Allen, William (1803-1879), served as an Ohio Democrat in the United States House of Representatives from 1833 to 1835 and in the U.S. Senate from 1837 to 1849. During the Mexican War (1846-1848), he was a Senate spokesman for President James K. Polk. Allen, known as the “Ohio Foghorn” due to his loud voice, supported westward expansion. He threatened war with the United Kingdom to secure the Oregon Country, a large area between California and Alaska, for the United States. He was governor of Ohio from 1874 to 1876.
Allen was born on Dec. 18, 1803, in Edenton, North Carolina. He died on July 11, 1879. In 1887, Ohio officials donated a statue of Allen to represent the state in Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol at Washington, D.C. In the decades after Allen’s death, many Ohioans questioned whether Allen—a supporter of slavery and outspoken critic of President Abraham Lincoln—was an appropriate figure to represent Ohio in Statuary Hall. In 2016, a statue of Ohio-born inventor Thomas Edison replaced Allen’s statue in the Capitol.
