Samuel Leeds Allen (May 5, 1841 – March 28, 1918) was the founder of S.L. Allen & Company in Philadelphia. He was the inventor of, and his company manufactured, both the

Flexible Flyer Flexible Flyer is a toy and recreational equipment brand, best known for the sled of the same name, a steerable wooden sled with steel runners. Operation Flexible Flyers are flexible both in design and usage. Riders may sit upright on the sl ...

sled and Planet Jr farm and garden equipment. For over one hundred years these products were the best selling and most famous market gardening tools and American sleds. During his lifetime and for the first half of the 20th century S.L. Allen was far more renowned for his company's seed drills and cultivating equipment than the sleds.

Biography

Allen was born on May 5, 1841 in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...

to Quaker parents: John Casdorp Allen, a prominent druggist, and Rebecca Smith Leeds, his wife. In 1861, Allen moved to ''Ivystone'', his father's farm near the community of Westfield in

Cinnaminson Township, New Jersey Cinnaminson Township is a township in Burlington County, New Jersey, United States. Cinnaminson Township borders the Delaware River, and is an eastern suburb of Philadelphia. As of the 2010 United States Census, the township's population was 1 ...

. On November 22, 1866, Samuel Leeds Allen and Sarah Hooton Roberts, the daughter of Elisha Roberts and Elizabeth West Hooton, were married in the Friends Meeting House,

Moorestown, New Jersey Moorestown is a township in Burlington County in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is an eastern suburb of Philadelphia and geographically part of the South Jersey region of the state. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the township's population was ...

. Allen's revolutionary sled was developed and tested at ''Ivystone''. Stokes Hill, a popular sledding area located next to Breidenhart, Allen's Moorestown home, has been mistakenly identified as the "birthplace" of the Flexible Flyer sled. Allen actually built his house in 1894, five years after the Flexible Flyer was introduced. However, the early versions of the sled were likely tested on Stokes Hill, which led to Allen fine tuning his invention. His Sled Patent No. 381,655, dated April 24, 1888, lists Allen as being from Cinnaminson, New Jersey. Another of his sled patents, Patent No. 797,165, dated Aug. 15, 1905, lists Allen as being from Moorestown, New Jersey.

Legacy

Allen was awarded almost 300 patents for a wide range of farming machinery, including the fertilizer drill, seed drill, potato digger, cultivator, furrower, pulverizer, grass edger and numerous other farm implements. In order to provide year-round employment for his workers producing farm equipment, Mr. Allen sought to create a product that could be sold during the winter. His passion for sledding led him to develop a series of sleds and sled improvements. Allen was issue
U.S. Patent number 408,681
on August 13, 1889 for the Flexible Flyer.

Notes

Bibliography

*Allen, Elizabeth Roberts (1920). ''Samuel L. Allen; intimate recollections and letters''. Philadelphia: Franklin Printing Co. *DeCou, George (1929). ''Moorestown and her neighbors; historical sketches''. Philadelphia: Harris & Partridge, Inc.

External links

* ttp://www.njinvent.org/2004/allen.html New Jersey Inventors Hall of Famebr>Biographical information about Samuel L. AllenSledding at Westtown
{{DEFAULTSORT:Allen, Samuel Leeds 1841 births 1918 deaths 20th-century American inventors Quakers from Pennsylvania People from Cinnaminson Township, New Jersey People from Moorestown, New Jersey Westtown School alumni