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Andrew Allen was born on November 16, 1849, in Potowatamie County, Nebraska. He was the seventh child and the second son of Jude Allen and his wife, Mary Ann Nicholas. In 1852, his father and family joined the Benjamin Gardner company and started the long trek on foot and by ox team and wagon to cross the plains to Utah territory.
The children walked most of the way, driving the sheep and cattle. They were grateful when they reached Utah. They settled in Bountiful, then called Sessions Settlement. Here the family farmed and worked until 1866, when they moved to what they called Fort Box Elder in Box Elder County. Andrew was seventeen years old by then, and he helped build a two-room house and grew expert at farming.
While working around a threshing machine, Andrew lost his arm in the gears, needing amputation above the elbow. It was said of Andrew that he could harness a team or any other work on a farm as quickly as any man with two arms and hands.
At the age of nineteen, Andrew met a lovely dark-haired girl by the name of Elizabeth Lasley. The daughter of John Wesley Lasley and his wife, Elizabeth White. They were married on February 11, 1868. There were eight children born into this union.
In 1882, Andrew filed homestead papers on land in the Rockland valley in Idaho. He had ridden there many times to gather stray cattle and wished to settle there.
The family of Andrew moved to Rockland, Idaho, where they quietly settled in and began farming or ranching. During his life in Rockland, Andrew served as county commissioner, and representative, served in the bishopric of his church for 20 years, was postmaster for ten years, was the first contracted mail carrier between American Falls, Idaho, and Rockland, and operated a general merchandise store as well as running two farms … Honest, charitable, and called “Uncle Andrew” by everyone in Rockland Valley.
His first wife, Elizabeth, whom he married on February 11, 1868, in Salt Lake City, passed away on March 27, 1890, in Rockland. Later, as a county commissioner, he met Marintha Altheria Davis in Malad, Idaho. Marintha was born in Gilberton, Penn., of Welsh parents, Thomas John Davis and Elizabeth Williams.
Andrew and Marintha were married on January 6, 1892.
