Brasseya Allen

Brasseya Johnson Allen (1762 – ) was a poet who is thought to be the first woman to publish a book of poetry in Maryland.

Allen was a daughter of William Johnson, a landholder in the county of Wicklow, Leinster, Ireland, was born at Temple Lyon, her father's mansion, situated in that county. In 1782 the family moved, it seems, to Arklow, a seaport-town in the same county. She married the Rev. John Allen, a Methodist minister. Her husband had been ordained in Ireland and, in 1795, he took charge of St. George's church, Harford County, Maryland, in connection with a school. He became, in 1875, a professor in St. John's College, Annapolis, and, in 1821, he held a professorship in the University of Maryland in Baltimore. He died in 1830, at the age of seventy. Mrs. Brasseya Allen's literary work consists of a volume of poems entitled Pastorals, Elegies, Odes, Epistles, and Other Poems, by Mrs. Allen, printed by Daniel P. Ruff, Abingdon, Md., 1806.