JOHN BRYAN ALLEN JR.

John Bryan ALLEN, Jr., fifth and youngest child of Capt. John Bryan Allen, CSA, and Nancy (Tilghman) Allen, was born June 1,1858 on his parent's plantation in Fayette County, Georgia. He was a man of medium build with dark hair and steel blue eyes. His father was a Planter and Missionary who was commissioned by the Baptist Church of Christ and Shiloh (now, Fayetteville First Baptist) and sent to pioneer in Covington County, Alabama, where he established several churches, including the Chapel Hill Baptist Church of Covington County. With the outbreak of the Civil War, John's father enlisted as a Chaplain in the nearby Conecuh (County) Guard, 29th Alabama Volunteers, at Evergreen, Alabama. The war years were difficult for the Allen family. Both Northern and Southern Soldiers raided their plantation home, in search of provisions and trying to conscript horses and his fourteen year old brother, David, who later enlisted and served as a Private in the Confederate Army. John's older brother, Asbury, was crippled and unable to perform labor in the fields. Family lore says that Capt. Allen was wounded in one of the battles in the Atlanta area, and went home to recuperate, but shortly returned to his unit. With the help of the servants and her sons, Nancy Allen managed to hold things together, but late in the war on November 30, 1864, Capt. Allen was killed-in-action while leading his men in the first hour of the calamitous Battle of Franklin, Tennessee, where Union General Jacob Cox described the fighting as "hand-to-hand massacre." After the war, the family plantation was seized and divided up by Scalawags and Carpetbaggers. Reconstruction brought extreme and bitter hardship, and in 1866 John's widowed mother, Nancy, married William Franklin Seiglar, after which the family relocated to Pike County, Alabama. John B.'s schooling has not been identified, but he could read and write with skill. After his mother's death, he joined his sister Cora and her family in Hamilton County, Texas. At first, he taught school at Pottsville, but subsequently opened a Law practice in the city of Hamilton. On November 8, 1892, John B. was elected County Attorney of Hamilton County, serving one two-year term. He never married. John B. Allen, Jr., died from consumption (Tuberculosis) on February 19, 1899 at the age of 41, and is buried in the "old" IOOF Cemetery in Hamilton. His tombstone bears a Masonic emblem but the Masonic Grand Lodge of Texas could not locate a record of his being a Texas Mason. It is probable that he belonged in some other state.

Source: Great-nephew Gerry Gieger - Everman, TX, Summer 1998.





Copyright 2004 by Gerry Geiger