Tom Allen is Jesse’s older cousin on his mother’s side.  Tom’s mother was Hannah M. Reynolds, one of Sarah Bench‘s older sisters.  On May 5, 1864, Hannah married David Allen in Livingston County, Missouri.  Tom was born in 1864 or 1865, and then David died sometime between 1864 and 1868.  Hannah then married William Tyler Johnson on August 6, 1868.  The three of them show up in the 1870 federal census living next to Hannah’s father’s farm in Lost Creek, Newton County, Missouri.  When Tom was 11 or 12, his mother died.  Tom left his step-father and came to live with Jesse’s parents.  He was 15 years old and living with the Bench family during the 1880 federal census.  At some point, Tom moved to the Northwest and worked in the logging industry.  It seems to be Tom’s logging work that brings Jesse and John to travel to Washington State and work in the sawmills for a short time.

A 21 year-old Thomas Allen shows up in the 1885 Kansas State Census as a hired hand living with N. W. and Maggie Hendkins in Rock Creek, Jefferson County, Kansas.  Tom next appears as the 35 year-old, Missouri-born T. W. Allen in the 1900 federal census listed as working as a day laborer in a saw mill in Mott, Siskiyou, California.  He is boarding in a house full of saw mill employees.  We then see Tom as 45 years old and still working in the logging industry in Squaw Valley, Siskiyou, California, and still single in 1910.  In the 1920 federal census, he is 55 years old and living in Corning, Tehama, California.  He is living with his niece Olga Smith Goings.  Tom Allen died in 1921 and is buried in Sims Cemetery in Lakehead, Shasta County, California near his niece Pearl Smith‘s first husband George Witt.