Updated December 26, 2006
The move to Virginia coincided with a shift in the political winds in the American colonies. With the conclusion of the French and Indian Wars (1763--aka the Seven Years War), Britain began a series of maneuvers to get the colonies to help with its war debts. Gradually, the resistance to these efforts evolved into the American independence movement, and the Allens appear to have been very involved in it. Loudoun County, generally, was solidly behind the effort to expel the British. For decades the Virginia House of Burgesses had been battling the King's appointed governor, even refusing to meet when the Stamp Act was passed. Loudoun yeomen and gentry alike (with the exception of a few tories among the latter) participated in the war effort.
Family tradition says that all five of William's sons spent time as soldiers. Three of them did not survive the war: William Jr., John, and Thomas. William Jr.'s case is the best documented; his will was recorded by the Loudoun County Court, reading in part, "Soldier being joined in the Army: TO brother my clothing when Joseph is 21; Sister Else, my Horse and Saddle; Sisters Ann and Elizabeth, All remainder of my estate to be divided equally." The will was proved in court first on February 10, 1777 and again April 10, 1780. An eighteenth century family Bible from Kentucky records that John and Thomas died from exposures that they suffered during their enlistments, John from smallpox and Thomas from an unspecified illness.
We are not sure of David's service, but the following discharge paper may refer to him. Serving in this unit may well have put him at Valley Forge during the winter of 1777/78. The date of discharge coincides nicely with our David's marriage to Ivea Fox in 1779 (see below).
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David Allen's discharge from the Virginia
Army: P. Muhlenberg, Brig. Gen. |
Joseph was too young at the beginning of the conflict to join up (twelve in 1776), but the story has come down through the years that he enlisted before the end of the war and, at age 17, was in the assembled masses when Cornwallis surrendered to Washington at Yorktown, Virginia in 1781. The colonial army at that event included both regular Virginia "Continental Line" soldiers and members of the Virginia militia. Which one Joseph might have joined is an open question.
One source says that William Allen himself was a Revolutionary War soldier. I tend to doubt this. He was sixty-five when it started, a little old to be marching off to war--not to mention that he had a sizable family and farm to take care of, regardless of the political movements going on around him. Contributing five sons to the effort (and losing three of them) seems a sufficient level of participation. One wonders if he considered it a fair bargain to have paid such a price for independence from Britain.