ASHTABULA COUNTY OHIO *************************************************************************** Transcribed by Cherre Loftus Flynn. The Honorable Daniel C. Allen According to THE HISTORY OF ASHTABULA COUNTY, OHIO WITH ILLUSTRATIONS AND BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF IT'S PIONEERS AND MOST PROMINENT MEN PUBLISHED IN PHILADELPHIA BY THE WILLIAMS BROTHERS IN 1878 "Among those who are widely known to and highly esteemed by the people of this county is he whose name heads this sketch. Prominently connected with the material interests of the county and especially of his own township, which he labored in a signal manner to promote; occupying a position as editor of an influential newspaper, which, through many years, carried his name, his words, and his influence to the firesides of a large number of residents in the county; staunch and persistent in the advocacy of measures calculated to improve the habits and morals of his fellow-men; his has been a career of which any citizen might well feel proud. Mr. Allen was born in Sommer Hill, Cortland County, New York, January 10, 1818. He died in Conneaut, Ashtabula County, Ohio, March 5, 1878. When fifteen years of age he commenced to learn the printer's trade at Cortland, New York, and in 1837 came to Conneaut, Ohio, and began work in the Gazette office. In the following January he associated himself with a Mr. Finch, and began the publication of the only daily paper ever published in Ashtabula County. It was called The Budget. It was devoted chiefly to news relating to the troubles in Canada at that time. Mr. Allen, as soon as navigation opened, walked to the harbor - two and a half miles - every evening to gather the latest intelligence, upon the arrival of the daily steamer from Buffalo, for his paper, which would appear the next morning, and on which he would work until a late hour in the night, so as to issue it early in the morning and have it delivered by carriers to its readers at breakfast-time. The Gazette suspended June 12, 1841, for lack of patronage, but on the 11th day of September, of the same year, its publication was resumed by Messrs. Allen and Tait. In September of the year 1842, Mr. Allen retired from connection with the paper, and the following April it ceased to exist. The inconvenience of not having a newspaper was soon appreciated by the people of Conneaut, and in the winter of 1843-44, Mr. Allen raised a small amount of money, went to Buffalo, and purchased new material, which he transported from that place as one wagon-load, and in January of 1844 issued the first number of Conneaut Reporter. The struggle for a long time was a severe one. It required great business tact, indomitable perserverance, rigid economy, and unremitting toil to establish the paper on a paying basis. Mr. Allen possessing in a high degree these essentials, succeeded when most other men would have failed. Under his management the paper became remunerative for the labor expended upon it. It seldom happens in the history of journalism that so long and fierce a battle, with seemingly insurmountable obstacles, is so successfully maintained, and in the end so signally won, as was the case in this instance. In 1860 he sold the establishment to John P. Rieg, Esq., the present proprietor of the Reporter. To show the character of Mr. Allen and to illustrate his adherence to principle and to his convictions, we give the following incident in his life: In the spring of 1847, at the township election, when a vote was taken for "license" and "no license", Mr. Allen, being a staunch temperance man, took a decided stand against license. The feeling ran high, and the excitement was great. The license men were bitterly incensed against Mr. Allen for his course. After counting the vote and ascertaining that the license party had been successful, Mr. Allen was called out into a shed and was faced by two men with whips in their hands, since quite prominent citizens, who demanded a retraction in his paper of what he had said against license. This he refused to do, and the men would undoubtedly have executed their threats of violence but for the timely arrival of some of Mr. Allen's friends. In the next issue of the paper, instead of a retraction, appeared a full account of the dastardly attack, with the names of the two assailants published in full. He lost about 50 subscribers from among the license party, but this fact nor nothing else could make him swerve from his honest convictions. In 1858 and 1859, Mr. Allen represented his county in the Ohio House of Representatives. His name being the first on the roll of members, he was invariably called upon for the first "aye" or "no" on all questions, and so prompt and decided were his responses that the house tendered him a unanimous vote of commendation on the last day of its session. In March, 1861, he was made postmaster at Conneaut, and retained the office for six years. These offices he filled acceptably to the people and creditably to himself. On the 16th day of February, 1840, he was united in marriage with Rachel L. Gifford, daughter of Elijah and Esther Stevens Gifford, of Conneaut. Mr. and Mrs. Allen have been the parents of six children, whose names and dates of birth are as follows: Oscar E., b: 9 December 1840, d: 24 September 1871; Lydia E., b: 18 May 1845; Henry C., b: 26 January 1849; Jeannette W., b: 30 April 1852; Mary A., b: 28 December 1858; Laura F., born 7 January 1861. The eldest son married Martha Houston, May 4, 1866; Lydia E. became the wife of Corwin N. Payne, October 2, 1867; Henry C. married May E. Fowler, July 19, 1868. Mr. Allen was for forty years a member of the Baptist Church. He was a prominent and influential member of the Republican Party. He was connected with a lodge of Good Templars, and was ever, both in his life and teaching, a strong advocate of temperance. For more than twenty years he was a prominent member of the Conneaut Agricultural Society, holding the office of secretary and treasurer of that society for about eighteen years from its organization. His life was one of great usefulness, and his death was deeply and widely deplored."