Solon Mather Allis was born on June 28, 1838, in Danville, Quebec.

He was a Civil War veteran, enlisted in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1862. During the Civil War, he was in the battles of Gum Swamp, Kinston, White Hall and Goldsboro, N.C. In 1863, by order of Gen. John G. Fortis, he was placed on detached service in the Engineering Department until October 1864, when he was mustered out with his regiment at Norfolk, Va. For the next two and a half years, Allis was employed by the United States Government on the fortifications of Boston Harbor. Then, he worked on the preliminary survey of the Portland & Ogdensburg Railroad. In 1879, Allis went to Arizona, where he was United States Deputy Mineral Surveyor for six years. During that period, he laid out the town of Tombstone. For a year, he was Superintendent of Mines in Mexico. In 1886, he returned East and was elected Superintendent of Water Works in Malden, Mass., the position he held for six years. Upon his return to Malden, he was employed in landscape engineering in different parts of the United States. He also spent a year in Nova Scotia surveying and preparing plans for an electric power plant on the Port Medway River. Then, he worked for the Boston Elevated R. R. Company and later became inspector for Essex County on the construction of the new county bridge at Haverhill, Mass. Because of failing eyesight, he gave up engineering and, for a few years, acted as general agent for the Fraternity Publishing Company, visiting many parts of the United States.

In 1863, he married Victoria M. Higgins. He died on August 22, 1918, in Whitman, Massachusetts.