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Birth:          30 Mar 1849 Hackensack Twp., Bergen Co., N.J.
Death:          18 Dec 1924 

Notes
www.getnj.com/nudberg/genealogical81.shtml
cannot find them on census ... probably in France
WILLIAM OUTIS ALLISON, of Englewood, N. J., is descended in the eighth 
generation from Lawrence Ellison (or Allison), a Puritan, who moved from Watertown, 
Mass., to Wethersfield, Conn., thence to Stamford, in the same State, and finally to 
Hempstead, Long Island, with other emigrants who accompanied Rev. Richard Denton 
in 1644. These emigrants are supposed to have been a part of the colony which came 
over from England with Robert Winthrop and Sir Richard Saltonstall in 1630. John 
Ellison. son of Lawrence, became one of the founders of Hempstead in 1644. His son 
John, a native of Hempstead, was the immediate founder of the family of Allisons 
which, for several generations, have lived and slept within the limits of Haverstraw, 
Rockland County, New York. He was one of the company that purchased the north 
part of the Kakiat patent of land in Orange County, which is now Rockland County, in 
1719, and founded the Town of New Hempstead, now Ramapo. He died in 1751, after 
a life of great usefulness and activity. Of his nine children, Joseph, the third, was born 
in August, 1721 or 1722, resided in Haverstraw, and died January 2, 1796. He was 
called Captain Joseph Allison, and became one of the largest landowners and farmers 
in his section. March 10, 1743, he married Elizabeth, daughter of Matthew Benson, 
who died December 12, 1767, leaving ten children. His second wife, whom he married 
May 4, 1769, and who died April 16, 1815, was Elsie Parsells, and she bore him eight 
children. 
Matthew Allison, the eldest of all these eighteen children, was born in Haverstraw, 
and died before 1795, leaving several children, among them Hendrick Allison, who 
married Sarah Marks, daughter of George Marks, of the same town. They moved to 
Manhattan Island, thence to New Dock, N. J., and finally to Hackensack Township, 
Bergen County, to a point beneath the Palisades, near what is now Englewood 
Township. They were the grandparents of the subject of this article. William Henry 
Allison, son of Hendrick and father of William 0., was born in Hackensack Township 
on the 10th of September, 1820. In 1840 he married Catherine, daughter of David and 
Elizabeth (Blauvelt) Jordan and granddaughter of Joseph Jordan, a French soldier, 
who came over with Lafayette and fought for American independence, and who, after 
the Revolution, married Elsie Parsells, and settled at Closter, on the top of the 
Palisades, where he died. 

The maternal ancestors of William O. Allison were among the original Dutch settlers at 
Old Tappan, one of the earliest settlements in New Jersey, and have resided in 
Bergen County for more than two hundred years. 

William O. Allison was born in old Hackensack (now Palisade) Township, Bergen 
County, N. J., March 30, 1849. From his early boyhood he lived much of the time in 
the family of William B. Dana, a prominent resident of the Palisades, a man of forceful 
and exemplary character, and a journalist of culture. The accident of this environment 
had an important part in his career, and he has never failed to fully acknowledge, by 
word and deed, the benign influence which Mr. Dana's wife, Mrs. Katharine Floyd 
Dana, exerted upon him. She took a deep interest in the boy, and his intellectual 
development was guided by her in a manner born of superior intelligence and 
refinement and by the great strength of character which she possessed. Finding in him 
the inherent traits for development, she saw them expand into manhood, and broaden 
and increase in power. Never was a friendship more liberally rewarded. His gratitude 
was expressed by the devotion which he accorded to her and by his adoption of the 
name Outis " in compliment to a fancy of hers that his initials should correspond to 
those of her nom de plume, "Olive A. Wadsworth." 

In 1868 Mr. Allison, having received an excellent training at the hands of this childless 
woman, entered the office of the Financial Chronicle and the Daily Bulletin, which 
were owned by Mr. Dana and John G. Floyd, Mrs. Dana's brother. Here he acquired a 
thorough and general knowledge of the publishing business, and with this and keen 
business instincts lie soon developed into the best commercial reporter ever 
connected with the New York press. He invented and instituted a system of 
thoroughness in reports which had previously been unknown, and which few reporters 
have been able to copy successfully. When he entered Mr. Dana's employ he 
received $7 per week; inside of three years he had a weekly salary of $40 as a 
reporter. But this rapid progress did not satisfy his ambition. The confidence which he 
felt in his system of making a specialty of a few markets and doing them thoroughly led 
him, on October 21, 1871, to issue the first number of the Oil, Paint and Drug 
Reporter, a small four-page paper of extremely modest appearance when compared 
with other publications already prominent in the industries to which it was devoted. 
The Reporter, however, contained more of real value to the subscribers than any 
other sheet, and its growth in circulation was remarkable, while its advertising 
patronage, in connection with added departments of valuable reading matter, forced 
numerous successive enlargments. 

