A Cyclopaedia of Canadian Biography: Being Chiefly Men of the Time: A Collection of Persons Distinguished in Professional and Political Life, Leaders in the Commerce and Industry of Canada, and Successful Pioneers
History
A Cyclopaedia of Canadian Biography: Being Chiefly Men of the Time: A Collection of Persons Distinguished in Professional and Political Life, Leaders in the Commerce and Industry of Canada, and Successful Pioneers
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=Allison, Charles F.=—The late Charles F. Allison, of Sackville, New
Brunswick, who was born on the 25th of January, 1795, and died the 20th
of November, 1858, at the age of sixty-three years, was the second son
of James Allison, whose father, Joseph Allison, of Newton Limavady,
county of Londonderry, Ireland, emigrated to Nova Scotia in 1769, and
settled at Horton, Kings county, where he continued to reside until his
death in 1794. James Allison married and settled at Cornwallis, where he
lived and died at the ripe age of ninety years. Here Charles F. was
born, and received his education at the Grammar school, and in 1812
moved to Parrsboro’, where he found employment as a clerk in the
establishment of James Ratchford until 1817, when he went to Sackville,
New Brunswick, and entered into partnership with the late Hon. William
Crane, in a general mercantile business, and in this he continued until
1840. On the 4th of January, 1839, Mr. Allison addressed a letter to the
chairman of the New Brunswick district of Wesleyan ministers, in which
he proposed “to purchase an eligible site and erect suitable buildings
in Sackville, in the county of Westmoreland, for the establishment of a
school, in which not only the elementary, but the _higher_ branches of
education may be taught, and to be altogether under the management and
control of the British conference in connection with the Wesleyan
missionaries in these provinces;” and he proposed to give £100 ($400)
per annum for ten years towards the support of the school. This generous
offer having been accepted, he made arrangements to proceed with the
erection of a suitable edifice for the academy—the corner-stone of
which was laid on the 9th of July, 1840, and from that time to the close
of his life in 1858, he devoted a large share of his time and business
talent to watching over and promoting the financial interests of the
educational enterprise which, under his fostering care, developed
wonderfully. In addition to the $20,000 which he had given to establish
the older branch of the institution, he gave $4,000 to aid in the
erection of the ladies’ branch, which was opened in 1854; and in his
will he left $2,000 for the academies, and $1,000 for the college
whenever it should be organized. So that of the moderate fortune which
he had accumulated before retiring from mercantile life in 1840, at
least $30,000 were employed in founding and establishing the educational
institutions which bear his name, and which stand as the enduring
monument of the far-seeing wisdom and liberality of this unselfish
Christian patriot. Mr. Allison was married to Milcah, daughter of John
and Anne Trueman, on June 23rd, 1840. Mrs. Allison survived him, but
died on the 14th of June, 1884. Mary, their only child, was born 1st
Sept., 1847, and died 1st Jan., 1871. At the date of Mr. Allison’s
demise, _The Borderer_, a local weekly paper, thus kindly alluded to
him:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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