Bios: William O. Allison, 1855: from Westmoreland County, PA

Contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Alice Gless.
 agless@earthlink.net

USGENWEB NOTICE: Printing this file by non-commercial individuals
               and libraries is encouraged, as long as all notices
               and submitter information is included. Any other use,
               including copying files to other sites requires
               permission from the submitters PRIOR to uploading to
               any other sites. We encourage links to the state and
               county table of contents.
____________________________________________________________

Henry L. Kiner, History of Henry County Illinois, Volume II, Chicago:
The Pioneer Publishing Company, 1910

William O. Allison

Oxford Township takes justifiable pride in William O. Allison, who
stands in the forefront among her estimable, substantial and
representative citizens.  He was born January 28, 1855, in Westmoreland
County, Pennsylvania.  His parents were Andrew and Susanna (Dible)
Allison, the father being of Scotch ancestry and the mother of German,
but both born in America.  The father, who enlisted in the One Hundred
and Eleventh Regiment of Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, saw some of
the hardest service of the Civil War.  He was with Grant at Appomattox
and witnessed the surrender of Lee at the close of the conflict.  In his
three yearsı service he escaped, either wound or prison, although
participating in a number of hard fought battles and was present at the
grand review in Washington, D. C., at the close of the war.  He was a
farmer by vocation and his success therein reflected his intelligence.
He died in August 1907, but the mother of our subject is still living on
the old homestead in Pennsylvania.

William O. Allison spent the first twenty-one years of his life amid the
interesting surroundings of his fatherıs estate in Pennsylvania and
received his education in the district schools of Westmoreland County.
In 1876, however, he decided to visit new scenes and came to Alpha in
Oxford Township, Henry County, Illinois, where he found employment with
various farmers in the locality.  Two years later he married and removed
to the property of his wifeıs father, an unusually valuable farm of two
hundred acres adjoining the Village of Alpha, where he has ever since
resided.  He is a very extensive landholder for he has one hundred and
sixty acres additional on the Knox County border, and six hundred and
forty acres in the Province of Saskatchewan, Canada.  The soil of the
latter is particularly fitted for the raising of what and in fact, for
every crop raised in Illinois with the exception of corn.  It would be
difficult to find anywhere a more enlightened agriculturist or one more
alert to acquaint himself with every successful new experiment in his
line.  His prosperity is by no means an accident but the natural result
of the application of good sense and brain power to the matter in hand.
Mr. Allison was also one of the promoters of the Woods Broom Company,
which for some years did a large and prosperous business in the
manufacture of brooms.  He was president of the foregoing and has been
active in the promotion of other industries and ever a valuable adjunct
to the progress and development of the community.  He is now retired
from all active business affairs except the supervision of his
real-estate interests.

The marriage of Mr. Allison and Miss Phylinda J. Patterson was
celebrated December 17, 1878.  Her parents were O. H. and Margaret
(Taze) Patterson of Oxford Township.  The former came from New York
State in the early days, and upon locating in Illinois, was first
engaged in the manufacture of carpenter tools, but later turned his
attention to farming.   He was extremely fortunate in coming when he did
for he bought land for one dollar and a quarter an acre that is now
worth two hundred and twenty-five.  The Taze family, of which the mother
was a member, were originally of Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, but
came west in pioneer days.  Both of these estimable people have now
passed on to their reward, the mother dying in 1893 and the father two
years later.  They had but one child‹Mrs. Allison.  Five sons have
blessed the union of Mr. and Mrs. Allison.  Ira D. is married and
resides on the home farm; Harry O. is a professor in the State
University at Urbana, Illinois; Fred G. is a biological chemist, also in
the State University, both of these hold state appointments; Raymond A.
is a graduate of the high school at Alpha and now a student in Knox
College.  The youngest, Merritt W., is in attendance at the Alpha High
School.  The three eldest sons all received their early education in the
Alpha schools, and after a course at Knox College at Galesburg, entered
the State University and graduated together in the Class of 1906.  
Ira D. married Miss Edna Hoff, of Chicago Heights, a daughter of Thomas
Hoff.  Also a graduate of the State University, she held a place in its
faculty for two years as instructor in German and taught for a time in
the schools of Chicago Heights.  Their marriage was celebrated in June,
1906, and it is in the plan of these young people to live upon the home
farm and devote their attention to scientific farming.

Mr. Allison gives unfaltering loyalty to the Republican Party and,
although never an office seeker, is a man thoroughly posted on current
events, whose opinion in public affairs is reverenced by his
associates.  That he is a firm believer in the best education possible
is manifest from the training of his sons.  It is consequently a matter
for general congratulation that for years Mr. Allison has been willing
to give his time and service as the president of the Alpha school board,
which office he at present fills.   He has been instrumental in securing
for Alpha one of the best and most thoroughly equipped school buildings
in the country.  The Allison family hold membership in the Baptist
Church, in which the head of the house has for twenty years or more held
the office of deacon, while he acted as superintendent of the Sunday
School for fifteen years.  The Baptist Church, one of the finest
edifices in the county, was built while Mr. Allison held the office of
trustee, and it is to be seen that his Christianity is by no means of
the passive sort.  He is supremely fortunate in the possession of a life
companion whose aims are akin to his own.  Mrs. Allison is a woman of
cultivation, devoted to home and family, but finding time for outside
duty.  She also has been for many years a valued Sunday-school worker.

In short Mr. Allison is a splendid exponent of progress, as for instance
in his own employment of crop rotation and fertilization which has made
his land as productive today as it was thirty years ago.  His sons share
in this spirit.  The second, Harry O., is recognized as an expert judge
of stock, his opinion being greatly sought.  He was one of the three
experts selected from the State of Illinois to judge stock at the St.
Louis Exposition, and also at the International Stock Show in Chicago.
The Allison farm is not only one of the best in the country as far as
soil and productiveness are concerned, but it is also one of the most
highly improved to be found in any locality whatsoever.  It is well
drained and well fenced, and the residence, barns and other farm
buildings are all modern in arrangement and completeness, the handsome
residence possessing all the modern conveniences.  This is in truth a
model farm with a place for everything and everything in its place, an
ornament and object of price in Oxford Township.