Allen McKee was born in 1846 in Adams, Jefferson County, New York, the son of Levi Allen McKee (1820-1893) and Sarah Ann Miles.
In 1860 there was an Levi Allen McKee (b. 1819) who was living with his wife Diana at the Fay Hotel in Manistee, Manistee County. He remarried in 1883 to New York native Eliza Nims (b. 1839).
Allen stood 5’8” with hazel eyes, brown hair and a fair complexion and was an 18-year-old lumberman living in Manistee when he enlisted in Company I on February 6, 1864, at Grand Rapids for 3 years, crediting Manistee, and was mustered the same day. He joined the Regiment on February 17 at Camp Bullock, Virginia, and although officially reported as absent sick in May, he later claimed to be taken prisoner at the Wilderness, Virginia, and on November 11, 1864 confined at Andersonville for some five months. (If he was in fact taken prisoner it was probably while the Fifth Michigan was engaged at Boydton Plank road, Virginia on October 31, 1864.) Interestingly, he was reported as absent sick and not as a prisoner-of-war when he was transferred to Company I, 5th Michigan Infantry upon consolidation of the 3rd and 5th Michigan Regiments on June 10, 1864, and he remained listed as absent sick until he was discharged on June 10, 1865, at Emory hospital in Washington, DC.
In late December of 1864, however, Allen was reported by an Agent for the Michigan Soldier’s Relief Association as a patient at Davidson hospital No. 1 at the Naval School in Annapolis, Maryland, and as having recently been released from Andersonville prison.
After the war Allen returned to Manistee where he engaged in sailing on the Great Lakes for a number of years.
He was married to Maine native Arthea Lowry (b. 1848), and they had at least one child: Pearl (b. 1875).
By 1870 he was working as an engineer and living with his wife in Manistee’s Second Ward; also living with him was a sailor named William Crawford and his family as well as Arthea’s younger sister Mary. By 1880 Allen was working as an engineer and living with his wife and daughter in Manistee, Manistee County. In 1883 he was working in the lumber industry and in the early 1880s was an engineer and machinist working at the mill of the Manistee Lumber company in Manistee. By 1900 Allen was working as an engineer and living with is wife and her mother in Manistee’s 1st Ward. By 1910 Allen and his wife were living on Within Street in Manistee’s 1st Ward where he worked as an engineer on a steam barge. Allen lived in Manistee the remainder of his life.
Allen married New York native Mrs. Mary F. Seeber Snell (b. 1849), a resident of Denver, Colorado, on June 10, 1914.
By 1920 Allen and Sarah were living on Arthur Street in Manistee’s 1st Ward. were living in Manistee.
He was a Freemason and a member of the Old Third Michigan Infantry Association.
In 1906 he applied for and received a pension (no. 1144876).
Allen died on November 4, 1921, in Manistee and was presumably buried in Manistee County.
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