Boston Public Library - Electric Scotland

XIV INTEODUCTION.
the state, it may stimulate them to higher deeds,
nobler lives.
influence them to
This work was undertaken to gratify my own curiosity to know all
the accessible facts relating to the origin, history, and life and death
of my ancestor. Charter Samuel AUison, of Scotch blood, of London-
derry, New Hampshire, together with that of his widely scattered descendants.
The place selected for his abode in the New World became
widely noted as the home of a stalwart people.
There is no locality, in New Hampshire, whose early local history has
so deep an interest, or about which clings so much of fascination, as that
of the original township of Londonderry, embracing the present towns
of Windham, Derry, Londonderry, and a part of Hudson and Salem.
Not that its soil was fertile, or that dormant riches lay in ground,
forest, rock, or waters, for in none of these was the secret of its strong
hold on the minds and in the hearts of antiquarians, scholars, and the
general public.
It was in a higher source, in an element of greater
value, power, and influence, than in any or in all of these combined.
It was in the inhabitants themselves. The first settlers were a peculiar
people, and they, or their fathers, were twice exiles ; first, from Scot-
land, their Fatherland, to the " green fields of Erin," which at London-
derry and the Boyne water they helped to save to King
William and
Protestantism in 1688-'89 ; second, to the wilderness wilds of London-
were of Scotch blood, some of them
dei'ry, N. H., in 1719. They
were of Scotch birth, some were " accidentally born " in Ireland.
Strong and rugged in their mental characteristics, having great cour-
age and tenacity of purpose, they were valiant colonists of a frontier,
capable of subduing a wilderness, of founding and building a state,
and leaving the impress of their willing hands, strong minds, and
valiant deeds, in the settlement they founded, the state they benefited,
and in illustrious descendants who have worthily filled the higher
positions in the community, the state, and the nation. Sixteen men
with their families composed the advance guard of the infant colony.
In 1718 they came from the north of Ireland, part if not aU from the
parish of Aghadowey, county of Londonderry, some eight miles from
Coleraine, and forty miles from the city of Londonderry. Samuel
Allison, previously mentioned, was one of that stalwart company.
This work, as such labor always does, fascinated me. It expanded
greatly. In my investigations other important, equally large, and
equally respectable branches of Alisons or AUisons were found, their his-
tory and genealogy procured. This includes the lines of Allisons in
Orange and Rockland counties. New York, with those numerous ones in