William Vincent ALLEN, Congress, NE (1847-1924)

ALLEN, William Vincent, a Senator from Nebraska; born in Midway, Madison County, Ohio, January 28, 1847; moved with his parents to Iowa in 1857; attended the common schools and Upper Iowa University at Fayette; served as a private during the Civil War; studied law at West Union, Iowa; admitted to the bar in 1869 and practiced in Iowa until 1884, when he moved to Madison, Nebr.; judge of the district court of the ninth judicial district of Nebraska 1891-1893; permanent chairman of the Populist State conventions in 1892, 1894, and 1896; elected as a Populist to the United States Senate and served from March 4, 1893, to March 3, 1899; unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1899; appointed and subsequently elected judge of the district court of the ninth judicial district of Nebraska and served from March 9, 1899, until December 1899, when he resigned to return to the Senate; appointed to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Monroe L. Hayward, and served from December 13, 1899, to March 28, 1901, when a successor was elected; was not a candidate for election to the vacancy; chairman, Committee on Forest Reservations and Game Protection (Fifty-fourth and Fifty-fifth Congresses); resumed the practice of law in Madison, Nebr.; again elected judge of the district court of the ninth judicial district of Nebraska in 1917 and served until his death; died in Los Angeles, Calif., January 12, 1924; interment in Crown Hill Cemetery, Madison, Nebr.

Bibliography

American National Biography; Dictionary of American Biography; Coletta, Paolo E. “A Tempest in a Teapot? Governor Poynter’s Appointment of William V. Allen to the United States Senate.” Nebraska History 38 (June 1957): 155-63.

Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present