624 JAMES EDWARD ALLEN, A. B. When the history of this generation and the one preceding it are read by posterity certain salient facts will impress thinking men and women. They will realize that this early part of the twentieth cen- tury produced men whose lives were productive of results that not only went toward shaping the destinies of asso- ciates and the contemporary history of their own communi- ties, but that they were of necessity forceful factors in determining the future of those to come after them. This applies particularly to the field of education, in which one of West Virginia's well-known leaders is James Edward Allen, A. B., president of Davis and Elkins College at Elkins. Professor Allen was born at Hebron, Dinwiddie County, Virginia, June 13, 1876, a son of Dr. Peter Woodward and Fannie Blunt (Scott) Allen. His grandfather, Dr. Edward Henry Allen, practiced medicine in Dinwiddie County for a period of sixty years, became a leading member of his profession, and died in 1889, at the ripe old age of eighty- four years. He was a native of Amelia County, Virginia, but in young manhood went to Dinwiddie County, that state, where his son, Dr. Peter W., was born in 1840. Dr. Peter W. Allen resided on a farm in his native county, but en- gaged in the practice of medicine for forty years, his patients residing all over the countryside. During the war between the states he served four years in the Army of the Confederacy, and after the close of that struggle he at- tended Hampden-Sidney College and later graduated in medicine from the Medical College of Virginia, Richmond. He died in 1906, at the age of sixty-six years. He was a democrat in politics, but not a politician, and his religious faith was that of the Presbyterian Church. Doctor Allen married Fannie Blunt Scott, who was born in Prince Edward County, Virginia, her father, Anderson Scott, having been a prominent planter of Nottoway County, Virginia, for many years. She survives him and is an active and helpful member of the Presbyterian Church. Of their children five grew to maturity: May W.; Rev. Frank Maury, a Presby- terian minister; Lottie; James Edward, of this review; and Lillah Dudley, Mrs. Muhaux Raine. James Edward Allen was reared on the home farm, and after attending the public schools pursued a course at Hampden-Sidney College, from which he was graduated in 1898. In that year he began teaching in the rural schools of Campbell County, Virginia, and in 1900 and 1901 served as principal of the public schools of Phoebus, Virginia. From 1901 to 1903 he was vice president of the high school at Newport News, that state, and teacher of Latin, and during the summer of 1903 did supplementary work in Latin at the University of Virginia. He was a student at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, from 1903 to 1905, and while there acted as an instructor in Latin at Notre Dame College for Girls. During 1905 and 1906 he was again located at Newport News, this time as principal of the high school, and in the latter year first came to Elkins as professor of Latin and German in Davis and Elkins Col- lege. Here he remained until 1909, when he accepted the principalship of the grammar schools of Richmond, Vir- ginia, but in July, 1910, returned to Davis and Elkins Col- lege as president, a position which he has since retained. Professor Allen has been very successful in his life work. He has the scholarly touch, the capacity for clear and exact thinking and the faculty of forceful expression. He counts as great factors in his work continued industry and the exercise of good judgment, the kindly feeling for all with whom the relations of life bring him into contact, and the lending of his influence to make both his students and com- munity types of good citizenship. Professor Allen is a member of the West Virginia Edu- cational Association, the National Educational Association, the American Philological Association, the American Geo- graphical Society and other learned bodies. He is president of the Rotary Club of Elkins and represented the club in the Rotary International Los Angeles Convention, in June, 1922. He is possessed of no small literary talent, and has con- tributed interesting and authentic articles to various periodi- cals, particularly on educational topics. In 1910 Professor Allen was united in marriage with Miss Susan H. Garrott, of Frederick, Maryland, and to this union there have been born six children.