San Bernardino County
Biographies
WILLIAM FRANCIS ALLISON
was born September 7, 1847, in Lockhaven, Pennsylvania,
and, like many men who achieve success in business or distinction in public
life, his early years were passed on a farm, where are instilled habits of
industry, and the seeds of a sturdy, self-reliant manhood are sown which ripen
into true grandeur of character. Young Allison's inclination being rather toward
mercantile pursuits than agricultural, he left the farm and took a course in
Commercial College at Poughkeepsie, New York. Though not of legal age, he
exemplified his patriotism by enlisting in the Union army, and it was the
hardships experienced in his country's service that impaired his naturally frail
constitution. After spending a few months in a drug store his health gave way,
and he went west as far as Nebraska, seeking to improve it. There he
engaged in a milling enterprise, which did not prove satisfactory, and he
returned to Lockhaven and accepted a fine position tendered him with the firm of
Hastings & Carson, manufacturing druggists in Philadelphia, on a salary of
$1,600 a year. Soon after entering their employ, the step which determined his
subsequent business career, he married Miss A. R. MacManigal, a friend of his
childhood and youth.
His health again failing, being attacked with hemorrhages of the lungs, he was compelled to resign his position much to the regret of his employers. He tried Minnesota a few months, then he went to Le Mars, Iowa, reaching there with his wife and child at the beginning of winter with less than $150 as his total worldly possession. Experiencing considerable difficulty in securing the rooms which served as their habitation for the winter, Mr. Allison embarked in the drug business in a very small way, struggling with the combined enemies, disease and poverty. Notwithstanding he was confined to his bed part of the time during the winter, he built up a trade in the six years that he carried on business there which yielded a net income of $300 a month. Still suffering from hemorrhages, he resolved as a last resort to come to Southern California, which he reached with his family, in August, 1881, so reduced that he was unable to leave his bed for nearly a year. This salubrious climate, aided by his remarkable tenacity of life and indomitable energy, restored him to comfortable health, and in April, 1882, he, in company with Dr. A. D. Bedford, started in the drug business on D street. A year later they removed to the northeast corner of Third and D streets, where the firm conducted a flourishing trade until he purchased his partner's interest in May, 1888. Not long after that he took in J. A. Lamb as a partner, which relation continued until Mr. Allison's death on November 22, 1889. Besides being the managing head of a very successful drug house, Mr. Allison has been one of the most active and successful real-estate men in San Bernardino County, in spite of his physical infirmities with which he was affected. He possessed an exceptionally bright, active mind, and in all his relations in life exhibited a conscientious regard for the right, and an integrity of character that was unimpeachable. Mr. Allison was a faithful member and a zealous and efficient worker in the Methodist Episcopal Church, by whom the memory of his character and deeds is sacredly cherished. His wife and three children, two daughters and a son, survive him. Of a truth it may be said of him, he lived up to his highest ideal of duty.
SOURCE: An Illustrated History of Southern California: Embracing the Counties of San Diego, San Bernardino, Los Angeles and Orange, and the Peninsula of Lower California… Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1890. p.- 493-494
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler
THE SAN BERNARDINO ACADEMY AND BUSINESS COLLEGE.
This institution, which ranks among the first of its class in Southern California, was founded and opened by Professor David B. Sturges, its present proprietor and principal, in February, 1883. Appreciating the demands for a higher grade of education than the public schools of this city then afforded, he established his school for the double purpose of giving advanced pupils the advantage of a thorough practical business education or an academic course which would prepare them to enter the freshman-class in a university. With this end in view, Mr. Sturges has aimed at and maintained a high standard of scholarship by the thoroughness and scope of his methods of instruction. So complete is the academic course in the San Bernardino Academy that the graduates therefrom are admitted to the University of California without examination, which is the case with only one other private school in the State. The present building and equipment accommodate seventy-five pupils, and Professor Sturges has made provision for enlarging to double that capacity. Connected with the school is a partial gymnasium, which is to be fitted up with complete apparatus in the near future. When Professor Sturges established this school his capital was so limited that he was obliged to go in debt for a large part of the purchase price of the lot. The success of his enterprise has been such that without any outside financial aid he has accumulated a property, in lot and building, on Fourth street near D street, worth from $10,000 to $12,000.
Professor David B. Sturges is a classical scholar, educated in Michigan University, in which State he was born in 1839. In 1862, he went to Montana and there spent fourteen years, a portion of the time in teaching. He came to California in 1876, and has been engaged in educational work in the southern part of the State ever since. The courses of study in his academy and business college are being enlarged and improved each successive year, and a higher and broader standard of excellence in scholastic results is attained. Associated with him as instructors is an able corps of teachers, one of the most efficient assistants being his cultured and accomplished wife, who is also a native of Michigan, and a graduate from Albion College. She has charge of the department of English composition, which, through her zealous labors, has been developed to a very complete system.
SOURCE: An Illustrated History of Southern California: Embracing the Counties of San Diego, San Bernardino, Los Angeles and Orange, and the Peninsula of Lower California… Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1890. p.- 494
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler