History #
The Dan Allen was a wooden barge built in Canada in 1872. It had an official number of 35474 and measured 117 feet in length, 23 feet in beam, and 8 feet in depth. The barge had a gross tonnage of 181.
On April 9, 1885, during the spring breakup, the Dan Allen was pushed by ice and collided with the steamer Burlington and the barge H.F. Church. The collision drove them into the Military Street bridge at Port Huron, Michigan, on the Black River, which caused the barge to become jammed under the Church. A legal dispute arose regarding whether the Church should be removed first or the Allen. By the time the issue was resolved, the Dan Allen had become a total loss.
The wreck of the Dan Allen was eventually flattened in August 1885 using dynamite. The barge was owned by G. W. Allen of Port Huron. It is noted that the Dan Allen was likely rebuilt as a barge in Erie, Pennsylvania, after a previous wreck in 1880. There is a possibility that it was originally a Canadian steamer named Vanderbilt and may have been built in 1855 in Milan, Ohio
