History

Douglass and Phoebe CONGER came to Michigan
from Otsego, New York accompanied by his brother. When near Monroe, Michigan the brother and family went south to Ohio.

While Douglass and his family came on into Mighigan and settled on a farm in Armada Twp, Macomb Co, Michigan.

Most of their children were born there. Douglass died with out ever having heard from his brother again.

Hezeakiah the second eldest son, while still in his teens, took over the burden of caring for the mother and younger children.

After the children were out on their own, the old farm was broken up and Phoebe went to live with her daughter Harriet at the Sweets Hotel at Sweets Corner and there she passed away at the age of 78 years and 11 months.

Taken as a whole the family was strong and robust, tall of stature, and light complexioned.

They were ready to lend a hand to anyone in need, were strictly temperate and always wanted to see fair play.

How excludingly grateful we of this generation should be to have such wonderful memories of these loved ones to look upon and may each succeeding generation grow to be better, more capable and more useful in this God's great family on earth.

Douglass and Phoebe had 10 children: (Roy)Roswell; Sylvester D.; Hezekiah; Jesse; Alexander C.; Harriet F.; Jesse C.; Darius; Phoebe M. and Clarissa.


Darius ALLEN: 1842-1925

The following is from the "Biographical Memoirs Of Saint Clair Co, published by B. F. BOWEN in 1903.

"Darius ALLEN was born September 8, 1842, in Armada Twp, Macomb Co, Michigan and is a son of Douglass and Phoebe (CONGER) ALLEN, both natives of New York State. Douglass ALLEN came to Michigan in 1836 and located in Armada Twp, Macomb Co, which at that time was a wilderness, the nearest market being Mount Clemens. He died in 1850, leaving his family a piece of land of forty-five acres cleared. He was a Democrat and was an active, daring poineer, one of the first settlers in that secion of the state.

The maternal grandfather of the subject was Jesse CONGER, who came from New York and settled in Michigan in an early day. Douglass ALLEN raised a family of ten children: Sylvester, Hezekiah, Jesse, Alexander, Harriet, Jesse C., Darius, Phoebe, Clarissa and Roswell.

All had common school education and have acquired good homes for themslves and are robust and hearty set of men and women.
In early life Darius ALLEN started out for himself, at the same time assisting his mother and the family all he could. He earned his first set of clothes by trapping beaver and other fur-bearing animals, and also worked in lumber camps and assisted in clearing up their own land.

The first real estate he ever owned was a ten-acre tract. He was married, in 1865, to Mary Jane STANLIKE, who died in 1896. She was a daughter of Thomas STANLAKE, one of the early pioneers and a well to do farmer of Berlin Twp. Darius ALLEN and his wife settled on secion 28, in Berlin Twp, on forty acres of land, and he has added to this, from
time to time, until he now has six hundrede acres of well improved land.

He has a family of five children: George, Elsie, Jane, Lula, Ina and Ethan. Mr. ALLEN has always been known as a famous hunter.

He says, and others bear out his assertion, that the number of deer that he has killed will run over the thousand mark, and he has also killed dozens of bear and other game of all kinds.

Darius ALLEN has long been and is now one of the leading citizens of Berlin Twp and Saint Clair Co, and is enabled to trace his family lineage back to that of Ethan ALLEN of Ticonderoga fame. In his farming operations he follows the system of mixed, or general stock, farming, in which he has been eminently successful.

In the carrying on of work on his farm, he requires and oversees the labor of twenty-five men and possesses the most complete truck farm in Saint Clair Co. His crop of this year will give an idea of the magnitude of his
estate and his farming operations; of potatoes, he has out sixty-five acres; corn, sixty acres; chickory, thirty acres; onion, thirty acres; sugar beeets, five acres; oats, ninety acres; wheat, twenty acres; and peppermint, a hundred acres. He has also twenty-five acres of clover
and one hundred and fifty acres of timothy. He favors a rotation of crops, and is an ideal stock raiser, having five hundred Shropshire sheep and many registered Durham cattle.

He built a peppermint distillery in 1896, and produces nearly ten thousand pounds of peppermint oil per year, finding in this a profirable source of income.

Mr. ALLEN is a Democrat and is very active in Twp and Co politics. He has been drainage commissioner and commissioner of highways, justice of the peace, etc. He purchased the first gravel pit ever opened in Berlin Twp, and had the contract for building and fencing ten miles of
the Pere Marquette Railroad.

He also furnished thirty thousand ties for the same road, has done other estensive contract work and has been interested in several lumber deals that involved large amounts.

He is the best type of a successful, self-made man of the world. He commenced life, as so many of the young men of our country do, with no capital save an ambition to excel, backed by an energetic will and the brawn and muscle which the coarse fare and hardy outdoor life geve and which was the foundation for the future achievements of the descendants of the poineer fathers of our country.

Darius ALLEN is endowed with the mental acumen which enables him to take advantage of the natural tendencies of the times in which he is surrounded and to adopt that course which is productive of best results. In all professions and in every line of business the tendency of
the age has been along the line of concentration.

Experience has demonstrated the fact that in the profession of farming, the application of these ideas is no less successful than in that of others; and the successful, we may say the brilliant, results attained by Mr. ALLEN are
among the striking illustrations of the accuracy of the theory.

Starting in life with the comparatively trifling amount of ten acres of land, he has added to this by his industry and successful management, until now he has six hundred or more acres of land in a high state of cultivation. To his general and mixed system of stock raising and cultivation of the staple cereals and grasses, he has added the specialty of market-gardening, with the addition of some products that are comparatively rare and from which he is realizing good results financially.

Mr. ALLEN has at times during his life also had charge of and has been engaged in contract work for corporations and public works, which proves the bent of his mind, his ability to grapple with problems of more than average magnitude; and his disposition to engage in the larger concerns of life. He has also in his busy life found time to devote to his civic duties, being an active worker in his party, in which his interest in the public affairs of his Twp and Co, with his ability and inclination for public service, has been recognized by his selection to fill
various Twp offices and to act as delegate in numerous conventions of his party.

He is an inteligent and active citizen, fully alive to all the topics of the day, and especiallly interested in all questions which concern the interest of the community in which he lives. He is a busy man of affairs, possessing the respect and confidence of the public, and being in the prime of life in regards to years, and sound in mental and
physicals qualities, many years of future usefulness seem to be vouchsafed to him."

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