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Indiana University Studies 
county $2,698 to keep them in the County Poor Asylum for 
a total of 18 years, 9 months, and 25 days. Thus not count- 
ing relief from private sources and expense m keeping them 
in institutions other than those of the county, they have cost 
society $4,521.19. Not only have they cost this sum, but, ex- 
cept the Acre branch of 6 or 7 members, no self-supporting 
members of society have been produced. 
5. The Ripple Creek Group 
Two miles east of Johnstown, huddled about the Ripple 
Creek schoolhouse, is the Allen settlement. None of the homes 
are more than 1 mile off of a good pike road and none are 
more than 3 miles from the railroad, yet the country has the 
wild, unsettled appearance of a district 20 miles from civiliza- 
tion. 
The Allen history is not known very far back. They were 
in the county in the early days, having come there from Ken- 
tucky. Mrs. Catherine Smith, who is about 70 years old, says 
that her grandfather Allen came to this county a long time 
before the Civil War with his brother Joseph. This great- 
uncle Joseph had a son, Oscar, who was an epileptic. He was 
very much feared by his family because of his violent tenden- 
cies. Once he almost killed his father with a razor. He died 
when he was about 30 years old. 
Mark Allen, the common ancestor of the Ripple Creek 
tribe, had 2 children of whom we have record. His son John 
married Bertha Keen of Township 9, by whom he had 6 chil- 
dren: James, Robert, Rachael, Catherine, Betty, and Claud. 
Mark’s daughter married Chester Bell and founded the Bell 
branch of the family in the southern part of the township. 
James Allen, the first child of John, was insane “off and 
on during his whole life”, say his daughter and sister. He 
sometimes heard voices commanding him to do strange things. 
He wore his hair to his waist because the Savior wore His in 
that fashion when He was on earth. He was married 3 times. 
His first wife was Agnes Smith, by whom he had 1 child, 
Clara; the second wife was Jennie Brill, by whom he had 1 
child, Mary; the third wife was Eliza Sample, by whom he 
had 5 children: Robert, Clem, Catherine, Bessie, and Dewey. 
Clara Allen, the child of James by Agnes Smith, lives 
alone on Ripple Creek in a little one-room shack on a forty- 
