John Allison was born in Antrim township, that County, on December 23, 1738. His father, William Allison, was a native of the north of Ireland, where he was born on the 12th of November, 1693; came to America about 1730; and lived in the Cumberland Valley, where he died on the 14th of December, 1778. He married Catharine Craig, and their children were William, John, Patrick, Agnes, m. Robert McCrea, Robert, and Catharine, m. James Hendricks. John, the second son, received a thorough English and classical education, chiefly under the care of the Scotch-Irish Presbyterian ministers of the locality. As early as October 1764, he was appointed one of the Provincial magistrates for Cumberland County and reappointed in 1769. At a meeting of the citizens of that County, held at Carlisle on July 12, 1774, he was appointed on the Committee of Observation for Cumberland. He be- came quite active in the struggle for independence. He was a member of the Provincial Conference held at Carpenters' Hall on the 18th of June, 1776, and appointed by that body one of the judges of the election of members to the first Constitutional Convention for the second division of the County at Chambersburg. He was in command of one of the Associated battalions of Cumberland County during the Jersey campaigns of 1776 and 1777 and a member of the General Assembly in 1778, 1780, and 1781. In the latter year, he laid out the town of Greencastle, which has grown to be one of the most flourishing towns in the Cumberland Valley. In 1787, he was chosen as a delegate to the Pennsylvania Convention to ratify the Federal Constitution, and in that, he seconded Thomas McKean’s motion to assent to and approve it. At the first Federal Conference, held at Lancaster in 1788, he was nominated for Congress but defeated at the election that year. Colonel Allison died June 14, 1795, and his remains rest in Moss Spring Presbyterian Church graveyard, one-half mile east of the town of Greencastle.
He married Elizabeth Wilkins on November 3, 1768, was born on November 11, 1748, and died on November 19, 1815. They had a family of thirteen children, five sons, and eight daughters. Of the latter, Mary m. Colonel Andrew Henderson, of Huntingdon County; Margaret m. Samuel McLanahan, of Greencastle; Nancy m. Elias Davidson, of near Greencastle; and Elizabeth m. Dr. John Henderson of Huntingdon. Of their sons, Robert, b. March 10, 1777 ; d. December 2, 1840; removed to Huntingdon in 1796; studied law; was captain of a volunteer company in the War of 1812-14; in 1830 elected to Congress, where he served one term; married Mary, daughter of Benjamin Elliott (see Penna. Mag., II. p. 326), leaving eight children. The remaining children of Colonel Allison died in infancy or were unmarried. He was a ruling elder in the Presbyterian Church and prominent during the Revolutionary era. His bold stand in the Convention when his colleague and almost his entire constituency opposed the ratification shows him to have been a man of great force of character and determined views.
Source: The Pennsylvania Magazine on History and Biography, Vol. X.
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