Francis Alison, D.D., was born in the parish of Lac, County of Donegal, Ireland, in the year 1705. He came as a probationer to this country, in 1734 or '35. On the recommendation of Franklin, he was employed by John Dickinson, of Delaware, the author of the "Farmer's Letters," as the tutor of his son. Leave to take a few other pupils was granted, and he is said to have had an academy at Thunder Hill, Maryland. He was ordained pastor of New London, by New Castle Presbtery, before May, 1737. In 1749 he was invited to take charge of the Philadelphia Academy. This institution was incorporated in 1750, endowed in 1753, and erected into a college in 1755, at which time Mr. Alison was appointed its Vice Provost and Professor of Moral Philosophy. He was also assistant minister of the First Presbyterian Church. Both these positions he filled with acknowledged fidelity and success. In 1738 he received the degree of Doctor of Divinity from the University of Glasgow. He was the first of our ministers who received that honor, and the Synod of Philadelphia returned their thanks, for the favor, to the University.
On the union of the Synods, May 24th, 1758, Dr. Alison preached from Ephesians 4:4-7, and the sermon was published, with the title, "Peace and Union Recommended." He went with Colonel Burd, as chaplain to the expedition to Fort Cumberland, and remained from August to November. Together with Gilbert Tennent and the Presbyterians generally, who were headed by Chief Justice Allen (father-in-law of Governor John Penn), he opposed the throwing off the Proprietary Government, and, as a reward for his services in that matter, Richard Penn gave him the splendid tract of one thousand acres at the confluence of the Bald Eagle with the West Branch of the Susquehanna. He was the efficient agent in the establishment of the Widows' Fund in our Church, and was wisely active in the convention with the Connecticut ministers to withstand the gradual but determined innovations of Churchmen and the Crown on our liberties as citizens and Christians. He died, November 28th, 1779, aged seventy-four, and set free his slaves by his will.
Bishop White, who was a student in the College of Philadelphia while Dr. Alison was a Professor in it, says of him in his Memoirs: "He was a man of unquestionable ability in his department, of real and rational piety, of a liberal mind; his failing was a proneness to anger, but it was soon forgotten, for he was placable and affable.” President Stiles pronounced him "the greatest classical scholar in America, especially in Greek," and "in Ethics, History and general reading, a great literary character." And Dr. Ewing, in his funeral sermon, said: "He was truly a scribe well instructed unto the Kingdom of Heaven, a workman that needed not to be ashamed, for he rightly divided the Word of Truth, and was peculiarly skillful in giving to every one his portion in due season.