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The son of Ovid Allard, the Chief Trader at the Hudson's Bay Company's Fort Langley, B.C., Jason Ovid Allard was born at Fort Langley and joined the company himself in 1866 at age 19. Allard quit the company and joined a Canadian Pacific Railway survey crew in 1871, and later worked as an interpreter in the courts all over the province, as he spoke 5 Indian dialects in addition to French and English. He married a woman named Seraphine. They had children Hermosa Alexina, Alexander (b. 1882), Eugene (b. 1884), William (b. 1886), Francis (b. 1889), George (b. 1894), Helena (b. 1896), Clarence (b. 1900 or 1902?), Justine (b. 1905), and Lawrence (b. 1907). He moved to New Westminster in 1915 in order to be readily available for court appearances, and was an important source of information about the pioneers of the 1860's, 1870's, and 1880's for historians Howay, Reid, Nelson, McKelvie and Gibbard before his death in New Westminster on December 17, 1931 at the age of 83.