Zachariah Allen

Zachariah Allen was born on September 15, 1795, in Providence, Rhode Island, to Zachariah and Anne (Crawford) Allen. His older brother Philip, served Rhode Island as governor (1851–1853) and later as a United States senator (1853–1859). Allen's father died in 1801, when he was only five years old, so he was mostly raised by his mother, and acquired a love of knowledge, particularly science at an early age. He was educated at a school in Medford, Massachusetts, then later at Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire.

Allen's mother, Anne, died in 1808, just a year before he entered Brown University, where he graduated in 1813. Allen later served as a trustee of the University from 1826 to 1882. Upon graduation from Brown, he briefly considered a career in medicine, but instead studied law for two years in the office of James Burrill, and was admitted to practice in the Rhode Island Courts in 1815.

In 1817, Allen married Eliza Harriet Arnold, the daughter of Welcome Arnold, a well-known Providence merchant who had participated in the Gaspee Affair in 1772. The Allens had three daughters, Anne Crawford, Mary Arnold (wife of Andrew Robeson Jr.) and Candace.