He was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, on August 9, 1797,[1] the son of Joseph Allen and grandnephew of Samuel Adams).

[2] In 1842, he was a member of the Maine-New Brunswick boundary commission created by the Webster–Ashburton Treaty that ended the Aroostook War.

[1] He was a judge of the Court of Common Pleas from 1842 to 1845 and a delegate to the 1848 Whig National Convention in Philadelphia.

[2] He was a member of the state's constitutional convention in 1853, and was chief justice of the Suffolk County Superior Court from 1858 to 1867.

[2] The home on which he began construction, the Charles Allen House, was completed by his descendants and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.