Samuel McFerran, born March 8, 1780, died 1820, married Placencia Van Meter, daughter of Isaac and Hester Ann Peck Van Meter. "Placy" was born 1786, died September 20, 1855. After Samuel McFerran's death, "Placy" married John Allen, born 1774, died 1854, he the son of Moses Allen.
John Allen married Placencia in 1835.
There were no children of Placencia's marriage to John Allen.
John Allen, the son of Moses Allen, was the grandson of Malcolm Allen, the first settler in the gorge of the James River above Pattonsburg. (Pattonsburg was the settlement just across the river from present day Buchanan, to the north). He appears first in the year 1754 when he entered 285 acres of land on a small branch of the James River and 200 acres on the north side of the James. This land was located in a sort of limestone pocket at the western end of Purgatory Mountain. The spring selected was a good one, somewhat back from the river... he built his house on a shelf of rock immediately above the spring. A hundred yards away he found an ideal place for a bank barn on the rim of a broad crater which was drained towards the spring branch at the south. Around the dome site there was gently sloping land to furnish amply fields for an attractive plantation. He brought his wife Mary, and several small children from Prince Edward County, but through the Indian was from 1756 to 1762 he was reported in Augusta as "not in the County"... His will made in December 1792 provided that his son, Hugh, should have the land at the east end of the place; Robert was to have the other part of that "Patten" land where he dwelt; Moses was to have the ninety acres known as "Gracy Bottom", and that part as high as where the old patch forked to go down Lick Run. The daughters, Rebecca, Mary, Martha, Elizabeth and Letty were to have five shillings each, they having received their portion before. John was to have all the rest of the estate, both real and personal, and act as executor of the will. [Kegley: "Virginia Frontier", pg. 484]
