WILLIAM S. ALLEN

ALLEN

Posted By: Volunteer - Rich Lowe
Date: 10/18/2015 at 10:15:34

WILLIAM S. ALLEN.

Secretary of State, was born at Hillsboro, in Henry county, Iowa, August 26, 1857. His parents were American-born, his father being of Scotch-Irish lineage, and his mother of the old Dutch stock of New Jersey. Received his early education in the graded schools of Hillsboro and then, to prepare for college, entered Denmark Academy, the first institution of advanced learning founded in the state. Attended the liberal arts and law departments of the state university of Iowa, from which institution he graduated in the year 1877 at the age of nineteen. Upon being admitted to the bar settled in Van Buren county. The first official position to which he was elected was that of president of the board of education, and then to the office of mayor, serving in these different places for several years. Afterwards was a member of the house of representatives from Van Buren county in the twenty-fifth, twenty-sixth and twenty-sixth extra general assemblies. In the extra session of the twenty-sixth general assembly served on some of the most important committees of the house and was chairman of the second division of the code revision committee, having in charge the recodification of the laws of Iowa, the work of this session giving to the state the code of 1897. In 1903 was a candidate for the state senate, the first convention resulting in a deadlock, and losing out in the second convention by one-half a vote. He moved to Fairfield, Jefferson county, in September 1909, where he has since been engaged in the practice of law. He was elected state senator in 1908 from the Jefferson-Van Buren district and served in the thirty-third and thirty-fourth general assemblies. At the June primary in 1912 he received the republican nomination for secretary of state, and was elected to that position at the following fall election. Re-elected in 1914. He has always been a republican In politics.

Source: The Iowa Official Register for the Years 1915-1916; p. 685