Allen, Joseph Henry, 1820-1898

Unitarian minister, editor, writer. Graduated from Harvard in 1840 and from Harvard Divinity School in 1843. Minister: Jamaica Plain, Mass. (1843-1847); Washington, D.C. (1847-1850); Bangor, Me. (1850-1857). Lecturer on ecclesiastical history, Harvard Divinity School (1878-1882). Author of Our Liberal Movement in Theology and other books and articles. See sketch in Dictionary of American Biography.

Resident of Franklin County, Ind. and surveyor. Ran unsuccessfully for congress in 1818. In 1819-1820 was deputy surveyor for a project to survey Native American land in the upper Wabash country, Ind. This project was in conjunction with an 1818 treaty to remove Native Americans to areas west of the Mississippi River and north of the Wabash River in Indiana.

Joseph Henry Allen (1820-1898) was born in Northboro, Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard College in 1840 and from Harvard Divinity School in 1843. He also received two honorary Harvard degrees, an A.M. in 1879 and a D.D. in 1891. He was ordained as a Unitarian minister at the Third Parish of Roxbury (later Jamaica Plain) on October 18th, 1843. He married Anna Weld in 1845, and in 1847 he moved to Washington, D.C. He later served congregations in Maine, Michigan, New York, and California. Allen served as the professor of ecclesiastical history at Harvard College from 1878-1882. In 1881 he was a delegate to an international council of Unitarian Churches in Kolozsvar, Transylvania. He published an extensive number of books and tracts, which include Hebrew Men and Times, the three volume Christian History, and Our Liberal Movements in Theology. He also served as editor of the Christian Examiner (1857-1869) and the Unitarian Review.