[3] Allaire was born either in his family's ancestral home city of New Rochelle, New York, or under self-preserving exile in Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia, Canada.

Before the War of 1812, Allaire's foundry received an order from Robert Fulton to make the brass works for the Clermont, the first commercially successful steamboat.

Under that partnership, Allaire and Stoutinger built the engine for Fulton's last steamship design, the Chancellor Livingston, as well as the air cylinder for the Savannah, the first steam powered vessel to successfully cross the Atlantic.

When Soutinger died shortly thereafter, Allaire removed the business to Corlear's Hook in lower Manhattan where his brass foundry was located.

During the War of 1812, an embargo on British products and goods caused businessmen like Allaire much difficulty in procuring the resources needed for America's fledgling industrial base.

For Allaire, the embargo created a scarcity of iron stock necessary for his manufacturing operations and led him to look at acquiring a satisfactory means of assuring a steady, inexpensive supply of raw materials.

[6] There is also a transcript of his court-martial for killing a fellow soldier over a dispute about the hiring of an Irish bagpiper in Charleston to impress a girl on St. Patrick's Day in 1781.