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Pennsylvania AHGP E. P. Allen, M.D. Dr. Ezra Pascal Allen was born in Smithfield, Bradford County, Pennsylvania, June 5, 1821. He was the second son of Ezra Allen, who emigrated from the town of Halifax, Vermont, in 1819, and is the sixth generation from James and Anna Allen, who came probably from Scotland, and settled in Dedham, now Medfield, Massachusetts, in 1639. The doctor traces down the line of his descent from the first ancestor in the following order:
(2) Joseph was the youngest son of (1) James and Anna
Allen. Dr. Allen received in the common school a good knowledge of the primary studies, but afterwards pursued the higher branches of mathematics and the languages in a select school in Smithfield. He attended a course of lectures in the Vermont medical college, at Woodstock, in the spring of 1845, and in 1847 graduated at the Berkshire medical college, in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. He was a private pupil in microscopic anatomy of Prof. Benjamin Rush Palmer, and in percussion and auscultation of Prof. Alonzo Clark. Some years later, he took a course of lectures at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, in New York, and another at the University of Pennsylvania. He first settled in Albany, Bradford County, whence, after a residence of one and a half years, he moved to Cherry Township, in Sullivan County. After remaining here two and a half years, the death of his father made it necessary for him to return to Smithfield. Having settled his father's estate, he commenced in that town a practice, which became a large and lucrative one, when, in 1862, he received the appointment of assistant surgeon in the 141st Regiment, P. V., and entered the military service of the United States. He was promoted to full surgeon in the 83rd Regiment in December, 1862, but on account of ill health was compelled to resign his commission in the spring of 1863. After leaving the army he removed to Athens, where he still resides. In the fall of 1862, while lying sick at Poolsville, Maryland, he received an invitation to deliver the annual course of lectures on anatomy in the Geneva Medical College, which, on account of ill health and the requirements of the military service, he was compelled to decline. In the spring of 1864, he received the unanimous vote of the board of trustees of that institution to the professor's chair of midwifery and materia medica. The first knowledge the doctor had that his name had been mentioned for the position was when the invitation was placed in his hands. He filled the place with great acceptableness for eight years, delivering each season about one hundred lectures. Much to the regret of the friends of the college, failing health compelled him to retire from his professorship. The doctor is fond of surgery, and has performed most of the capital operations. Twice in civil practice he amputated at the hip-joint with complete success, and quite a number of times at the trochanters; and ligated the femoral and many other of the larger arteries. He is a member of the Bradford County medical society, the Pennsylvania State medical society, the American medical association, and an honorary member of the Chemung County medical society, of New York. He is also a member of the Bradford County historical society, of which he was for four years secretary and one year president. He has been twice president of the Bradford County medical society, many years its secretary, and vice-president of the Pennsylvania medical society. He has written quite a number of short essays on medical and literary subjects, among which may be mentioned one published in the Athens Gleaner of April, 1870, entitled ''Do we Suffer when Dying, or is Death a Painful Process?" and another, read before the historical society of Bradford County, December, 1872, on the "Mammoth and Mastodon, and the Age in which they Lived," which was also published by order of the society. Quite a number of reports of interesting cases have been published in the "Transactions of the Medical Society of the State of Pennsylvania,'' and in the Philadelphia Medical Times. He was married on the 18th of January, 1844, to Miss Honnor Howard Harris, daughter of Beriah Harris, of Coleraine, Massachusetts. Their family consists of seven children, two sons and five daughters. © Pennsylvania American History and Genealogy Project
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