IS ALLEN. ALLEY. judiciary committee. The following year he was chairman of the committee on probate and chancery. In 1877 he con- ducted an examination, made by the Leg- islature into alleged abuses .existing in the state reform school, which resulted in an entire change in the management of that institution. For three years Mr. Allen was president of the Mercantile Library Association of Boston. He is prominent in Odd Fellow- ship and Masonry. He is still engaged in a most successful practice of the law, where he has attained and earned distinc- tion among the foremost men of the pro- fession in the State. ALLEN, THOMAS, son of Thomas and Anne C. (Russell) Allen, was born October 19, 1849, at St. Louis, Mo. He was educated at the high school, Pittsfield, Mass., at the Williston Seminary, Easthampton, and then entered the Wash- ington University, St. Louis, Mo., after which he studied art at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, at Diisseldorf, Germany, where he graduated from the master class in 1878, and afterward studied three years in France. He first exhibited his work in New York, at the National Academy of Design, in 1877, and has been represented in the National Academy at almost every exhi- bition since then. In 18S2, and several times since, he exhibited pictures at the Paris Salon. He returned to this country in 1882, and in 1884 was made an associate of the National Academy of Design. In 1880 he was elected a member of the Society of American Artists. His specialty is land- scape and animal painting. After nearly ten years of foreign study, he opened his studio in the Pelham Studio on Boylston Street, Boston ; not finding it sufficiently commodious, however, and meeting with marked success as a painter, he purchased a house on Commonwealth Avenue, in 1S83, for a permanent home, and there built a large studio at the top of the house which he now occupies. Mr. Allen was first married in 1880, in Northampton, to Eleanor G., daughter of Prof. J. D. and Louisa (Goddard) Whitney of Cambridge, who left him one child : Eleanor Whitney Allen. In 1884, in Boston, Mr. Allen married Alice, daughter of Hon. Ambrose A. and Maria ( Fletcher) Ranney, of Boston. Their only child is Thomas Allen, Jr. Mr. Allen is president of the Paint and Clay Club, vice-president of the Boston Art Club, patron of the Metropolitan Museum, N. Y., and a member of the permanent committee of the School of Drawing and Painting at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. He is a great grandson of the Rev. Thomas Allen, the first minister in Pitts- field, who is known as the "fighting parson," and grand nephew of the Rev. William Allen of Northampton, author of "Allen's Biographical Dictionary." His father, who died at Washington, D. C, while representing in Congress the 2d district of Missouri, had a national repu- tation as a scholar and statesman, finan- cier and philanthropist. ALLEN, WILLIAM, son of William Allen, was born at Brunswick, Cumberland county, Maine, March 31, 1822. He is a grandson of the Rev. Thomas Allen, the " fighting parson " of the noted Berkshire militia, who performed such conspicuous service under General Stark of Revolution- ary fame. His father was a clergyman of Pittsfield, a scholar of eminence, and at one time president of Bowdoin College. After obtaining his preliminary edu- cation at the public schools, Mr. Allen fitted for college at Phillips Academy, Andover, and at the North Yarmouth Academy, in Maine, and entered Bowdoin College in 1834. After a few months spent at Bowdoin he went to Amherst, where he graduated in 1842. He began the study of law at the Yale law school, continuing it later at Northampton, where he was ad- mitted to the bar in 1S45, and where he has since resided. In 1S80 Mr. Allen was made associate justice of the superior court, which high office he now holds, abundantly justifying the judicious selection of Governor Long, to whom he was indebted for the ele- vation. ALLEY, JOHN B., son of John and Mercy (Buffum) Alley, was born in Lynn, January 7, 1817. He belongs to one of the oldest Essex county families, and is de- scended from Hugh Alley, who, with his brother John, settled in Lynn in 1634. He received his education in the public schools of his native town, and at the age of fourteen was apprenticed to a shoe manufacturer, and at nineteen received the gift of his time. Soon after the close of his apprenticeship he went to Cincinnati and there purchased a flat-boat, which he loaded with merchandise and carried to New Orleans, and tiie success of this en- terprise laid the foundation of his fortune.
