# American Medical Biographies/Allen, Jonathan Adams (1787–1848)

​Allen, Jonathan Adams (1787–1848)
Dr. Jonathan Adams Allen was a physician and surgeon of wide reputation in Middlebury, Vermont, from 1820 to the time of his death. He was more than a physician and surgeon; he was a well known botanist, geologist and chemist, besides being a mail of high personal character and a devout Christian.
Dr. Allen was born at Holliston, Massachusetts, Nov. 17, 1787. His father. Amos Allen, was of Welsh descent, his mother was a daughter of Abel Smith and grand-daughter of Jonathan Adams of Medway. This Jonathan Adams had a narrow escape in early childhood, when his mother was killed by the Indians and he was left as dead, after his head had been dashed against a stone. From him. Dr. Jonathan Adams Allen received his name—indeed he had been promised a sheep with the name, but when his parents moved to Vermont in 1788, he was given a hatchet instead.
After the family removed to Newfane, Vt., young Jonathan, during intervals of work on the farm, attended the common schools. He seems to have been a natural student and satisfied his taste for books by purchasing these from the proceeds of the furs he was enabled to secure by trapping and hunting. On his twenty-first birthday he started out with a bundle to seek his fortune. He taught school in West Townshend and studied Latin with the minister. Deciding to study medicine, he placed himself under the tuition of Dr. Paul Wheeler of Wardsboro. He attended lectures at Dartmouth under Dr. Nathan Smith and graduated from that institution August 24, 1814, and then returned to Wardsboro, practised with Dr. Wheeler, his instructor, for two years, and moved to Brattleboro in August, 1816.
January 1, 1815, he married Betsy Cheney of Jamaica, Vt. By her he had four children, the second being Charles Linnaeus, (q.v.) and the fourth, Jonathan Adams, (q.v.) professor of the principles and practice of medicine in Rush Medical College, Chicago, for thirty-one years. Betsy Cheney Allen died March 24, 1826, and Dr. Allen married for his second wife, Huldah R. Dygert, January 24, 1827. They had one child who died in early life.
Huldah Dygert died January 1, 1829, and he married for his third wife, Philinda Ransom, June 9, 1829. They had no children and she died Sept. 20, 1847.
Dr. Allen was surgeon of a regiment raised near the end of the war of 1812, which, on account of the close of the war, was disbanded without seeing service. In the spring of 1822 he moved from Brattleboro to Middlebury, where he was appointed a member of the corporation of the Vermont Academy of Medicine, a medical college situated at Castleton, Vt., and having a "conventional connection" with Middlebury College, the latter institution conferring the degrees. He also at this time was appointed professor of materia medica and pharmacy in the Castleton institution. In 1827, with his second wife, Huldah Dygert, and his four children, he moved to Herkimer, New York.
Here Mrs. Allen died, five days after the birth of her son, Amos Dygert. Thereupon, because his property, with the exception of a horse, was in Vermont, Dr. Allen determined to return there. In an old crate, which had been used for packing crockery, placed upon two saplings for runners, he placed his four older children (presumably leaving the baby with relatives in Herkimer) and started for Middlebury on foot, leading the horse hitched to the improvised sleigh.
Dr. Allen was appointed professor of materia medica and pharmacy in the Vermont Academy of Medicine in 1822, a position which he held for seven years. He also ​delivered lectures on chemistry at Middlebury College in 1820 and 1826. He was a member of the corporation of the Castleton institution from 1822 to 1832. This school was first known as the Castleton Medical Academy, then as the Vermont Academy of Medicine, and finally after 1841 as the Castleton Medical College.
Dr. Allen was a prominent member of the Vermont Medical Society and was made a curator of that Society, when it was reorganized in October, 1841. The Addison County Medical Society, which, like the state society, had had a lapse of several years, was reorganized in December, 1835, mainly through the influence of Dr. Allen, who became president at that time. Again in 1842, after another lapse of six years, this society was reorganized and Dr. Allen was again made president. From that time until his death he was an active and valuable member of this county organization and president half of this time. Aside from his membership in the local medical societies, he was a member of the Lyceum of Natural History of New York, of the Geological Society, and the Physico-Medical Society of New York. He was also a member of the Linnaean Society of New England and at one time Secretary of the Abolitionist Society.
Dr. Allen was widely known in his profession; his services as surgeon and physician were frequently sought even beyond the limits of the State of Vermont.
His special studies seem to have been materia medica and pharmacy, branches, which he taught at Castleton. He was a practical student of natural history, especially botany. His herbarium, originally in twelve volumes, and probably in duplicate, was divided between his two sons, Charles L. and Jonathan A. The set, which came to the former, is now in the Museum of Middlebury College. The first date in this herbarium is August 11, 1821, but most of the dates are between 1832 and 1842. It has contributions by Philander Keyes (1822) Orpha Landon (South Carolina, 1842); Dr. Branch of South Carolina; and Dr. J. M. Bigelow of Lancaster, Ohio, a native of Peru, Vermont. Specimens from Indiana and Michigan were evidently collected in 1837 by Dr. Allen. He made a handsome and valuable collection of minerals, afterwards purchased by Middlebury College, and wrote various scientific articles, which were published in Silliman's Journal of Science.
Dr. Allen died at Middlebury, Vt., Feb. 2, 1848. The cause of his death was an accidental fall from a horse.
Dr. Allen's chief characteristics seem to have been studious devotion to scientific study, especially those branches dealing with natural history. He was an amiable, unassuming man, prompt and conscientious in his attention to his patients and a good citizen, zealous in the promotion of every good cause.