William Allison 1696: Rough Justice

Nine out of ten settlers in Pennsylvania abandoned the frontier for safer territory during the French and Indian Wars.  William Allison stood his ground. Did he send his family away to safety? Probably not. Likely he needed all the manpower his four boys could provide and they were conscripted into fort building.

Indian attacks were not theoretical… a family was murdered at nearby Rankin’s Mill. Farms were burnt. A schoolhouse full of children and their teacher Enoch Brown was hatcheted to death, then scalped. The bloody Indian War years were the same years that William was Justice of the Peace. He was not hunkered down at Fort Allison. He rode his horse along the forest tracks appearing at county meetings and court proceedings. Business as usual. 

What kind of character was this William Allison?

 

Armed.  Apparently he preferred being killed by Indians to abandoning his homestead.  Willing to kill to protect his farm and family.

Respected.  William commanded the trust of his community to be elected to the post of Justice of the peace.

A law and order man.  William believed in sticking to agreements, even contracts made with the "savages" as the native people were called. He sentenced wrongdoers with a fiery punishment: 

"In the rugged northwestern corner of what became Franklin County, pioneers of Irish origin built homes where the Path, Amberson and Horse Valleys occupy the narrow space between the Tuscorora and Kittatinny mountain ridges.  In 1750 the original European settlers were driven out and their cabins burnt—but not by Native Americans.  When Indians objected to the occupation of their lands by a growing number of pioneers, provincial authorities acted “to expel the interlopers.”  Officials, among them Cumberland County magistrates Benjamin Chambers, William Maxwell and William Allison, oversaw the evictions. (The place-name Burnt Cabins recalls those events; the village is in Dublin Township, Fulton County, close by the border with Huntingdon and Franklin Counties.)  Among those suffered fines imposed by the magistrate’s court—as well as burnt homes—were Moses Moore, Alexander McCartie, Felix Doyle and Samuel Ramage. Once the land had been purchased from the Indians by the province in 1758 most of these pioneers returned."

Source: From Rostrevor to Raphoe: An Overview of Ulster Place-Names in Pennsylvania, 1700-1820 

By Peter Gilmore

Tough. Resilient. Inventive. Industrious. Born in Ireland, William and his kin traveled an ocean to an unmapped territory filled with tribal peoples speaking many languages.  His family had to make shelter, food, and medicine out of the raw forests.  It was a brave endeavor that required problem solving and grit every step of way. This life was not for sissies.

  

Able. William ran a distillery, managed a farm, built houses and barns, added acres to his empire. He fathered six children. Still he had time to bring rough justice to the Pennsylvania frontier in his capacity as Justice of the Peace for Cumberland County.

Christian. Likely William was a devout Presbyterian with an abiding trust in the Almighty. His actions tell us he was not easily intimidated, perhaps even pugnacious. William was not adverse to a fight.  It's likely he felt he had the grace of God on his side. William was cut from the same cloth as the local cleric, the “Fighting Preacher, Reverend John Steel”.