John Bryan ALLEN, Jr., fifth and youngest child of Capt. John Bryan 
Allen, CSA, and Nancy (Tilghman) Allen, was born June 1,1858 on his 
parent's plantation in Fayette County, Georgia. He was a man of medium 
build with dark hair and steel blue eyes. His father was a Planter and 
Missionary who was commissioned by the Baptist Church of Christ and 
Shiloh (now, Fayetteville First Baptist) and sent to pioneer in 
Covington County, Alabama, where he established several churches, 
including the Chapel Hill Baptist Church of Covington County. 

With the outbreak of the Civil War, John's father enlisted as a 
Chaplain in the nearby Conecuh (County) Guard, 29th Alabama Volunteers,
at Evergreen, Alabama. The war years were difficult for the Allen 
family. Both Northern and Southern Soldiers raided their plantation 
home, in search of provisions and trying to conscript horses and his 
fourteen year old brother, David, who later enlisted and served as a 
Private in the Confederate Army. John's older brother, Asbury, was 
crippled and unable to perform labor in the fields. Family lore says 
that Capt. Allen was wounded in one of the battles in the Atlanta area,
and went home to recuperate, but shortly returned to his unit. With the
help of the servants and her sons, Nancy Allen managed to hold things 
together, but late in the war on November 30, 1864, Capt. Allen was 
killed-in-action while leading his men in the first hour of the 
calamitous Battle of Franklin, Tennessee, where Union General Jacob 
Cox described the fighting as "hand-to-hand massacre."

After the war, the family plantation was seized and divided up by 
Scalawags and Carpetbaggers. Reconstruction brought extreme and bitter 
hardship, and in 1866 John's widowed mother, Nancy, married William 
Franklin Seiglar, after which the family relocated to Pike County, 
Alabama. John B.'s schooling has not been identified, but he could 
read and write with skill. After his mother's death, he joined his 
sister Cora and her family in Hamilton County, Texas. At first, he 
taught school at Pottsville, but subsequently opened a Law practice in 
the city of Hamilton. On November 8, 1892, John B. was elected County 
Attorney of Hamilton County, serving one two-year term. He never 
married.

 John B. Allen, Jr., died from consumption (Tuberculosis) on February 
19, 1899 at the age of 41, and is buried in the "old" IOOF Cemetery 
in Hamilton. His tombstone bears a Masonic emblem but the Masonic 
Grand Lodge of Texas could not locate a record of his being a Texas 
Mason. It is probable that he belonged in some other state.






Source: Great-nephew Gerry Gieger - Everman, TX, Summer 1998.