Who is Allentown Pennsylvannia named after? I'd like some history and genealogy about it if you know.?

Question

We have Allens from Pa and I'm wondering if is a family member, (That Allentown Pa was named after) I've checked and not found anything.

Answer 1

William Allen (August 5, 1704 – September 6, 1780) was a weathly merchant, Chief Justice of the Province of Pennsylvania and former mayor of Philadelphia.

At the time of the American Revolution, Allen was one of the wealthiest and most powerful men in Philadelphia. A loyalist, Allen believed the best course of action for the colonies was to redress their grievances with Parliament through constitutional means, not through outright rebellion, and he refused to take up arms against a sovereign to whom he had sworn allegiance.[1]

Born in Philadelphia in 1704, Allen was the son of William Allen, Sr., a successful Philadelphia merchant of Scotch-Irish descent who had emigrated to America from Dungannon, County Tyrone, Ireland. As a youth, Allen spent much of his time in England. In 1720, he was admitted to the Middle Temple in London to study law, and later became a pensioner at Clare Hall, Cambridge. Upon his father's death in 1725, Allen returned to Philadelphia to manage the family's business interests.

In 1730, he purchased, at his own expense, the property on which the Pennsylvania State House was to be erected.


In 1734, Allen married Margaret Hamilton, daughter of Andrew Hamilton, famed defense lawyer in the John Peter Zenger case of 1735, and brother of James Hamilton. William and Margaret had six children: John, Andrew, James, William, Anne and Margaret. Like their father, all of Allen's sons were loyalists opposed the violent overthrow of British rule in the American Colonies.

John was elected to the Provincial Congress of New Jersey in 1776, but left over his opposition to the war. He died in Philadelphia in 1778.

Andrew became Attorney-General of Pennsylvania, was a member of Pennsylvania's delegation to the Continental Congress, and served on the Council of Safety. Upon his resignation from the Continental Congress, he joined Howe's army as a non-combatant, and returned to Philadelphia during the British occupation. His estate was confiscated as a result of the Pennsylvania Attainder Act of 1778. In 1792, he was pardoned, and unsuccessfully attempted to recover some of his assets under the Jay Treaty of 1794. He left for England, and died in London in 1825.

James was a member of the Pennsylvania Assembly of 1776, representing Northampton County. During the war, he retired to his home in Northamptontown (present-day Allentown) and lived as a non-combatant. He was a guest of Washington at Harlem Heights in November, 1776, and was summoned before the Committee of Public Safety for "disaffection." He died at Trout Hall, his residence in Northampton County, in 1778.

William was one of the first officers commissioned by the Continental Congress, and served under Montgomery in the 1775 Canadian campaign. Immediately after the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, however, he resigned his officer's commission in the Continental Army, and became the Lieutenant-Colonel of a regiment called the "Pennsylvania Loyalists," which he commanded throughout the war. He left for London at the war’s end, and died there in 1838.

In 1766, Anne married John Penn, the last proprietary governor of Pennsylvania. In 1771, Allen's daughter Margaret married the son of James DeLancey, former governor of New York.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Allen_%28loyalist%29

Answer 2

Allentown History

Allentown was originally named Northamptontown by its founder, Chief Justice of Colonial Pennsylvania's Supreme Court, William Allen. Allen, also a former Mayor of Philadelphia and successful businessman, drew up plans for the rural village in 1762. Despite its formal name, from the beginning, nearly everyone called it "Allen's town". Allen hoped Northamptontown would turn into a commercial center because of its location along the Lehigh River. The low water level most of the year, however, made river trade impractical. Sometime in the early 1770s, William Allen apparently gave the property to his son, James, who built a country home called Trout Hall after his father's hunting and fishing lodge. Even by the time of the American Revolution, Allentown remained little more than a small village of Pennsylvania Dutch, more properly German, farmers and tradesmen, but continued its development as a center of marketing for local farmers from the post revolutionary years into the 1920s. The U.S. Census of 1810 placed it at the heart of the largest grain producing regions in the country.

In 1838, the city officially adopted the name Allentown which was not the only change in store for this town on the Lehigh. By the 1830s and 1840s, America's industrial revolution, which was born in the Lehigh Valley, was entering its take-off stage, and the arrival of the Lehigh Canal and later the railroad, opened up Allentown in a way that would have been beyond William Allen's wildest dreams.

Answer 3

check out rootsweb.com.. for Lehigh Co. PA

"Allentown was originally named Northamptontown by its founder, Chief Justice of Colonial Pennsylvania's Supreme Court, William Allen."

more at the site. under Allentown history.