Ward Allen

Robert Ward Allen (August 8, 1856 – August 23, 1931) was an American naturalist, duck hunter and merchant. He became the central character in John Eugene Cay Jr.'s 1958 non-fiction book Ward Allen: Savannah River Market Hunter. The book was the basis for the 2013 movie Savannah.

Early life and career Allen was born in 1856 in Savannah, Georgia, the oldest child of Robert E. Allen and Georgia Ward. His father, a lawyer who owned Savannah's Allen's Station plantation, died when Allen was ten years old.

He studied at the University of Oxford, but after returning to the United States, he decided he did not want to follow his father into the legal world; instead, he formed a duck-hunting business in Savannah's marshland with Christmas Moultrie, a former slave born on Mulberry Grove Plantation on December 25, 1857. They sold the ducks to local restaurants, including that of The DeSoto, at Savannah's St. John's Church. Stubbs, the daughter of an affluent Savannahian family, was over twenty years younger than Allen. The newlyweds rented a large house on Oglethorpe Avenue in Savannah's downtown. Jim Caviezel portrayed Allen in the movie adaptation. In 2019, Allen's collection of duck decoys and shotguns were donated to the Georgia Historical Society.