Buckingham Notables: The Allens of Hunts Creek, Part V

William Hunt Allen will. Courtesy Library of Virginia.

The Fall 2018 Issue of Central Virginia Heritage includes three Allen family wills transcribed by Jean L. Cooper. These wills inspired “The Allens of Hunts Creek.”

Need to catch up? Click here: Buckingham Notables: The Allens of Hunts Creek, Part I

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The second Allen will transcribed by Jean L. Cooper and published in Central Virginia Heritage (Fall 2018) was written by William Hunt Allen on May 29, 1806, entered into Buckingham County’s Court on October 13, 1806, and now available at the Library of Virginia, it is an extraordinary document filled with clues to Allen family kinship webs, affiliated families, and neighbors in northeastern Buckingham County.

According to Allen-family genealogist Rev. Richard Fenton Wicker, Jr., William Hunt Allen, son of William and Mary (Hunt) Allen, was born in Henrico County, Virginia on May 7, 1724 and married a woman named Elizabeth. Rev. Wicker never discovered her maiden name.

William Hunt Allen, who lived to the age of eighty-two, purchased 680 acres from his father, his property stretching between Slate River and Hunts Creek in Buckingham County. In 1774, he patented an additional 100 acres on Greens Creek in Buckingham and, over the years, purchased numerous additional tracts. An affluent man, on the 1787 tax list, William Hunt Allen reported twenty-six slaves, nine horses, and twenty-nine head of cattle.

Rev. Wicker identifies William Hunt Allen as a leader in the community and the county. Believing Allen to be childless, his property was bequeathed to his widow, nephews, nieces, and other relations. Wicker was saddened by the fact that such an important Buckingham County figure had no lineal descendants, writing: “This editor feels sorrow that no children came from his marriage. They would have been a tremendous contribution to the Commonwealth of Virginia if they had had any of the intelligence, public service orientation, and generous spirit of their father.”

Coming next: Buckingham Notables: The Allens of Hunts Creek, Part VI