My Genealogy Hound

Below is a family biography included in Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Lonoke County, Arkansas published by Goodspeed Publishing Company in 1889.  These biographies are valuable for genealogy research in discovering missing ancestors or filling in the details of a family tree. Family biographies often include far more information than can be found in a census record or obituary.  Details will vary with each biography but will often include the date and place of birth, parent names including mothers' maiden name, name of wife including maiden name, her parents' names, name of children (including spouses if married), former places of residence, occupation details, military service, church and social organization affiliations, and more.  There are often ancestry details included that cannot be found in any other type of genealogical record.

* * * *

Lodawick Allen, a representative citizen of Lonoke County, is a son of Alexander and Margaret (Fry) Allen, and was born in Bibb County, Ala., December 5, 1822. Alexander Allen was a native of South Carolina, and his wife of Georgia. About the year 1814 they moved to Alabama, being among the first settlers in that State, as they also were of Mississippi, to which locality they emigrated in 1836. Their next move was to Texas, where Mr. Allen died in 1852 at the age of sixty-five. His wife returned to Mississippi and survived her husband some twenty-two years. She was a life-long member of the Baptist Church, and her death, which occurred in her eightieth year, was mourned by all who knew her. Lodawick received only such meager advantages for schooling as were afforded in his boyhood days. He accompanied his parents to Mississippi in 1836, before the Indians had been removed from the country, and grew to manhood with the savage youths as his playmates, learning their dialect quite thoroughly. Subsequently he assisted in their removal, and spent several weeks in taking them to Memphis. Mr. Allen began life on his own account in 1844 as a farmer, following this vocation in La Fayette County for forty-four years. In 1862 he enlisted in Company I, Forty-second Regiment Mississippi Volunteer Infantry, and participated in the battles of the Wilderness, Gettysburg, Six Days’ fight at Spottsylvania, and was present at the battle of Petersburg when the lines were broken. He was also present at the battle of Spottsylvania Court House, and at the surrender at Appomattox. In one day’s fight he received thirteen bullet-holes in his clothing, but was never the victim of anything more serious than flesh wounds. He was a sharpshooter in the rifle-pits, and with all his daring and dangerous exploits was never once taken prisoner. The year 1845 witnessed his marriage with Miss Emily C. Simmons, a native of Lauderdale County, Ala., who died in 1869, leaving six children, four now living. In 1871 Mr. Allen married Mrs. Mary J. Cleaves, a native of Tennessee. A singular coincidence that might here be mentioned is that he married both wives at the same house. Mr. Allen came to Arkansas in 1880 and located in Lonoke County, where he rented for the first year, afterward purchasing his present place of 360 acres on Section 10, Lonoke Township. There are 130 acres of his farm in a high state of cultivation, all the result of his own labors. In politics he has ever been a Democrat, casting his first vote in 1844 for James K. Polk for president. With his wife he is a member of the Concord Methodist Episcopal Church. He is of Scotch and Irish extraction and possesses the traits of those people of industry and integrity, and in every sense of the word he is a self-made man.

* * * *

This family biography is one of 143 biographies included in Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Lonoke County, Arkansas published in 1889.  For the complete description, click here: Lonoke County, Arkansas History, Genealogy, and Maps

To view additional Lonoke County, Arkansas family biographies, click here

Use the links at the top right of this page to search or browse thousands of other family biographies.