John R Allison: A Portrait from Scraps of Facts

Many many months of searching turned up  lots of separate facts about John R. Connecting the facts gives us a suprisingly detailed portrait of our Great Grandfather, despit starting with almost no first hand knowledge.

John R Allison 1845-1894 grew up in Greencastle Pennsylvania. This town began at a crossroads marked by Allison's Tavern. In the last part of the 1700's John R's great grandfather William Allison offered food and drink here to stock herders and businessmen traveling south  to the Potomac or heading north from Baltimore to Pittsburg.  John R's great uncle Colonel John Allison inherited 300 acres from his father and helped to establish the borough of Greencastle in 1782, It is here in 1850 that we find the first official record of six year old John R living with his mother Sarah and his older sister Mary.  Of their father, Samuel, we know very little. It seems he died when John R was a babe in arms. John R and his sisters were Allisons living in a town full of Allisons, Craigs and McClanahans. Their great grandfathers James McClanahan and William Allison married sisters from the Craig family who were also influential in the community.

What happened to John R’s family next is unclear and by 1860, at age 16, John R was a clerk living with the family of George Ziegler. Ziegler owned and operated the mercantile on Greencastle Square from 1833 well into the 1890’s. His apprentice clerking skills would follow John R in later life. Documents from the Franklin County Orphan Court show that his uncle, James C. McClanahan, became John R Allison's guardian in 1862. John R’s mother, Sarah, may have moved north with daughter Mary to settle in Chambersburg. 

What is clear is that these were tumultuous times.  Greencastle, barely north of the Mason-Dixon line, was a stop on the Underground Railroad. The first Union soldier to be killed on Union soil died on June 22, 1863, just outside the town’s limits. Chambersburg was held for ransom by the confederates and suffered a brutal burning that left 2,000 citizens homeless. General Jubal Early who ordered the torching was later pursued for war crimes and fled to Cuba after the war.

Lincoln called for volunteers to fight in the Civil war in 1861. John R answered the call by joining the Union army that year. His military records are confusing. In 1885 John R’s widow applied for a pension listing his service as the 55th Pennsylvania Infantry, the 22nd Pennsylvania Cavalry and as Sergeant Major in the Third Pennsylvania Provisional Calvary. Was John R a deserter? Was he missing in action? Did deserters qualify for pensions?  Did he find his way to Texas during this time?  All questions still to be answered.

After the war John R Allison returned to Greencastle boarding with the Frush family in 1870.  The head of household, Morgan Frush, was a carpenter. Perhaps John R learned the trade during these years swapping skills with books for wood handling skills.

Ten years later John R is married and a citizen of Wood County Texas, 1200 miles distant from his northern birthplace. The 1880 census tells us he lived with wife, Mary Catherine Evans and baby Annie B. Allison. We have no clue where and how the couple met. John was now in the timber business running a sawmill in the town of Hawkins.   More Allison kids were born:  Harry Craig 1882, Samuel Evans 1884, Ralph Stannard 1887 and Katie W 1891. We have one precious photograph of their brood. His kids are a handsome lot. 

The remaining years are series of documented facts, but we have little in the way of stories and few photos. We speculate that Mary Catherine died in childbirth in 1891 leaving baby Katie and the rest of the children motherless. Because the census of 1890 was destroyed we have nothing to indicate whether these five children are living their widowed father. That John R’s health is not good is evidenced by his application for a Civil War pension in 1885 as an “invalid”. Perhaps this is why, in 1892, he became Postmaster of the town of Hawkins, Texas.

Despite invalid status, it’s surprising to find that by fall of 1893 he had taken a new wife, 18 year old Conie Shamburger. Little more than one year later John R. died on December 10, 1894 in Hawkins, Texas at the age of 49.  According to the record of his military enlistment dated August 15, 1861 John R stood five feet four inches tall, had sandy hair, grey eyes and was of dark complexion.

We believe he is buried in  the Ray Cemetery, Hawkins , Texas.