I'm throwing these references on here in case of interest to anyone. Someone needs to write a biography of Donegal-born Francis Alison, his influence on the American Revolution and the formation of the United States is remarkable...
……………………………………………..
JOHN ADAMS
Letters to his wife Abigail Adams
• 9 October, 1774
… This day I went to Dr. Allison's meeting in the forenoon, and heard the Dr.; a good discourse upon the Lord's supper. This is a Presbyterian meeting. I confess I am not fond of the Presbyterian meetings in this town. I had rather go to Church. We have better sermons, better prayers, better speakers, softer, sweeter music, and genteeler company. And I must confess that the Episcopal church is quite as agreeable to my taste as the Presbyterian. They are both slaves to the domination of the priesthood. I like the Congregational way best, next to that the Independent...
• Baltimore, 2 February, 1777
...I have been to meeting and heard my old acquaintance, Mr. Allison, a worthy clergyman of this town, whom I have often seen in Philadelphia. This day has been observed in this place with exemplary decency and solemnity, in consequence of an appointment of the government, in observance of a recommendation of Congress, as a day of fasting. I went to the Presbyterian meeting, and heard Mr. Allison deliver a most pathetic and animating as well as pious, patriotic, and elegant discourse. I have seldom been better pleased or more affected with a sermon...
……………………………………………..
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Letter to Joshua Babcock, Philadelphia
• 1st September 1755.
Dear Sir,
I beg leave to introduce to you the Revd. Mr. Allison, Rector of our Academy; a Person of great Ingenuity & Learning, a catholic Divine, & what is more, an Honest Man; For as Pope says
"A Wit's a Feather, & a Chief's a Rod;
An honest Man's the noblest Work of God."
By Entertaining then this Gent, with your accustomed Hospitality & Benevolence, you will Entertain one of the Nobility. I mean one of God's Nobility; for as to the King's, there are many of them not worthy your Notice.
Do me the Favour to make my Compliments acceptable to your good Lady, Sisters & Children in whose most agreeable Company I passed those chearful Winter Evenings, which I remember with high Pleasure. I am, with the greatest Esteem & Respect,
Dr. Sir,
Your most obedt.
& most humble Servt.,
B. Franklin.
……………………………………………..
EZRA STILES, PRESIDENT OF YALE
• 1757-1769
Correspondence from Allison (1757-1769) online here.
……………………………………………..
PATRICK ALLISON (1740-1802)
Patrick's father, William Allison, and his mother, Catherine, were both from Ireland. He was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1760. In autumn 1763 he became the founder minister of the Church of the Presbyterians of Baltimore, a position he held for 39 years until his death in 1802. He had been approved for his position there by Francis Alison, but despite the similarity of surname it is not known if they were related. Patrick Allison became chaplain to General George Washington and the Continental Congress.
"Dr. Allison was active in civic affairs for all his career, acted often as Chaplain of the Continental Congress when it met in Baltimore, was one of the leaders in the formation of the Presbytery of Baltimore and of the General Assembly of our denomination"
..................
"These Scotch-Irish who played so important a part in the development and prosperity of the middle and western part of our country for some time prior to and after the Revolution were the descendants of those colonists from Scotland whom James I had settled in the early part of the seventeenth century in the six counties of Donegal, Derry, Tyrone, Fermanagh, Cavan and Armaugh in the province of Ulster in Ireland where some two million acres of land had lately escheated to the English crown.
These ScotchIrish who were mostly Presbyterians in faith had become quite numerous when the intolerance and persecution to which they were subjected after the death of King William III induced a number of them to emigrate to America. About 1719 the leases made shortly after the Revolution of 1688 and generally running for a term of thirty-one years, under which a large proportion of the Scotch-Irish tenants in Ulster held their farms, began to expire and they found themselves unable to renew them except at much higher rents.
The result was a large emigration of ScotchIrish to America from whence their former neighbors already settled there, had been writing back to them glowing accounts of their newly found homes in the Western World."
- from A Brief History of the First Presbyterian Church of Baltimore (1913)
0 comments:
Post a Comment