the maternal side we find, in addition to the strong character and rugged views of independence and of religious freedom which came from Scottish ancestry, that a contribution of both Scottish and German blood was received. Mary Rose, who married James, William McKinley's grandfather, came from England and was of Puritan extraction. Her ancestors were among those who fled eastward from England to Holland to secure freedom from religious persecution, while the paternal ancestors of McKinley were struggling for similar freedom in Scotland. From Holland they came to America, Andrew Rose being an emigrant with William Penn, and receiving land encompassing sixty miles, where Doylestown, Pennsylvania, now stands. He was a prominent man in the early colonial history of Pennsylvania. His son, Andrew Rose, Jr., was the father of Mary Rose, who became the wife of James McKinley, and the mother of William McKinley, Sr.

It is not strange that when the old Covenanter stock of Scotland was mingled with that of those stern lovers of religious freedom, the Puritans, a strong, self-reliant, and intelligent family was planted in eastern Ohio. This Andrew Rose, Jr., the great-grandfather of William McKinley on his mother's side, while not a warrior for a long time in the Revolution like David McKinley, was an extremely useful man in those days when skill in the art of producing instruments of warfare was but rare. He shouldered his musket and went to battle, but bullets and cannon-balls being needed as much as men, and as he was an iron moulder by trade, he was sent home after the battle of Monmouth to make ammunition for the fighters in the field. After the war he continued in his trade as an iron worker.

By his second wife he had eight children, and one of them, Polly, was the grandmother of William McKinley, Jr. Her father moved from Bucks county to Center county, Pennsylvania, and it was somewhere at this time that the Roses and McKinleys became acquainted, and a family association began which has since continued. Marriage relationships and business partnerships were not only entered into by the McKinleys and the Roses directly after the Revolution, but later on children of Andrew Rose, Jr., assisted William McKinley, Sr., at his iron foundry at New Lisbon, Ohio. Another Rose was interested with William McKinley, Sr., at Slippery Rock, in Mercer county, in the iron business. James McKinley and his wife, Mary Rose McKinley, moved to New Lisbon in 1809, when William McKinley, Sr., was but a year and a half old. James Rose was married to Martha McKinley, daughter of David and Sarah McKinley, in 1806, and the peculiarly intimate relations between the two families, thus early entered into, have been maintained in various ways ever since.

William McKinley, Sr., who was the second of thirteen children, was married in the twenty-second year of his age to Mary Allison. The Allisons originally came from England and settled in Virginia. Some of them afterwards went to Greene county, Pennsylvania, and it was there that Abner Allison, the grandfather of McKinley, was born. In 1798 he married Ann Campbell, who came of a Scotch-German family. Early in this century this couple emigrated westward from Pennsylvania, making the journey on horseback, Mrs. Allison holding in front of her the youngest child. They settled some

eight miles from New Lisbon, Ohio, on a farm, and there in 1809 was born Mary Allison, who became the mother of McKinley. She was married to William McKinley, Sr., in 1827, and soon after the young couple went to Fairfield, Ohio.

By this mixture of the Covenanter and the Puritan, and an added element from the blood of the thoughtful and studious German ancestors, William McKinley inherited that love of freedom, that sturdy honesty of purpose, that natural probity, that indomitable will power, which peculiarly fitted his grandparents for entering upon a severe pioneer life in the early part of this century, and which peculiarly fitted him for a notable career. That very pioneer life itself in the uncultivated lands of western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio must have further developed these very same qualities. Their experiences, if not as severe as those of the Puritans who landed at Plymouth Rock, and who had a tough struggle with the climate and the Indians, were at least severe enough to develop all their strong qualities. It was an experience by which men and women were either made great or killed at an early age. The women, no less than the men, were called upon to endure many hardships in providing for the families of those days, which were generally large, and surrounded, by force of circumstances, with scanty provisions for their comfort and sustenance.

Engaged in the early iron industries of this country, as William McKinley's grandfather and father, and also his great grandfather, Andrew Rose, Jr., were, William McKinley inherited strong convictions as to the conditions regarding the development of the business, and we

can well imagine that in his mind were early laid the foundations of those doctrines as to protection to home industries, and their development in this country in thorough independence of other countries a doctrine of which he was destined to become the leading exponent among the people.

The readiness, also, with which several of the ancestors of William McKinley left their farms, furnaces, or their forges, and went to the field of battle when there was a call for men, in defense of their country, will explain, so far as ancestry can, the promptness with which the Ohio statesman, when only a lad of eighteen, persuaded his parents to allow him to shoulder a musket and march to the front in defense of the Union in 1861. The McKinleys have always been hard workers and thorough patri

ots.

CHAPTER II.

BIRTH AND BOYHOOD

EARLY INFLUENCES IN THE

MCKINLEY HOME AT NILES.

The Birthplace of McKinley and its Associations - Influences of His Father and Mother - No Chances for Idleness in the McKinley Family — William and his Share in the family Woodpile- A More Bookish than Boyish Boy - The Household Library - Standard Works of History - Shakespeare a Favorite Dickens for Fiction - Seizing every Opportunity for Study-After-dinner Readings in the Family Circle-Every Night, Some Member of the Family Read Aloud for an Hour — Early to Bed and Early to Rise Father McKinley a Whig, Free Soiler, and Protectionist - He Talked Politics with his Children - Magazines and The Weekly Tribune Regular Visitors Religious Influences.

N the early forties, William McKinley, Sr., was managing an iron furnace near Niles, Trumbull county, Ohio, a settlement of very few inhabitants then, where the Mosquito Creek runs into the Mahoning river, and it was there, in a long, two-story dwelling, that, on January 29, 1843, William McKinley, Jr., was born. The building served the double purpose of a country store and dwellings. It is still standing, and a faithful picture of it as it is to-day will show the old country store, and just over the vine-clad entrance to the tenements above, is the part of the house where William McKinley first saw the light of day. It was in the little porch, over which the