Burgiss Allison - subject 11 in A Noble Company, Volume 5.

Subject number XI in A Noble Company, Volume 5, is Burgiss Allison (1753-1827). He was a pastor-educator who spent all of his ministerial life within his native state of New Jersey. There he established a successful academy at Bordentown in 1778 and with it engaged in pastoral ministry at Jacobstown from 1785-1812 and at Burlington from 1812-1816. He served in the U.S. chaplaincy from 1816-1827, first in the House of Representatives and then in the Naval Yard at Washington, D.C. With Samuel Jones he compiled A Selection of Psalms and Hymns at the appointment of the Philadelphia Association, which was published in 1790. In addition, he published a popular dictionary in 1815 and was an inventor who received patents for some of his ideas, including improvements in the steam engine. Morgan Edwards wrote that Allison “approaches towards a universal genius beyond any of my acquaintance [and] his stated preaching shows his skill in divinity.” His funeral service was “attended by a numerous train of relatives and friends.”