William Boyd Allison was born at Perry, Ohio, March 2, 1829. His father, John Allison, was a farmer, and young William spent his boyhood in work on the farm and in attending the district school. At the age of sixteen he studied at the Academy at Wooster and subsequently spent a year at Allegheny college in Meadville, Pennsylvania. After that he made enough money by teaching school to pay for his admission in the Western Reserve college in Hudson, Ohio. He studied law in Wooster, and in 1851 was admitted to the bar. Soon after he became deputy county clerk. His political tastes were made evident early in life. In 1856 he was a delegate to the Republican state convention and supported Fremont for president. In the following year he moved to Ohio, and settled in Dubuque, where he has since resided. He was a delegate at the Chicago Republican Convention which nominated Abraham Lincoln for President. At the beginning of the Civil war he was appointed on the staff of the Governor of Ohio. In 1862 he was elected to the Thirty-eighth congress and was re-elected three times in succession. He was the leading member of the ways and means committee during the Civil war and was of great use to the President and the Secretary of the Treasury in devising plans for raising money. He was elected to the United States senate in 1872. His previous record in the house caused his selection as chairman of the senate committee on appropriations. Mr. Allison has always taken a prominent part in tariff questions and was chiefly instrumental in framing the senate tariff bill of the Fiftieth congress. In 1881 he was offered the position of secretary of the Treasury by President Garfield, but declined, and, in 1888, he was a leading candidate for nomination for the presidency. After the election of Mr. Harrison he was again offered the treasury portfolio, which he again declined. Senator Allison has always held the respect of public men, and has never used his position to enrich himself. His tastes are refined, he is an agreeable host, and popular in both public and private life. GROVER CLEVELAND.