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Biography For William Allen

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Author:
Bill Hart

Background:

William Allen was born on December 30, 1843 in St. Stephens, province of New Brunswick, just across the Maine border.  He moved to Cedar River in Delta County, Michigan with his parents, Samuel and Martha (Slater) Allen, when he was 14 years old.  His father was a lumberman, and Billy followed the logging camps as a small boy.  He spent very little time in school, but he became very adept at “cruising,” or estimating the amount of lumber a tree would yield.  At age 25, he “just drifted into Wausau” and went to work at Kelly’s mill on the Eau Claire River.  Stricken by the beauty of Wisconsin’s Pinery, Billy Allen never again ventured far from home.  During his early years in Wausau he made 13 trips from here to St. Louis and other lower Mississippi points, running lumber rafts to market.         

Accomplishments:

Mr. Allen worked helping county surveyors as this new territory was settled.  He gained major experience as a surveyor and in 1879 was elected Marathon County Surveyor, a post he filled from 1879-1882, and again from 1895-1900. 

“Billy” Allen had a tendency to write songs pertaining to the lumberjacks, on the river, in the forests, and at their work, under the nom de plume of “Shan T. Boy,” taken from the phrase “shanty boy,” another expression for lumberjack.  He was soon known as the “poet of the Pinery.”  He wrote one of his first ballads in 1870, titled “Pathetic Ballad of a Shanty Boy,” which relates the story of an interesting shanty boy on the Eau Claire River.  Among his other writings were "The Little Old Log Shanty on Rib Hill," "The Big Pine Tree," "Wisconsin Again," "Shanty Boy on the Big Eau Claire," and "Land O’ Lakes."The theme of almost every one of his ballads and poems was some phase of outdoor life, with which Mr. Allen was thoroughly familiar.  Lumber cruises often kept him and his crews on snowshoes for days, and many of his writings deal with the rigors of those trips. 

 

His love for his adopted state of Wisconsin probably is best described in his poem “Wisconsin Again.”  In it, he describes the feelings of a homesick traveler who is speeding back to Wisconsin.  Three of its verses are: 

"I have sat neath the shade of fair Italy’s bowers, surrounded by sunshine, by birds and by flowers.  I’ve traveled o’er England, o’er France and Spain, and now, I’ll return to Wisconsin again.

I have viewed California’s far-famed golden shores, its rivers and mountains and silvery ores.  Its orchards and vineyards, and bright fields of grain, yet my thoughts wandered back to Wisconsin again.

Speed, speed, locomotive, along the steel rail, may your wheels never weary, your steam never fail.  Through forest and meadow, o’er prairie and plain, I long to behold dear Wisconsin again."

 

During his life in the woods, he never became interested in hunting, although he always like to fish.  Despite the fact that he saw thousands of deer in the woods, he never shot one of them.   Although he never married, he left a legacy which will live for decades.  

Billy Allen, age 85, passed away at St. Mary’s Hospital in Wausau on May 7, 1929 following a five month lingering illness.  He is buried in Pine Grove Cemetery in Wausau, WI.

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Other Information

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Nickname: Billy

Date of Birth: 12/30/1843

Place of Birth: Canada

Date of Death: 5/7/1929

Place of Death: Wisconsin

Place of Burial: Pine Grove Cemetery Wausau, WI

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