Charles
Frederick Allison’s father James sailed to Nova Scotia with his brother John
and his father Joseph in 1769. John’s
descendants include myself, but I am proud that Charles Frederick and I share a
common ancestor in Joseph Allison. In
fact, I was one in a long line of Allison ancestors who attended Mount Allison
University in Sackville, New Brunswick, an institution founded originally as a
boys academy by Charles Frederick Allison.
It’s also an institution that has the honour of awarding the first baccalaureate
to a woman in the British Empire (Grace Annie Lockart). While this was well after Charles’s death, in
1875, it was his commitment to higher education and philanthropy to young men and women regardless of religious upbringing that made this
achievement possible.
Charles
Frederick Allison was born January 25, 1795 to a father who had made the trip
across the ocean 26 years previous at the age of four. James Allison, along with his brother John
and father Joseph, worked hard as farmers, merchants and influential members of the colonial Nova Scotia society. Charles
Frederick, like much of the rest of the Allison clan, engaged in the merchant
trade, beginning as a clerk in Parrsboro at the Ratchford firm. In 1891, he left Parrsboro to join the
mercantile endeavour of his cousin William Crane (son of Colonel Jonathan Crane and
Rebecca Allison, herself the daughter of Joseph) in Sackville, New Brunswick.
Sackville
is relatively well situated for trade.
It sits on the Tantramar River, with good access to the Bay of Fundy and
the interior of New Brunswick as far as Moncton. Crane and Allison imported
goods from England, the United States and Lower Canada in trade for local
goods. The two cousins built the ships
locally that transported their exports (mainly agricultural goods, lumber and
sandstone) to their branch house in Miramichi or other ports.
Shipbuilding
had been a going concern in the Sackville area long before Charles’ arrival,
but the Crane and Allison firm injected new life into the Sackville ship
building industry. The Crane and Allison
ships had to travel to New England to export their goods in trade for
commodities that were in demand in New Brunswick. They also travelled as far as Liverpool
loaded down with lumber in exchange for British goods that the settlers back in
Nova Scotia and Canada were no doubt demanding.
Everything from tea, coffee and rum, to candles, agricultural implements
and ship-building materials passed through the ports at Sackville and Miramichi. At one point, Charles Frederick
Allison owned a sloop and two brigs, all built between 1824 and 1828. The trade business was booming. To help in their overseas voyages, Charles
invested in a three-masted Barque named Medora in 1853.
As
businessmen, William Crane was the risk-taker and entrepreneur, while Charles
was the thrifty and cautious investor.
This juxtaposition made them solid business partners, particularly in
the early days of their efforts. By
1824, Crane became more interested in public life, as justice of the peace,
judge, and later elected politician, leaving Charles to run the business.
Charles
himself started going through a personal change in the 1830s. The Methodists in the area were gaining
greater influence. There was a strong
Methodist community in Point de Bute which supported their brethren in
Sackville, which was, when Charles first moved there, mostly Calvinist.
Methodism
was brought to the Chignecto area (Amherst, Point de Bute and Sackville) by
Yorkshire immigrants in 1772-1775.
Without going into too much detail about the differences between these
two theological doctrines (primarily because I would likely be unable to do it
justice), basically Methodists think that everyone can find salvation (Christ
died for everyone), while Calvinists think some people are damned (not so
friendly really).
John Wesley, the
founder of the Methodist church, died just before Charles was born, and created
a doctrine which encouraged outdoor preaching, evangelism, and social reforms
(including abolition – I wonder what he would have thought of the Allison’s dishonourable slave-ownership?). Reverend William Smithson was an influential
religious figure in the New Brunswick.
Born in Yorkshire, England, and likely learning at the feet of Wesley, he
became a Methodist minister in Fredericton and later in the Chignecto area. Consistent
with the Methodist faith, preachers and evangelists continued their work
through revivals throughout the Chignecto area. The First Methodist chapel in the
Sackville area was dedicated in 1790.
The Methodists continued to convert the local population through their
combination of preaching and evangelism.
In 1836, Charles attended one of these revivals led by Rev. John Bass
Strong, and finally departed from his Anglican beliefs to join the Methodist
denomination. Charles
Frederick Allison married Milcah Trueman, daughter of Methodist John Trueman, in the
summer of 1840, cementing his relationship with the Methodist church and the
Yorkshire-rooted inhabitants of Westmoreland.
