Copyright USGenNet Inc., 2013, All Rights Reserved U.S. Data Repository Please read U.S. Data Repository Copyright Statement on this page: Transcribed and submitted by Linda Talbott for the US Data Repository http://www.us-data.org/ ========================================================================= U.S. Data Repository NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization. Non-commercial organizations desiring to use this material must obtain the consent of the transcriber prior to use. Individuals desiring to use this material in their own research may do so. ========================================================================= Formatted by U.S. Data Repository Chief Archivist, Linda Talbott All of the above information must remain when copied or downloaded. =========================================================================== Biographical History of Cherokee County, Iowa W. S. Dunbar & Co., Chigago - 1889 [page 432-433] REV. J. MacALLISTER. — The pastor of the Presbyterian Church of Cherokee, Iowa, Rev. J. MacALLISTER, is a native of Scotland, born in Greenock, on the River Clyde, November 4, 1842. He came to the United States in 1870. Residing in Chicago for several years, he held situations in the large dry-goods firms of Hamlin, Hale & Co., S. Keith and Gale. He was in the employ of the former when the disastrous fire swept over that city. The house in which he boarded, the warehouse in which he was employed, and the church in which he worshiped were all destroyed, but he sustained no personal loss or injury. After the decease of his mother and an invalid sister, who were dependent upon him, he, feeling free to follow the bent of his wishes, entered upon a course of study for the ministry, graduating from the McCormick Theological Seminary (Chicago) in 1879. In the vacation between the first and second years of study in this insti- tution he labored, under appointment of the Home Mission Board of the Presbyterian Church, among the minors of Colorado, in the San Juan country most of the time. As this service was rendered before the days of the railroad extension, it was full of difficulty, dan- ger and adventure among the settlers, whom he found a warm-hearted, generous class of men (there were very few women among them in those days). There were no churches with sweet-toned bells to call the worshipers. Places had to be found, and very crude means employed to do the work on which he was sent. He tells of calling the people together by striking a bar of steel with a hammer, at the church door, and the house lighted with half candles stuck on nails around the walls, and the praises sung from rough charts (?) made of coarse brown paper borrowed at the store, the hymns written in large letters that could be seen all over the room. This experience was one of great profit, affording as it did opportunity to travel amid the grandest scenery of the continent, and work among people who were hungry for the gospel, because long deprived of the privilege of hearing it. The second vacation, between seminary years, was spent in a quiet country region, with Pine Creek Church, in Buchanan County, Iowa. Here he was privileged to see an entirely different phase of life, one which was as new to him as the Colorado mining, for he had always lived in a large city. He had no knowledge of the labors, the joys, and the stal- wart courage of the poorer class of farmers laboring in all sorts of extreme weather to build homes and make farms. Here he also witnessed the fullness of plenty in the homes of the well-to-do farmers, and saw the beauty of religion as it lit up the lives and homes of the wealthy and the lowly. Truly "one-half the world does not know how the other half lives," and all would be greatly benefited by a fuller knowledge. During the last year of study at Chicago, he supplied the church at Crown Point, Indiana, going out ever Saturday morning. This was also a useful item toward his training. It brought him into contact and sym- pathy with good and industrious people in a small town, trying to maintain the worship of God according to their conscience. There is now a much finer church there than the old one, in which he preached some of his early sermons made among the Colorado mines, and on the Iowa prairies. Finishing his studies, he accepted a call to go back to the little church of Pine Creek; here he was married to Miss ISABELLA HAMILTON, and remained as pastor for three years. Then the people of Waltham Church, in La Salle County, Illinois, invited him to visit them with a view of undertaking work. But he did not see his way clear to accept the unanimous call which was extended to him at the close of a few months. This brief sojurn fills the mind with the pleasantest of memories. Here were formed friendships which will continue through life. Jesup, in Buchanan County, Iowa, was the next home for two and one-half years. Here, in fellowship with the pastors of the Baptist and Methodist Episcopal churches, he enjoyed a sweet season of work and blessing, many being added to the churches of "such as were being saved." From Jesup Mr. MacALLISTER was called to Cherokee, in May, 1885, where he bears witness to a kind people and a pleasant work. During this period, during his summer vacation, he has visited Montana, preaching in Bozeman for a season for an ab- sent friend, and roaming among the mountain creeks and glens of that famous region of "The Rockies,"near to the Yellowstone Park. During last summer he enjoyed a long-looked-for pleasure, revisiting his native land, after an absence of nearly twenty years. Of course there were great changes observable in towns and people, but the country wore its old charm. He visited London for the first time and spent a week among its wonders, meeting the irrepressible American tourist everywhere. What a city it is? A week left but the knowledge of how little a traveler could know about it,—about its extent of ter- ritory, its labyrinth of streets, its oddities, its enterprise, its wealth, and comfort, and power. Across that dreadful channel in those miserable boats was the next experience, and Paris had been wondered over and guessed at for another week. Its Eiffel Tower and its Exposition were a constant amazement. The home journey was made in that "greyhound of the sea," the City of Paris, in five days twenty- three hours and ten minutes from land to land (Queenstown to Sandy Hook), and he says the statue of Liberty in New York Harbor was the finest piece of art seen in all his travels; perhaps because the good lady welcomed him home and hinted at Cherokee. ===========================================================================