Legal Career
Allen moved to Portland, Maine in the early 1840s and studied law and worked as a law clerk for General Samuel Fessenden, a local abolitionist and attorney. After passing the Maine bar exam, he was granted his license to practice law in Maine on July 3, 1844. He experienced difficulty finding legal work in Maine because whites were unwilling to hire a black attorney and few blacks lived in Maine. In 1845 he moved to Boston, Massachusetts, walking fifty miles to the bar exam test site because he could not afford transportation, and passing the exam despite his fatigue. According to some accounts, Allen and Robert Morris then opened the first black law office in the United States. However, in the book Sarah's Long Walk, the authors state, "we have no direct knowledge that ever met". While living in Boston, Allen met and married Hannah, with whom he ultimately had five sons. Racial prejudice in Boston again kept Allen from making a living as a lawyer so he sought to become a judge to supplement his income. After passing a rigorous qualifying exam for Justice of the Peace for Middlesex County, Massachusetts in 1848, Allen became the first African American in the United States to hold a judicial position— despite not being considered a U.S. citizen under the Constitution at the time.
Following the American Civil War Allen moved to Charleston, South Carolina to open a law office. In 1873, he was appointed as a judge in the Inferior Court of Charleston and one year later was elected as probate judge for Charleston County, South Carolina.
After Reconstruction, Allen moved to Washington, D.C. where he was employed as an attorney for the Land and Improvement Association. He continued to practice law until his death at age 78.
Read more about this topic: Macon Bolling Allen
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