1851 – 1931
From Texas Under Many Flags – Published in 1930
Transcribed by Linda J. Nichols
JOHN CARLTON ALLISON, whose home is in the Ackton [sic] community of Hood County, is a retired farmer and stock man, and is one of the residents of Hood County whose recollections of this section goes back to the time when Hood County, then Johnson County, was out on the frontier, exposed to Indian raids and dangers.
Mr. Allison was born in Alabama, July 29, 1851. His father, John H. Allison, was born in North Carolina, son of James Allison, a farmer, stock man, slave owner and operator of a mill in Alabama. John H. Allison became a farmer and locksmith, and was a mechanic during the last two years of the Civil war, serving in the command of General Gano, having joined the Confederate army from Johnson County, Texas. Before coming to Texas he had lived for a time in Southwestern Missouri, and in 1859 came to Johnson County, Texas, finally moving to Bentonville, Arkansas, where he died in 1868. He married Malinda Jenkins, a native of Tennessee, daughter of William Jenkins, a farmer, trader and slave owner. Mrs. Malinda (Jenkins) Allison died in Oklahoma at the advanced age of ninety-three years. She was the mother of eight children, John C. being the third in age and the only one now living.
Mr. Allison was a small boy when his parents came to Texas, and most of his early advantages were obtained in a log school house on Walnut Creek in Johnson County. After the Civil war he attended a college in Arkansas. The family was fortunately situated during the Civil war, since his father owned a large tract of land and many cattle, so there was always plenty to eat, though meal and flour and other supplies had to be hauled from Dallas.
About the first work Mr. Allison did after completing his college course was breaking horses for his father. His father owned 400 head of horses. This was the work that kept him busy in Johnson County until 1867, when he went out on the range as a cowboy, an occupation he followed four years. After his marriage he took up farming as a regular occupation. While his father owned a large amount of land in Texas, the son John C. chose to begin farming in Arkansas. After some twelve or fifteen years he sold out his holdings in that state and in October, 1885, returned to Hood County, where he first rented land and later bought a tract on the creek six miles east of Granbury. He was there five years, selling the 160 acres, and then bought twenty-two acres in the Ackton [sic] community, which has been his home for thirty years. Until recently he was engaged in stock feeding, trading and carpentering, and his business made him known over a large territory. Mr. Allison has served as a deacon in the Baptist Church since early manhood.
He married in Arkansas, in November, 1870, Miss Savanna Carpenter, daughter of Henry and Eliza Carpenter, who were natives of Indiana. Mrs. Allison died in Hood County in 1908. She was the mother of three children. The son William Edward, born in 1872, a farmer and trader in Hood County, married Emma Duckworth. Mrs. Eliza May McGreen, born in 1876, became the mother of three children, and she and her husband, who was a farmer, both died in Hood County. The youngest child, Malinda, born in 1878, is the wife of George McClung, a road contractor living at Fort Worth and owner of a large ranch in Johnson County. They have four children. Mr. Allison’s three children were all born in Arkansas. He married in 1914, in Hamilton County, Texas, Mrs. Nannie Preacher, whose father, William George, came from Indiana, was a cabinet maker and mechanic by trade, and saw a great deal of the frontier in Texas. He died in Hill County, this state. Mrs. Allison was born in Young County, Texas, September 21, 1862, and by her first marriage had one child, Dave, who married Miss Willie Downing, and they have three children and live in Texas.
| John Carlton Allison was born July 29, 1851 and died February 25, 1931. He was buried in the Acton Cemetery in Hood County, Texas. |
SOURCE
Texas Under Many Flags, Volume III. Clarence R. Wharton, Author and Editor. 1930: The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York.