Charles H. Allen, William North Lodge of Lowell, Massachusetts, became the first governor of Puerto Rico after the US freed it from Spanish rule. A man of incredible talent, he was an accomplished artist, musician and cabinet-maker. Also an avid gardener, his home, "The Terraces," boasted showcase gardens featuring fountains, a pergola, and a gazebo now located at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, Center for Lowell History. Twenty-seven of his landscape and marine paintings are now in Lowell's Whistler House Museum of Art. As Governor of Puerto Rico, he eliminated the island's debt that had accrued over 400 years of despotic Spanish rule and incredibly left it with over a million dollars in its treasury.
