John J. Allen (jurist)

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John James Allen (September 25, 1797 to September 18, 1871) was born at Woodstock,Shenandoah County, Virginia. His father was a distinguished lawyer and a judge of the circuit court. John Allen received his education at Washington College and at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania. He studied law with his father, passed the bar in 1818, and opened his first office in Campbell Courthouse, Virginia, in 1819. A short time later, he moved to Clarksburg where he practiced law for seventeen years. In 1827, he was elected to the Virginia Senate and, in 1834, was Commonwealth’s Attorney for the counties of Harrison, Lewis and Preston. At the same time, he was a member of the twenty-third United States Congress from December 2, 1833 to March 3, 1835. Being appointed Judge of the seventeenth Circuit in 1836, he moved to Botetourt County where he held his first court. In December 1840 Judge Allen was elected a judge of the Court of Appeals and, in 1851, became president when the court was reorganized again. He resigned in April 1865 and retired to private life in Botetourt County where he died in 1871.