Who was Benjamin Allison?
	By Michael Allison, President
	The National Allison-Allanson Family Association
	Benjamin Allison of Allison-Deaver House fame, born in an unrecorded year in the mid 1770's near Rockville, Maryland, was one of over 60 Marylander Allisons and close kin to leave the old colonial home in an incremental movement to western North Carolina. Beginning in 1778, the exodus continued up until just after 1800.
	The family regrouped into a tight colony at Davidson?s Fort, the tiny Burke County, North Carolina outpost of wilderness civilization that is today the town of Old Fort east of Asheville, now in McDowell County.
	Benjamin Allison's immediate family was among the latter groups to leave Maryland where the family had resided since the 1658 arrival of his great-great-great-grandfather, Thomas, Lord of Christian Temple Manor, a London, England merchant.
	Benjamin's father, Posey Allison, a son of clan patriarch Benjamin Allison, Sr., stayed on in Maryland until just after 1790. Posey trekked southwestward with his family and rejoined his father and the greater family in the new North Carolina home grouped around the fort.
	By the first years of the 1800's, the quest for new land to claim would lead the younger generations of the Allison colony deeper into the mountains to new lands just opening for settlement. The advance party was led by Francis Posey Allison, a Maryland born first cousin of Benjamin Allison, who arrived on the local scene in 1805 to mine gold on the headwaters of Boylston Creek, a short distance north of the site of the Allison-Deaver House.
	Francis Posey Allison maintained his farm and home at the Old Fort settlement, returning home to farm as the seasons dictated. In 1811, after acquiring his fortune, he gave up mining and settled into the life of a farmer on the French Broad River in present-day Transylvania County. Two years later in 1813, Francis was joined by his first cousin Benjamin, along with several other Allison men. Together they formed a second Allison colony that would prosper and grow.
	If not for the finely crafted home Benjamin Allison built circa 1815 for himself and his typically large family of 10 known children who survived to adulthood, the 17 years he and wife Margaret Wood Allison lived in present-day Transylvania County would be a mere footnote in local history. But thanks to his mastery as a builder, he will be known and remembered for all time.
	Benjamin Allison built his house well, and he built it to last. His finely crafted home was no doubt the envy of his pioneering neighbors- the vast majority of whom lived in hastily constructed, dirt-floored, split log cabins. What would lead a man to painstakingly build such a fine home by hand, only to leave it a short time later?
	Several theories have been suggested, including a devastating fire that left the house uninhabitable, but that theory is negated by the only surviving historical record we have of Benjamin's departure from the house.
	The 1830 deed to William Deaver clearly states that the sale of the farm includes "the house where said Allison now lives". According to the only record of the day, Benjamin and his family were indeed residing in the house. So there had to be another reason. A study of the lives of his other family members provides us with the most logical scenario.
	At that time, Benjamin's children were establishing themselves with their own families. Most were recently married or about to marry into several of the most prominent pioneer families of the area, including the Davidson and Zachary families. And they were all moving away from that immediate area, leaving an aging mother and father all alone. With Benjamin already in his mid 50's in 1830, the prospects were not good for an elderly couple soon to be alone with no adult children to care for them.
	Fortunately for Benjamin and Margaret, yet another Allison colony was just then blooming a short distance away in Haywood County, including several of their children and families, plus several of Benjamin's first cousins and their families. In 1830, Benjamin rejoined many of his children there in the area of Haywood County that is today Jackson County, around the Webster community.
		Today Jackson, Haywood, Macon and many other North Carolina counties are heavily populated with the descendants of Benjamin and Margaret Wood Allison. On the weekend of October 14, the largest group ever of those descendants will be coming home for the National Allison Family Reunion, joined by 100's of cousins from all across the nation.
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