Background
John James Allen was born on September 25, 1797 in Woodstock, Shenandoah County, Virginia, United States.
John James Allen was born on September 25, 1797 in Woodstock, Shenandoah County, Virginia, United States.
Allen received his education at Washington College, Virginia, and Dickinson College, Pennsylvania.
Allen read law with his father, and was admitted as an attorney in 1818. He at first opened an office at Campbell Court House, Virginia, but in 1819 removed to Clarksburg, where he practised for seventeen years.
He early evinced an active interest in politics and in 1827 was elected to the state Senate, serving for three years. In his law business he had had experience of the insecurity of the title to land in Trans-Alleghany Virginia, arising from the looseness with which the regulations governing settlers had been drafted and administered since 1777, and he prepared and procured the passage through the legislature of a bill for the purpose of quieting titles in that district which was of inestimable benefit to the frontier settlers. In 1833 he was elected a representative in the Twenty-third Congress, and served for two years, but failed of reelection.
In 1834 he had been appointed state attorney for the counties of Harrison, Lewis, and Preston, and in 1836 the acting governor of Virginia, Wyndham Robertson, appointed him judge of the 17th judicial district, the position which his father had previously held. He was comparatively unknown to the people of the district, and some discontent was voiced at the appointment, but his dignity and courtesy on the bench and the facility with which he conducted the proceedings of the court soon attracted the confidence of the public and the profession. Removing to Botetourt, the court seat, he resided there during the remainder of his life.
In 1840 he was nominated for the United States Senate but no election took place, no candidate having the necessary votes. Immediately afterward, a vacancy occurred on the court of appeals and he was elected thereto without opposition, December 12, 1840. When the court was reorganized in compliance with the reformed constitution of 1851, he became its president, a rank equivalent to that of chief justice. He resigned in April 1865.
Allen died on September 18, 1871 in Botetourt, Virginia at the age of seventy-three.
Allen was a member of the National Republican party. He a strong supporter of the Southern cause, and prepared a brilliant and trenchant defense of the attitude of Virginia.
Allen possessed great intellectual force and on the bench was always competent, eminently painstaking, and firmly maintained the best traditions of the judiciary.
Alen married Mary Elizabeth Payne Jackson on November 11, 1824 in Clarksburg, West Virginia. They had nine children.
