Arthur G. Allison Bio. Hancock County, WV ********************************************************************** USGENWEB NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. ********************************************************************** Submitted by: Valerie Crook The History of West Virginia, Old and New Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, Volume III, pg. 232-233 Hancock County ARTHUR G. ALLISON. To succeed as a member of the Hancock County bar requires more than ordinary ability which has been carefully trained along the lines of the legal profession, as well as an appreciable fund of general information and keen judgment with regard to men and their motives. In a pushing, growing city such as Chester there is so much competition, events crowd each other in such a way and circumstances play such an important part in the shaping of events that the lawyer must neces- sarily be a man capable of grasping affairs with a ready and competent hand to effect satisfactory results. Among those who have won recognition in the profession of law at Chester is Arthur G. Allison, who is also serving his thirteenth year as a justice of the peace. Mr. Allison was born on a farm near Chester, Hancock County, West Virginia, March 7, 1881, a son of Joseph B. and Mary E. (Riley) Allison. There were two or three original families of Allisons, as there were of Wells, who settled in this part of the Ohio Valley. Joseph B. Allison was born on the same farm as his son, November 21, 1859, and died April 22, 1915. He was a son of Enoch Allison, the latter being a son of Burgess Allison, who settled on a farm one mile from Washington School- house in Grant District in 1801. He drove the first wagon, of the "prairie schooner" style, into Hancock County, from Cumberland, Maryland, and continued to haul freight and passengers one way and freight the other for a number of years. Freighting over the mountains was for many years a profitable business. In coming from Maryland Burgess Allison followed what later became the National Road, which extended as far as Vandalia, Illinois, its destination being St. Louis. More people went over that road to Western Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri and Iowa than over all the other routes. Mr. Allison later secured a farm, in conjunction with which he operated a blacksmith shop, and, becoming prosperous, loaned money to his less for- tunate neighbors and became something of a financier in his locality. He lived to be ninety-three years of age, his death then being caused by an accident. Enoch Allison was born in Hancock County and here spent his life as an agriculturist, his home being on the north branch of Tomlinson's Run. He was a man of ability and accumulated more than 2,200 acres of land, and was well esteemed in his community as possessed of qualities of integrity and probity. He died in 1888, at the age of sixty-three years. He and his wife, who bore the maiden name of Mary Ann Barclay, were the parents of six sons and one daughter: Bergess N., for more than fifty years a carpenter in the employ of the Pennsylvania Railroad, who died in September, 1921, at Wellsville, Ohio; Waitman C., who is living in retirement at Chester; Joseph B.; Ellsworth E., a Hancock County farmer, who died February 11, 1909; Sherman C., who is still fol- lowing farming on his Hancock County property near Pughtown; Mary E., the wife of Leander Conant, of East Liverpool, Ohio; and Walter C., engaged in milling at Chester. Joseph B. Allison passed practically all his life on his 700-acre farm in Grant District, where he applied himself to farming and dairying. He was well thought of in his community as to ability and personal qualities, but never cared for public office, being content with his farm and his home. He married Mary E. Riley, who was born in what is now Chester, June 25, 1863, a daughter of Enoch and Sarah (Daniels) Riley. Enoch Riley was born in Staffordshire, England, and on coming to the United States was first engaged in farming. Later he conducted a hotel at East Liverpool and was also the part owner of a pot- tery, and his thirty-five-acre farm is now included within the city limits of Chester, where he died in August, 1890. Two children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Allison: Arthur G.; and Sarah A., the wife of Harry E. Hall, a dairyman and fruit grower on the old farm. Arthur G. Allison spent his boyhood on the home farm and attended first the public schools in the country and later the high school at East Liverpool, from which he was graduated as a member of the class of 1901. He then en- tered the law department of the West Virginia University, where he received his degree in 1904, and since that time has been engaged in a general practice at Chester. At various times he has been called to public office, having been city attorney, secretary of the Board of Education and city tax collector, is a notary public, and for thir- teen years has been a justice of the peace, now being in his third term in that office. A republican in politics, Mr. Allison has done some active and effective work in his party and is accounted one of its influential members. He is secretary of the local republican club and a mem- ber of the county committee, and has been a delegate to state conventions. Fraternally Mr. Allison is a charter member of the local lodge of the Knights of Pythias. He is unmarried.