Jonathan Allen (1773–1845), merchant, farmer, and public official, was born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. He operated a mercantile business and from 1799 to 1804 served as Pittsfield’s deputy sheriff. Allen lived in Boston in 1805 but returned thereafter to his hometown. In 1810 he imported a large flock of merino sheep from Portugal. The following year Allen helped found the Berkshire Agricultural Society in Pittsfield, serving as secretary, 1816–17, and president, 1820–22. He served in the United States Army as an assistant deputy quartermaster general with the rank of captain, 1813–15. An active Republican, Allen represented Pittsfield in the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1812, 1816, 1817, 1820, and 1821, and he sat in the state senate in 1822 and 1823. He moved to a farm outside of town in 1819 and continued to breed merinos until returning to Pittsfield in 1833, where he was postmaster from 1837 until his death (Berkshire Historical and Scientific Society, Collections [1895]: 62–8; Joseph E. A. Smith, The History of Pittsfield, (Berkshire County,) Massachusetts, from the year 1800 to the year 1876 [1876]; Pittsfield Berkshire Gazette, 28 Feb. 1798; Berkshire Co. Deputy Sheriff Records [MPBCH]; The Boston Directory [Boston, 1805], 10; Heitman, U.S. Army description begins Francis B. Heitman, comp., Historical Register and Dictionary of the United States Army, 1903, repr. 1994, 2 vols. description ends , 1:159; Rules and Orders to be observed in the House of Representatives, of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts [1812]: 36; [1817]: 27; [1822]: 10; [1823]: 19; Boston Gazette, 13 June 1816; Boston Columbian Centinel, 27 May 1820; Boston Daily Advertiser, 14 May 1821; The Biennial Register of all Officers and Agents in the Service of the United States [1838], 37; Pittsfield Berkshire County Whig, 29 May 1845; gravestone inscription in Pittsfield Cemetery).

Allen had sent TJ a copy of the Address of Jonathan Allen, Esq. President of the Berkshire Agricultural Society, delivered before the Berkshire Association for the promotion of Agriculture and Manufactures, at Pittsfield, October 4, 1821. together with the Reports of the Committees of Departments (Pittsfield, 1821), which promoted the invention and improvement of agricultural implements to help combat the high price of labor; argued that if the state government extended to agriculturists “rewards and immunities” similar to those given to commercial and manufacturing interests, it would aid agriculture and discourage the westward migration of farmers (quote on p. 6); discouraged liquor consumption by agricultural laborers; favored greater discrimination in breeding cattle and oxen; suggested that particular attention be given to improving the cultivation of flax; printed the society’s various committee reports, which named the winners of premiums for crops, livestock, domestic manufactures, and a plowing match; gave an “abstract of the modes of raising sundry premium crops” (quote on p. 24); and listed the Berkshire Agricultural Society’s officers and members.