Boston Public Library - Electric Scotland

WILLIAM B. ALLISON, OF DUBUQUE, IOWA. 129
gress from Pennsylvania, reelected to 19th. After practising
his profession for fifty years he died in June, 1854.
486. Hon. John Allison, son of the foregoing James
Allison, was born in Pennsylvania Aug. 5, 1812. Studied
law but never practiced. Was elected to the assembly of
Pennsylvania in 1846-'47 and '49, and was a member of the
33d and 34th congresses, house of representatives, from
Pennsylvania. He was appointed registrar of the treasury
of the United States in 1869; and died while in office, March
23, 1873.
487. John Allison, his son, is living on a ranch in Montana.
(See letter of Rev. James Allison, preceding No. 460.)
488. Hon. Robert Allison was born in Pennsylvania, and
was a representative to congress from that state from 1831-
'33. (From Charles Lanman's "Biographical Annals of the
United States Government." The sketch of W. B. Allison
is from Harper's Weekly, March 17, 1888).
489. Hon. William B. Allison,^ United States senator from
Iowa. He was born in Perry, Wayne county, Ohio, March 2,
1829, and is the son of John Allison,^ who was born in Bellefonte
(or its neighborhood), Penn., in 1798, and who removed
to Ohio about 1824, and resided on a farm in Perry.
John Allison^ was the son of Archibald Allison^ who migrated
from the county of Monaghan, Ireland, in 1783, and
settled in Centre county, Penn.
Senator Allison spent his early years upon a farm and was
educated at Allegheny college, Penn., and at Western
Reserve college, Ohio. He studied law, and practiced in
Ohio till 1857, when he located in Dubuque, la., which has
been his home since April, 1857. He began his public career
when the war broke out as a member of the staff of the governor,
and his first task was to aid in the organization of the
volunteer regiments that were destined to serve in the War
of the Rebellion. He was sent to congress while the war was
going on, and has been representative and senator from that
time to the present, except between 1871 and 1873, when he
declined an election, so that he has participated in all the
legislation that has been enacted during and since the great
conflict. He has done his full share in it all, and his impress
is on the statutes which have framed and modified our fiscal
and banking systems, our methods of taxation, as it was on
the laws which gave to Mr. Lincoln the power to put down
the rebellion, and which readjusted their relations to the
Union of the once insurrectionary states. His biography is
9