Philip Allen was born in Bridgewater, Massachusetts, on July 9, 1757. At the outbreak of the Revolution, eighteen-year-old Allen enlisted as his brother’s substitute in Captain Packard’s company of Colonel David Brewster’s regiment. He served in at least five Massachusetts regiments and participated in the battles of Half Moon and Bennington. In September 1777, he joined General Gate’s army and was present at the surrender of British General John Burgoyne and his forces at Saratoga, New York. In 1844, Allen and a large number of his family migrated from New York to Wisconsin by way of the Erie Canal. Philip Allen died on July 9, 1845, his eighty-eighth birthday, and is buried here.