Allen was born in Otis, Massachusetts, on May 4, 1841,[1] to Ethan and Lydia Child Allen, née Burr.[2][3]
He graduated from Kenyon College in 1862 and Andover Theological Seminary in 1865.[1] He received the degree D.D. from Kenyon 1878, from Harvard, 1886, and from Yale, 1901.[1]
In 1872, he married Elizabeth Kent Stone; they remained together until her death in 1892.[2] The couple had two children; Henry Van Dyke and John Stone Allen.[3]
Allen was a resident licentiate of Andover, Massachusetts, from 1865 to 1867, he also took orders in the Protestant Episcopal Church, being ordained a deacon, July 5, 1865, and priest, June 24, 1866.[1] He was rector of St. John's church, Lawrence, Massachusetts, from 1865 to 1867, and professor of ecclesiastical history at the Episcopal theological school at Cambridge, Massachusetts, from 1867.[1] He was elected a member of the Massachusetts Historical Society.[1]
He died in Cambridge on July 1, 1908.[4]
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