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Biography Directory |
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William B. Allison
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With a broad and breezy style of statemanship that at once
stamps him as a product of the great West, Senator Allison, of
Iowa, must be enrolled among those eminent Americans whose
abilities have forced them into prominence from the obscurity
of the farm.
His early years were spent on the farm at Perry, Wayne
County, Ohio, where he was born March 2, 1829. He was
educated at Allegheny College, Pennsylvania, and at the
Western Reserve College, Ohio, after which he took up the
study of law, and practiced his profession in Ohio until
1857. He then went to Dubuque, Iowa, which city has since
been his home. He was a delegate to the Chicago convention
that nominated Abraham Lincoln for the presidency in 1860, and
in the following year became a member of the staff of the
governor of Iowa, in which capacity he rendered valuable
service in raising troops and organizing volunteer regiments
for the war. In 1862 Mr. Allison was elected to the
Thirty-eighth Congress as a Republican, and was re-elected to
the three succeeding Congresses, serving continuously as a
member of that body from December 7, 1863, until March 3,
1871. In 1873 he was elected United States Senator to succeed
James Harlan, and he has been three times re-elected. His
present term of service will expire in 1897. Senator Allison
has long been recognized as one of the strongest men in the
Republican party, a natural leader and organizer, combining
the shrewdness of the politician with the broad- minded
patriotism of the statesman, and with personal influence
second to that of no man in Washington. |
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He has been a prominent candidate for the
presidential nomination in more than one Republican
convention. |
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~Famous American Men and Women, A
Complete Portrait Gallery of Celebrated People Whose Names are
Prominent in the Annals of the Times, edited by Stanley Waterloo &
John W. Kanson, Jr., 1895; bio. pg 16, photo pg 17
~transcribed by Sharyl Ferrall for
Dubuque County IAGenWeb, May 2010 |
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Dubuque
County IAGenWeb