Among the different emigrants bearing this surname that came over in the first half of the seventeenth century was Samuel Allen, who settled at Braintree, Mass., near Boston. From him the line of descent to John, father of Miss Ruth E. Allen, is as follows: Samuel, second, born about 1632; Samuel, third, born in 1660; Joseph, born in 1701; Asahel, born in 1742 or 1743, who married Desire Eames, and was the father of Enoch and grandfather of John Allen.

Enoch Allen, Miss Allen's grandfather, who was born in the eastern part of Windham, now Scotland, Conn., in 1768, was a farmer and stone-mason and a man universally esteemed. He died in 1840. His wife, formerly Betsey Witter, of Canterbury, long surviving him, lived to be eighty-five years of age. Their only daughter died in infancy; but their four sons—Asa W., John, Martin, and David — grew to maturity and married, and all lived to be very advanced in years. Asa W., the eldest, in his youth was a member of a militia company, and was called out at the time of the attack on Stonington Point in the War of 1812. In 1819, shortly after his marriage, he removed to Ohio. In his later years he devoted himself with characteristic "unyielding perseverance" to study of the history of his ancestors, and compiled a brief but valuable genealogy of the Allen and Witter families, which was published in Salem, Ohio, in 1872. Martin Allen removed to Ohio in 1829; and David, the youngest brother, settled at Salem, Ohio, in 1864. Miss Allen's uncles were all teachers, church members, and devoted Christian workers.

Her father, John Allen, was born in 1797, and was educated in the district school. He was married March 9, 1835, to Ruth Waldo Bingham, daughter of Captain John and Talitha (Waldo) Bingham, both lifelong residents of Connecticut. Mr. Allen, having inherited some property, had previously bought a farm, and had finished building the house which has now come down to his daughter, the site having been chosen because of the abundance of pure spring water. By his own industry and business ability he added to his possessions, so that at his death, which occurred on February 22, 1875, he left an estate estimated at thirty thousand dollars. His wife, Ruth, was a teacher before her marriage, and was a woman of cultivation and refinement. She was born in 1800, and died July 12, 1882. Both Mr. and Mrs. Allen were Congregationalists in religion.

Miss Allen is the only child of her parents. She was educated in Dr. Webster's School at Norwich, and was brought up from childhood with the most loving and thoughtful care. She has always clung with attachment to her home, and prefers a quiet and domestic life here to any other. She is deeply interested in all the affairs of her native town, and is always ready to lend her influence for the furtherance of any movement looking to the general good or to assist in any worthy scheme of benevolence. She is a member of the Hanover Congregational Church, and belongs also to the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. 

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