But it was not until after a hard struggle of several years that Mr. Allison saw the 
fulfillment of the hope which he had entertained at the beginning of his career. His 
perseverance, united with great business tact and skill, alone brought him into 
prominence in a field in which he now has no superiors and few if any equals. As a 
result of the policy of obtaining and furnishing accurate, comprehensive, and valuable 
information concerning all the markets which the paper covers and reports, the 
successful growth of the business is believed to have no parallel in commercial 
journalism. The Reporter soon became one of the most profitable class publications in 
the country, and exerts an influence in the trades to which it is allied such as no other 
commercial publication has wielded. In 1874 he established The Painters magazine, 
with which was subsequently consolidated the Wall Paper Trade Journal, and about 
the same time he purchased The Druggists Circular, which was started in 1857. These 
three publications – the Oil, Paint and Drug Reporter, The Druggists Circular, and The 
Painters Magazine – not only continue to hold their prestige and influence among the 
trades which they represent, but enjoy a constantly increasing measure of success 
and a world-wide popularity and reputation. 

These relations have brought Mr. Allison into close personal contact with a large 
clientage, have made his judgment and opinions much sought after, and have led him 
into enterprises outside of the publishing business. Inheriting a tendency to operate in 
real estate, he has acquired from time to time considerable tracts of land on or near 
the Palisades until he has become one of the largest landowners in that section. And 
the eminent success which lie has achieved as publisher, financier, and real estate 
operator has won for him the respect, confidence, and admiration of all who know him. 
His industry and good judgment, his commercial and financial enterprises, and his 
many successful achievements, together with his unostentatious benefactions, mark 
him as a man of distinction and honor. He has gained by his own efforts an enviable 
place among the foremost publishers and financiers of the day, and may well regard 
with pride the career which he has carved out of surroundings shorn of none of the 
difficulties and temptations which every one encounters. 

Mr. Allison was married October 22, 1884, to Caroline Longstreet Hovey, daughter of 
Alfred Howard Hovey and Frances Noxon, of Syracuse, N. Y. Her parents dying when 
she was very young, she was adopted by the late Hon. George F. Comstock and his 
wife, and took the name of Comstock. Mrs. Comstock was a sister of Mrs. Allison's 
mother, and Mr. Comstock was at one time Attorney-General of the United States and 
Chief Justice of the New York Court of Appeals. Mrs. Allison was born in Syracuse on 
June 12, 1862, received her education at Keble School in that city and at a French 
school in Neuilly, near Paris, France, and resided in Syracuse until her marriage. She 
died at Paris on March 31, 1896. Their children were Katharine Floyd Allison, born July 
13, 1885; Frances Cornelia Allison, born November 23, 1887; Allis Allison, born 
September 30, 1888, died April 14, 1889; William Dana Allison, born September 8, 
1890, died September 8, 1894; John Blauvelt Allison, born January 13, 1893; and Van 
Kleeck Allison, born May 23, 1894. All were born in Englewood, N. J. Mr. Allison 
married, second, Mrs. Caroline A. Comstock, daughter of David Shaw, of Detroit, 
Mich. 
===
In The Hudson, A Guidebook to the River, is a reference to Allison Point, named after 
the mansion he built at that location on the river, on the site of the former Palisades 
Mountain House. See www.washington-
heights.us/history/archives/dyckman_street_boat_basin_113.html
https://casetext.com/case/in-re-allison-29


Parents
ALLISON William Henry ()
JORDAN Catherine ()

Siblings
ALLISON William Outis (30 Mar 1849 - 18 Dec 1924)

Marriage To HOVEY Caroline Longstreet (12 Jun 1862 - 31 Mar 1896)
    m. 22 Oct 1884 

Notes

Parents
HOVEY Alfred Howard (Feb 1812 - 7 Aug 1865)
NOXON Hester Frances (22 Sep 1822 - 2 Feb 1875)

Children by HOVEY Caroline Longstreet 12 Jun 1862 - 31 Mar 1896
ALLISON Katharine Floyd (13 Jul 1885 - )
ALLISON Frances Cornelia ("Fanny") (23 Nov 1887 - 19 Feb 1954)
ALLISON Alice (30 Sep 1888 - 14 Apr 1889)
ALLISON William Dana (8 Sep 1890 - 8 Sep 1894)
ALLISON John Blauvelt (13 Jan 1892 - 19 Oct 1981)
ALLISON Van Kleeck (19 May 1893 - 15 Mar 1920)

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