Biography john kirby allen texas

Co-founder of Houston, Texas in

For other people named John Allen, see John Allen (disambiguation).

John Kirby Allen ( – August 15, ) was a co-founder of the city of Houston and a former member of the Republic of Texas House of Representatives. He was born in Canaseraga Village, New York (the present-day hamlet of Sullivan in the Town of Sullivan, New York).^[1] He never married. He died of congestive fever on August 15, , and was buried at Founders Memorial Cemetery in Houston, Texas.

Early years

When he was seven years old, John took his first job as a hotel porter in a hotel in Orrville (present-day DeWitt, New York).^[1] Three years later, he started working as a clerk in a retail shop. At sixteen, he formed a partnership with a friend operating a hat store at Chittenango, New York, where his brother, Augustus Chapman Allen, was a professor of mathematics. In , John cashed in his interest in the hat store and followed his brother