Charles,
with his new-found religious passion, became less interested in the business
and more interested in philanthropy and education. He was a relatively wealthy man by the time of
his religious conversion, which suited the Methodists. By 1840, at the time of his marriage, he
devoted himself almost entirely to his social efforts, leaving the business to
Joseph Francis Allison, Charles’s brother. Still, Crane and Allison and their
business partnership lasted, and thrived, until Crane’s death in 1853. Charles and Joseph were both named executors,
and Joseph bought the business and became sole business owner, while Charles
dedicated the remaining five years of his life to the Academy. In any case, while Sackville had its
strategic benefits as a trading port, its deficits meant that the ship-building
and trade business was bound to ultimately decline. The tides in the Tantramar River are
significant. Ships could only sail in
and out in high tide, and in low tides rested on the river bottom. Perhaps the cautious Charles was satisfied
with the money he had made, saw the writing on the wall, and decided to spend
as much time as possible in the social and philanthropical endeavours which had
become so important to him since his conversion to Methodism.
Charles’s
commitment to education grew. He was
convinced of the need for higher education.
He would be the first of the Allison family to pursue this conviction,
his family to this point having learned farming and the merchant trade from
family members without much in the way of formal schooling. In 1841 he was a school trustee for the
Westmoreland Grammar School, the second grammar school established in the
Province in the 1820s. His commitment
to higher education, however, required a fair degree of dedication. Without his business interests, he was free
to follow his passionate cause.
First
he had to convince his church colleagues to support the idea (no doubt
financially as well as providing the moral backbone for the proposed institution). Charles started his promotion of an institute
of higher learning in Sackville by seeking the support of Rev. Wm. Temple,
District Chairman at Saint John. While
there were many in Saint John who argued the benefits of locating the school in
that city, Charles was adamant that Sackville offered an ideally central
location for the education of all Maritime young people. His academy was to focus on the ideals of
higher education, teaching the classics of English, Latin, Greek, mathematics,
natural philosophy, astronomy, and chemistry. He also argued that, despite his
ardent Methodist attachment, the school would be open to all denominations. His
letter dated January 4, 1839, included the following, indicating clearly
that the pursuit of education was very much consistent with Charles’s religious
convictions:
My mind has of late been much
impressed with the great importance of that admonition of the wise man,
"Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not
depart from it." The establishment of schools in which pure religion is
not only taught but constantly brought before the youthful mind and represented
to it as the basis and groundwork of all the happiness man is capable of
enjoying here on earth, and eminently calculated to form the most perfect
character--is I think, one of the most effective means in the order of Divine
Providence to bring about the happy result spoken of by the wise man.
By
January 17, 1840, Charles was able to convene a gathering of influential people
to bring his idea to fruition. It helped
of course that Charles not only paid for the land, he also paid £4,000 for construction (more
than $500,000 today), and made an annual commitment of £100. As a result of Charles’s generous
contributions in funding and land, the construction of the school moved quickly
and by July 9 the first stone was laid.
Three years later, on June 29, the Mount Allison Wesleyan Academy was
opened. While it started as a Boys Academy,
within ten years and at Charles’ urging, the Girls Academy was opened.
 |
| Mount Allison circa 1911, with Joseph Francis Allison's house in the background. Printed with permission of Mount Allison University archives |
Charles
was described through a first hand account by Dr. William Cochrane Milner,
historian:
His facial appearance was well
marked. His forehead was high and broad,
below which was a long nose, slightly aquiline.
His mouth was somewhat compressed and his lips were thin, giving his
face a self-contained, reserved, and somewhat severe look. The cast of his countenance was sad, with no
suggestion of humor or any invitation to intimacy. In his latter days, he had but few associates,
and amongst the students, he appeared to refrain from making personal friends.
Charles
and his wife Milcah had only one daughter, Mary, who died in her early 20s. Their lives were no doubt dedicated to social
endeavours. Charles’s grave marker includes
a long and laudatory commemoration of his dedication to church and education
and reads, in part:
(He) rejoiced in the spread of the
religion of Christ by whatever agency achieved, having lived to see the noble
institution founded by his munificence occupying a high position and exercising
and wide and salutary influence.
Milcah
and Mary lived on in Sackville, Mary pre-deceasing her mother. Milcah’s sister Margaret, who was unmarried,
joined her in Sackville until Milcah’s death in 1884 at the age of 66.
Charles’s
legacy lives on through Mount Allison University. I hope that Charles would see
his success and “wide and salutary influence” in the generations of Allison
ancestors who attended that institution, including my grand-parents Joseph and
Norma, my mother Joanne… and me. For my part, uncle, thanks for the B.A. and the many opportunities it has afforded me since!
Sources:
Various
census, ship ownership records, newspaper clippings, gravestones
Secondary Sources:
Methodists
Sackville
and Surrounding Area
Biographical
History of Sackville New Brunswick, Dr. William Cochran Milner, Historian, and Former Dominion Archivist (1846-1939)
History of the Allison or Alison Family, Leonard A. Morrison (1893)
Charles F. Allison
monologue to celebrate Mount Allison’s 175th anniversary - http://www.mta.ca/Alumni/Coming_back/Reunion/CFA_Monologue/Charles_F__Allison_Monologue%281%29/
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