Center for Lowell History/ 2019

The following images are from the Walter E. Hayes Album.  During the early 1900s, Walter Hayes was the chauffeur and groundskeeper of Governor Charles Herbert Allen’s residence “The Terraces” on Rolfe Street [now: University of Massachusetts Lowell, South Campus]. 

Charles Herbert Allen 1848-1934

Born in Lowell, Massachusetts, April 15, 1848, he attended public schools, graduated from Lowell High School and Amherst College, Massachusetts. He engaged in the manufacture of wooden boxes and in the lumber business with his father; Otis Allen and Son. He died at his Rolfe Street Residence, Lowell, Massachusetts, April 20, 1934 and is buried in Lowell Cemetery.

Allen’s political career began with the Lowell School Committee, where he was instrumental in starting the Lowell Evening Schools; in 1884, he received the title “Colonel,” when Governor George Dexter Robinson appointed him to his personal staff. Allen's large circle of friends always used this designation when addressing him; elected as a Republican to the Forty-ninth and Fiftieth Congresses (March 4, 1885-March 3, 1889); declined to be a candidate for re-nomination in 1888. Allen was nominated for governor by the Republicans in 1890 but was defeated by William E. Russell. He also served as Massachusetts Prison Commissioner from 1897 to 1898.

In 1898, President William McKinley named Allen Assistant Secretary of the Navy when Theodore Roosevelt resigned the post to enter the Spanish American War. Allen held this position from 1898 to 1900. Selected as a Trustee of Amherst College and honored with an LL.D. degree in 1900. In 1899, at the end of the war President McKinley appointed Allen as the first civil governor of Puerto Rico. Allen retired from this post in 1902 with the island government out of debt and with over one million dollars in its treasury.

Upon his return home to Lowell, he became financially interested in banking and other enterprises and served on the board of directors for several banks and businesses in Lowell and New York. Allen served as vice president of the Morton Trust Company and of the Guaranty Trust Company of New York and as president of the American Sugar Refining Company.