Allen Family

The origins of our Allen family begin in eastern Tennessee in the early 1800's. Our first known ancestor is John Allen born in Tennessee in 1835. John had one known brother, George W. Allen. Oral history states that his father was also John Allen, but I have been unable to prove this. I would love to hear from anyone with any knowledge of his family.

John married Martha Elizabeth Thomason, who already had one son named William Valentine Severe, called "Tine", and lived in Cocke County. A son James Aroony Burgundy, later called "Judd" was born in 1859. John enlisted in the Civil War while Elizabeth was pregnant with their daughter, Mary Elizabeth and died before she was born.

John Allen enlisted in the army of the Confederate States of America on May 28, 1862 at Knoxville, Tennessee at the age of 24. He was a private in Company "C" of the 26th Tennessee Infantry, but served only six months. John Allen died of malaria in a hospital in Cleveland, Tennessee on November 24, 1862.

After the war Elizabeth Allen and her three children joined a wagon train with her brother's and sister's family and several other families in the Cocke County area to travel to Texas.

The Allens first settled near McKinney in Collin County, Texas in 1870. There in 1873 Elizabeth Allen married another Confederate soldier from Cocke County, Tennessee, Thomas S. Carrier.

In 1878 Tine Allen, James Arooney "Judd" Allen, and a brother-in-law, Eugene Sue Mosaly bought land west of Keller, Texas in Tarrant County and began to raise cattle.

On October 23, 1881 Judd married Sarah Tranquilla Carolina Mosaly, a former neighbor in Tennessee who came on the same wagon train as the Allens. Judd Allen bought 880 acres of land west of Keller, Texas. He cultivated part of the land in wheat, corn and cotton, and had pastureland for his sheep and cattle.