From the InfoBase family history CD, entry in LDS Biographical Encyclopedia, Andrew Jenson, Vol. 3, p.581:


Allen, Elijah, was born Feb. 7, 1826, in the town of Burton, Cattarangus county, New York, the son of Andrew Lee Allen and Clarinda Knapp. Becoming a convert to "Mormonism," he was baptized in Kirtland, Ohio, in 1836, and confirmed a member of the Church by Sidney Rigdon. He afterwards shared with the Saints in their persecutions and trials in Missouri and Illinois. Early in February, 1846, he left Nauvoo for the west, driving a team for President Brigham Young. On his arrival on the Missouri river he enlisted in the Mormon Battallion and marched as a private in Company B to California. After his discharge in that State, July 16, 1847, and after passing through a siege of sickness, he obtained employment at the San Gabriel Mission, where he worked until 1848. In February of that year, together with about a dozen other men, he started for Great Salt Lake with about two hundred head of cattle, purchased for the Church, and after a difficult journey he arrived in Salt Lake Valley in the latter part of May, 1848, and commenced farming at the mouth of Red Butte Canyon. He paid a Brother Fuller $5 for half a bushel of seed corn to plant and the same amount for half a bushel of buckwheat, and he also paid 25 cents per pound for flour. The crickets, who destroyed his growing crops, saved him the trouble of harvesting. Later in the year (1848) he started for the States with Mr. Miles Goodyear, with a band of horses. On Sweetwater they met [p.582] President Brigham Young and his company en route for the Valley. Continuing his journey eastward, he finally reached the States, crossing the Missouri river Oct. 23, 1848. There again he met his parents, brothers and sisters, from whom he had been absent two years and three months. When Bro. Allen returned to Utah, he became a resident of Provo, Utah county, where he was identified with the 21st quorum of Seventy. He died in Herriman, Salt Lake county, Utah, April 12, 1866.