♂Ralph Allen

Ralph Allen (about 1615 – between December 1691 and July 1698) was a settler of Sandwich in Plymouth Colony^W who, “being aged”, made a will in December 1691 that divided his goods among six children and asked to be buried “in my friends Burying place at William Allins in Sandwich”. He was the seventh great-grandfather of Frederic Roger Curtis (1928–2007), through his son Ebenezer Allen (1650–1725).

Origins and trade

No record names his parents. Robert Charles Anderson’s Great Migration, a compiled genealogy of the immigrants of 1634 and 1635, makes him a son of the immigrant George Allen and puts his birth at about 1617; the “Brother William Allen” named in his will is part of its case.

Sandwich had two men of the name in the 1650s, Ralph Allen Senior and Ralph Allen Junior. According to the same genealogy, this Ralph was the elder, a wheelwright, while the younger, a mason of undetermined kinship, died in or about 1659. It cites two deeds of 1663 to “Ralph Allin of the town of Sandwich … wheelwright”, one of them from Constant Southworth. That purchase is most likely the share of land “which I bought of Constant Southward” that he divided in his will nearly thirty years later.

Marriage and children

Ralph Allen married, by about 1642, a woman whose forename many sources give as Susanna, though a compiled genealogy of the early immigrants notes that none of them cites a record for it; her surname is not known. Their eldest known child, Joseph, was born about 1642, according to the same genealogy. Their son Ebenezer was born at Sandwich on 10 February 1650. Ralph Allen’s will of December 1691 names six children: John, Joseph, Increase, Ebenezer, Zachariah and Patience. A seventh, Mary, was buried at Sandwich on 18 April 1675; the town’s entry, as the same genealogy prints it, reads “Meary Allen, the daughter of Ralph Allen Senior”.

Will and death

In December 1691 “Ralph Allin of Sandwich”, describing himself as “being aged but of sufficient memory and understanding”, made his will, naming “my Brother William Allen and Edward Perry” as its overseers. To his son John he left “two Tables and two Bedsteds”. The rest of his movable goods went in equal shares to Joseph, Increase, Ebenezer, Zachariah and Patience, with half of Joseph’s part to Joseph’s daughter Abigail.

He had already given Patience, by deed, a quarter of the land he had bought from Constant Southworth, and he left the rest of it to Joseph’s eldest son, also named Joseph. He made his son Ebenezer his executor. The will does not mention a wife, which suggests she had died before it was made.

The date of his death is not recorded. On 1 July 1698 Edward Perry Junior, one of the witnesses, appeared before Barnabas Lothrop, judge of probate, at Barnstable, and the will was entered the same day; Ralph Allen had therefore died at some time between December 1691 and July 1698.

Notes

A grave index gives his birth as 1615 at Thurcaston in Leicestershire, England, and his burial at Sandwich; the birth date and place rest on that index alone, and Anderson’s genealogy looks for the family’s English origin in the West Country instead. A history of the settlers of the Beekman Patent, published in 1993, likewise counts the family from George Allen.

Earlier accounts gave his death as 18 December 1691, which is the date of his will; the probate of 1 July 1698 shows that he died between the two dates.

Older compilations gave Ralph Allen’s wife as Esther Swift, but she was the wife of the other Ralph Allen of Sandwich, the mason who died about 1659, according to a compiled genealogy of the early immigrants. A compiled index of early New England marriages also lists a Ralph Allen who married Hester English at St Mary-le-Bow, London, on 6 May 1619; Anderson’s genealogy states that this marriage cannot have been that of George Allen’s son.