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and took part in the battles of Concord,
Lexington and Bunker Hill, receiving a
slight wound in the last named engage-
ment. His grandfather, Francis Burke,
was a resident of Washington at the time
of the War of 1812, and formed one of
the volunteers of the First District of
Columbia who strove to withstand the
attacks of the British, and the grandmother
of Mr. Allen accompanied Dolly
Madison, the wife of President Madison,
in the retirement from the capitol at the
approach of the British.
The elementary education of Francis B.
Allen was received in his native town,
and he learned the trade of mechanical
engineer. In February, 1862, he was appointed
in the engineer corps, United
States navy, from Illinois, and on March
1, the same year, was commissioned as an
ensign in the Philadelphia Navy-yard.
Before the end of the Civil War he rose
to the rank of master of the engineer
corps. During the entire period Mr.
Allen was with various ships and squadrons
and on special duty in New York.
He served on the gunboat, "Port Royal,"
in 1862, on the Potomac, James, Appomattox
and Chickahominy rivers, where
the fighting was very heavy. The following
two and one-half years he was
with the East Gulf Squadron and the
West Gulf Squadron, and in 1865 was
with the United States ironclad "Dictator"
in the Atlantic (North) Squadron.
His service was continuous until 1868,
and 1866 and 1867 saw Mr. Allen on spe-
cial duty at New York, while the latter
year he was in the West India Squadron
on the flagship "DeSoto." He resigned
from service in this year because of defec-
tive hearing which had been brought
about by standing on deck after having
been hours in a hot engine room. Among
the more notable of the engagements in
which he took part was in May, 1862,
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF BIOGRAPHY
85
when his ship and others of the fleet bombarded
Drury's Lane on the James river
upon finding that the narrow channel was
impassable because of the gunboats and
supplies which the Confederate Army had
sunk across it. He also took part in the
battle of Mobile Bay under Admiral Far-
ragut, and during the conflict his ship
was lashed to the "Richmond." In a little
reminiscence of his career in the navy,
speaking of the famed "Monitor," Mr.
Allen said: "The old 'Monitor' which de-
feated the Merrimac, although not so de-
cisively as history makes out, is the direct
ancestor of the present submarine. It was
almost through a miracle that the inven-
tor, Captain Ericson, had a chance to
show what it could do. The board which
then corresponded to our present Ad-
miralty Board maintained that an iron-
clad steamer would sink, and could not
be convinced differently. Finally the in-
ventor succeeded in interesting private
capital, which was entered purely from a
standpoint of experimentation, and everybody
knows the result. If Ericson had
taken the word of the experts that an
ironclad ship could not float, the development
of the present-day great navies
might have been postponed for years."
Upon his resignation from service in
the navy, Mr. Allen accepted a position
with the Novelty Iron Works in New
York City. He was afterwards assistant
to the superintendent of motive power on
the Northern Pacific Railroad. In 1872
he entered upon his duties as special agent
of the Hartford Steam Boiler and Inspec-
tion Company in their New York department,
and ten years later was promoted
to the position of supervising general
agent, located at the home office in Hart-
ford, Connecticut. He later became second
vice-president of the company and
subsequently vice-president, which position
he ably occupies to-day. Through