Jeremiah Allen was born in Boston in 1750, on the same day that his father died. He was the younger brother of James Allen. A high sheriff for Suffolk County, Allen's duties included arresting actors for violating Boston's theatrical ban before 1793. He attended Governor John Hancock on his last visit to the legislature shortly before his death. Characterized by a successor as "a rich and moral old bachelor . . . [who] 'knew very well how to arrest men and to attach women.'" Jeremiah Allen died unmarried in Boston in 1809.