Elisha Hunt Allen

Elisha Hunt Allen (January 28, 1804 – January 1, 1883) was an American congressman, lawyer and diplomat, and judge and diplomat for the Kingdom of Hawaii.

Early life Elisha Hunt Allen was born January 28, 1804, in New Salem, Massachusetts. His father was Massachusetts minister, lawyer, and politician Samuel Clesson Allen (1772–1842) and mother was Mary (née Hunt) Allen (1774–1833).

He attended New Salem Academy and graduated from Williams College in 1823.

Career Allen was admitted to the bar in 1825 and commenced practice in Brattleboro, Vermont. In 1830 he moved to Bangor, Maine and entered into practice with John Appleton (born 1804), who would subsequently become Chief Justice of the Maine Supreme Court. Appleton would also marry Allen's sister Sarah in 1834. Allen was a member of Bangor's first City Council, from 1834, and from 1835 to 1840 was a member of the Maine House of Representatives, representing Bangor. He served as its Speaker in 1838. From 1841 until 1843, he served in the U.S. House of Representatives as a member of the Whig party, but his district (Maine's 8th congressional district) was eliminated before the next election based on census data. He ran in the 1842 election against Hannibal Hamlin but was defeated.

Following this loss, Allen ran for the Maine Legislature once more, serving one term before moving from Bangor to Boston in 1847 and being elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1849.

Kingdom of Hawaii From 1850 to 1853, he was United States Consul in Honolulu, Hawaii under president Millard Fillmore. He realized the potential for the Hawaiian Islands to provide agricultural products to the growing number of people in the California Gold Rush and tried to negotiate a trade treaty but failed.

When he was replaced by an appointment from the Democratic Party president Franklin Pierce in August 1853, he decided to stay due to the severe shortage of legal professionals, and became a citizen of the Kingdom of Hawaii. Within weeks he was appointed Minister of Finance for King Kamehameha III replacing Gerrit P. Judd, and from 1854 to 1856 served in the House of Nobles. The Allens' first-born son, Frederick, was born ten days after Prince Albert Edward Kauikeaouli Kaleiopapa, and the two children became playmates.

Ellen Fessenden Allen (1831–1881), who married George Tiffany. After his death, she married Henry Adams Patterson, and, thirdly, Charles Coffin Harris (1822–1881), her father's successor as Chief Justice and Chancellor. William Fessenden Allen (1831–1906), who married Cordelia Church Bishop (1837–1912), cousin of banker Charles Reed Bishop. William also served as Collector-General of the port of Honolulu. and who married Julia Anne Herrick (1839–1913). Sarah Fessenden Allen (1837–1901), who married Dr. William Palmer Wesselhoeft (1835–1909), one of the founders of the Massachusetts Homeopathic Hospital.

In June 1856, he sailed back to New England and married Mary Harrod Hobbs (b. 1808) (sometimes spelled Hobbes) in Philadelphia on March 11, 1857. Mary was daughter of another former Maine legislator Frederick Hobbs. Together, they were the parents of two children, including:

Frederick Hobbes Allen (1858–1937), who served as his father's secretary, graduated from Harvard Law School in 1883, and become a law partner of his firm Adams & Allen in New York.

He died from a heart attack at the White House New Year's Reception for the Washington Diplomatic Corps given by president Chester Arthur at the White House on January 1, 1883, shortly before his 79th birthday. He is interred in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts.