Matthew & Mary Earley

2026 | Hall of Fame

Matthew and Mary Earley
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Matthew Earley (1829 – 1917)

& Mary Earley (1840 – 1900)

Class of 2026 – Founders

Matthew Earley was born in Poland, Ohio on Oct. 29, 1829 and came to the Alliance area in 1859.  He operated a tannery at Vine Street and Walnut Avenue, owned a machine shop in Bolton, Ohio, and was at one time a city councilman for Alliance. 

Mary Edwards was born on Apr. 16, 1840 in the Fairmount area of Washington Township, just south of Mount Union.  Matthew and Mary married in 1865.  In 1867 they built their beautiful Victorian Italianate home on North Park Avenue in what was then the village of Freedom.  The house is now owned and operated by the Alliance Historical Society

Mary Edwards Earley enjoyed taking care of her home and family and doing church work.  She was also a member of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, Daughters of Rebekah, and Daughters of America.  Mrs. Earley gave financial and volunteer support to the schools, the public library, and the City Relief Committee. 

Matthew and Mary Earley never had any children of their own, but they did adopt Mabel Hartzell in 1885. 

Gertrude Kay

2026 | Hall of Fame

Gertrude Alice Kay
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Gertrude Alice Kay (1884-1939)

Class of 2026 – Artist

Gertrude Alice Kay was a children’s author and illustrator who was active during what was known as the Golden Age of Illustration.

Born on January 30, 1884, she was the second of three daughters born to Charles Young Kay (1852-1925), a lawyer and hardware merchant, and Gertrude Cantine Kay (1860 – 1935), she being named after her mother. Both of her parents were from prominent Alliance families and encouraged Gertrude to secure an arts education.

After graduating from Alliance High School in 1902, she attended the Philadelphia School of Design for Women and Drexel Univeristy, where she studied for several years under Howard Pyle, alongside many other prominent female illustrators of the time. She eventually graduated from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.

She returned to Alliance following her training. The family built a home at 133 South Union Avenue in 1913 and that’s where Gertrude Kay lived and worked for the rest of her life.

The home sat just north of the Alliance YMCA and later served as Myers-Israel Funeral Home until it was razed in 1996 to make room for expansion of the YMCA. Gertrude Kay’s studio was in the two-story building, which was as large as another house, in back of the property.

She called it her workshop and on the last page of one of her books, titled The Book of Seven Wishes, she placed a drawing of her studio, which she labeled “The Workshop” as well as her address. In text above it, she tells readers that her wish was for them to write her and tell her what they thought of her work.

Beginning in 1906, Gertrude regularly exhibited her work at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. She began her career illustrating children’s books with Down Spider Web Lane, A Fairy Tale, written by Mary Dickerson Donahey in 1909. Kay illustrated two more books before publishing her first original children’s book in 1916, titled When the Sandman Comes.

Between 1916 and 1931, she authored and illustrated ten books, including:

  • When the Sandman Comes, 1916
  • The Book of Seven Wishes, 1917
  • The Fairy Who Believed in Human Beings, 1918
  • The Jolly Old Shadow Man, 1920
  • Helping the Weatherman, 1920
  • Adventures in Our Street, 1925
  • The Friends of Jimmy, 1926
  • Us Kids and the Circus, 1927
  • Adventures in Geography, 1930
  • Peter, Patter and Pixie, 1931

Her books were typically 75 pages long with five to seven full-color, full-page paintings along with line art drawings scattered throughout the pages.

Gertrude was said to have used Alliance and the people and places she knew as subjects for some of her work, especially the books like “Adventures in Our Street,” which was acclaimed by reviewers.

However, she did travel extensively through the early 1920s with her mother and one of her sisters, spending significant amounts of time in Europe and Asia, which she said was for inspiration.

This period of time had a significant influence on Kay’s art, which was later praised for its ability to accurately and sensitively portray a wide variety of cultures and ethnicities. In 1930, she collected her work from this time and published the children’s book Adventures in Geography, a 160-page work with nearly fifty full-color reproductions of Kay’s paintings that tell the story of a young boy and his uncle’s travels around the world.

In addition to creating her 10 original children’s books, Gertrude Kay is credited as the illustrator of nearly two dozen books written by other individuals. She typically contributed two-to-seven full-color paintings to each novel, in addition to painting extravagant frontispieces and she worked with many prominent authors of the time.

Perhaps the most popular was Kay’s iteration of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, published in 1923.

Though she worked with more than fifteen different authors between 1909 and 1931, Kay had a particularly close relationship with journalist/author Sarah Addington, illustrating six of her ten children’s books between 1922 and 1927. Addington’s series depicting life on an imagined “Pudding Lane” was especially popular, and was known for Kay’s illustrations of fairy tale characters growing up alongside a young Santa Claus.

As early as the 1910s, she was contributing her work to periodicals for children and by the end of her career, Gertrude Kay regularly contributed illustrations for covers and features in popular magazines such as Ladies’ Home Journal, McCall’s, The American Girl, Woman’s World, and Good Housekeeping, and others.

Beginning in 1923, Gertrude created illustrated paper doll inserts for magazines like Ladies Home Journal and Pictorial Review. Her most popular characters were two children named Polly and Peter Perkins introduced in the early 1930s, who she regularly illustrated to be cut out and played with in a variety of scenarios.

Gertrude Kay’s brush was stilled on December 17, 1939, when she died from injuries she sustained in a car accident about a week earlier. She had been riding in a car driven by Hazel Purcell Rodman as the two women were on their way home from an art exhibit at the Butler Institute in Youngstown. They were struck near Canfield by another car that had crossed the center line.

Rodman, who was the wife of industrialist C.J. Rodman, namesake of Rodman Public Library, was slightly injured. However, Kay suffered a fractured skull and never recovered.

Kay never married and never had children, but her legacy was that she was a huge influence on another children’s author/illustrator from Alliance – Brinton Turkle, who won several awards in the 1960s and 1970s.

Gertrude belonged to the Association of Women Painters and Sculptors of New York, Authors’ League of America, and Plastic Club of Philadelphia.

Locally, Gertrude Kay was a member of the First Presbyterian Church, the Coterie Club, and the Alliance Woman’s Club.

She is buried in Alliance City Cemetery.

William Purcell

2026 | Hall of Fame

William H. Purcell
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William H. Purcell (1864-1944)

Class of 2026 – Industrialist

A central figure in the industrial growth of Alliance for more than six decades, William Henry Purcell was the founder and president of the Alliance Machine Company.

A product of the Alliance schools, his road to being a manufacturing magnate began on June 1, 1882, the day he became an apprentice machinist at the Morgan Engineering Company. It was said by his contemporaries that “the ability, aggressiveness and venturesome spirit which were to mark his career were early apparent” as he worked his way up the ranks, becoming foreman, superintendent, and finally general manager.

In 1901, Purcell led the way to the establishment of the Alliance Machine Company and served as president up until his death.

Through his guidance, the firm became one of the outstanding manufacturers in the world, earning a reputation for its construction of electric traveling cranes, tailor-made heavy machinery, and equipment of the most intricate nature. Developing numerous patents, the firm prospered and eventually built some of the largest cranes in the world.

Establishing Alliance Machine was just the start of Purcell’s industrial endeavors.

He later organized and served as the first president for both the Machined Steel Casting Company and the Alliance Manufacturing Company. He was the first chairman of the board and founded the Structural Company, of which he was secretary-treasurer at the time of his death. He was a director in the other companies in 1944.

His leadership in crane manufacturing led to his election for a term as the president of the Overhead Traveling Crane Institute of America.

Besides manufacturing, he was also influential in Alliance banking. For many years, Purcell was also president of Alliance First National Bank and was served as chairman of the board.

He was also a guiding spirit in the Alliance Chamber of Commerce, taking leading roles in community drives and similar undertakings of charitable nature, especially the Alliance Joint Campaign and War-Community fund.

Purcell was reported to give generously to many benefactors, remaining anonymous in his charity. Among those that were public included Mount Union College of which he was a booster in the advancement of the school’s athletic programs.

Purcell was a charter member of the Alliance Elks Lodge and joined the Alliance Rotary Club in 1919, shortly after its founding.

In social circles, he was a member of both the Army and Navy Club as well as Congressional Country Club in Washington, D.C., as well as the Alliance Country Club and Congress Lake Country Club.

Purcell was born in Crestline, the son of James and Ellen Crowe Purcell. The family moved to Alliance when he was 2 years old. His father was employed by the Pennsylvania Railroad and helped build the railroad through this section and assisted in the building of the depot.

He married Gertrude Hartzell on April 14, 1891. The couple had four children, including Hazel, who married C.J. “Bill” Rodman, another Alliance industrialist; Dorothy, who married Owen Leverett Lewis and was the mother of Owen Merrick Lewis, who would later own Alliance Machine and Glamorgan Castle; Robert Purcell; and Ruth Purcell.

Listed in publications such as Who’s Who, Who’s Who in Commerce and Industry, and the Biographical Encyclopedia of the World, Purcell had been active in business up until three days before he died on May 28, 1944, at his home, 1315 South Union Avenue, from infirmities of old age. He was about three months shy of his 80th birthday. He is buried in Alliance City Cemetery.

William McMaster

2026 | Hall of Fame

William H. McMaster
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William H. McMaster (1875-1962)

Class of 2026 – Educator

Known affectionately as “Prexy,” William Henry McMaster served as the fourth president of Mount Union College from 1908 to 1938.

Born on September 17, 1875, in Centerville in Belmont County, Ohio, he was the second of three children to Dr. James N. and Susan (Neff) McMaster.

In 1899, he graduated from Mount Union with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy. In 1902, he earned a bachelor of divinity degree at Drew Theological Seminary, and a year later, he earned a master’s degree at New York University. While serving as president, he earned his doctorate of divinity from Ohio Wesleyan in 1911.

Throughout his career, he was conferred with honorary doctor of laws degrees from the University of Pittsburgh (1926), Allegheny College (1938) and Mount Union (1946).

On May 8, 1907 he married Isabella Thoburn Mills. The couple had three children, all graduates of Mount Union, including Isabella Thoburn Thompson (1929), William H. McMaster Jr. (1932), and Janet Lyle Oman (1935).

A minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church when he was called back to Mount Union in 1908 to succeed Dr. Albert Birdsall Riker as president of his alma mater, McMaster became the first alumnus of the institution to serve in that capacity. At the age of 33, he was also the youngest college president in the country at the time.

McMaster’s tenure at Mount Union was a period of important formulative years in which the college experienced significant growth, including the transformation from a composite college to strictly a liberal arts institution. During that period, Mount Union was officially recognized by several accrediting agencies.

In 1911, he oversaw the merger between Mount Union and Scio College.

During his tenure, the endowment fund grew from $114,000 in 1909 to more than $1,500,000 by 1934. Meanwhile, student enrollment increased from 127 to 520 despite the fact that the Great Depression had been damaging to most colleges.

McMaster was credited with building a strong faculty of longstanding and beloved professors and developing Mount Union’s physical plant with the addition of Lamborn Science Hall, Elliott Residence Hall, Clarke Observatory, Hartshorn Stadium (today the oldest stadium in Ohio), and Memorial Hall (razed).

The library facilities at Mount Union grew more than fourfold as books increased from 11,000 volumes to more than 45,000 during his tenure. Meanwhile, the value of scientific equipment went from $15,000 to $75,000.

He also prompted establishment of many alumni organizations throughout the country and prompted the formation of the Mount Union Women’s Association, later becoming the College Women’s Club.

Following his retirement from Mount Union, he taught religious education at the University of Miami for 12 years, retiring in 1960 with the rank of professor emeritus.

In December 1956, Mount Union honored McMaster with the dedication of McMaster Residence Hall for Women, The University also honored Dr. McMaster with the dedication of a chapel inside the student union in his name.

He died on November 14, 1962 in Miami, Florida, at the age of 87.

Ellis Johnson

2026 | Hall of Fame

Ellis N. Johnson Sr.
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Ellis N. Johnson (1789-1889)

Class of 2026 – Founder

 

Ellis N. Johnson, of Mount Union, was one of the first settlers in what is now Alliance and celebrated his 100th birthday on April 1, 1889 – about five months prior to his death on September 15, 1889.

Born in Washington County, Pennsylvania, on April 1, 1789, he was born a month before the United States government officially began operation under the Constitution. At the time of his centennial, he was believed to be the only living Ohioan born before the nation had a president.

Upon his centennial, an article appeared in The Alliance Review, giving a sketch of his life that relayed the following facts and anecdotes:

Johnson came to Ohio in 1802 as a young man seeking opportunity on the frontier. After returning briefly to Pennsylvania to marry Dorcas Moffit in 1816, he settled permanently near present-day Mount Union in 1823. The following year he moved his family into a log cabin he built on the site where his later brick home stood. According to the article, this was the first family residence within what later became the city limits of Alliance.

Over the course of more than sixty years, Johnson served the community as a surveyor, Justice of the Peace, and notary public. He reportedly married more couples than any other man in the county. In 1841, he helped lay out the first section of Freedom, one of settlements that later became Alliance, and he maintained a strong interest in the city’s growth throughout his life.

Johnson and his family were active supporters of the Underground Railroad in Washington Township, assisting freedom seekers escaping slavery on their journey to Canada. A lifelong advocate of temperance, he organized Mount Union’s first temperance society and became known as a powerful and persuasive public speaker. Many stories circulated about the conversions he made. One of his converts was his own brother, Job Johnson, who was in the hotel business at the time.

Dorcas Johnson (1798-1835)  died  at the age of 36 while on a trip back to her childhood home in Washington County, Pennsylvania. In 1836, Ellis Johnson married Mary Ann Graves (1811-1889), also from Washington County, Pennsylvania.

Throughout his life, Johnson made remarkable connections to prominent figures in American history. He was acquainted with Robert Fulton, inventor of the steamboat, and knew members of the Blaine and Gillespie families, including Neal Gillespie, grandfather of statesman James G. Blaine, who was serving a second term as Secretary of State. Mary A. Graves, had taught the young Blaine his alphabet and first reader lessons.

Among the many famous Americans Johnson met were Henry Clay, General Winfield Scott, and President William Henry Harrison, from whom Johnson preserved a personal letter dated February 9, 1839. He also met the Marquis de Lafayette during Lafayette’s 1824 return visit to America. Johnson delighted in recounting how he once engaged the towering Scott in a friendly wrestling match and managed to throw him to the ground.

Politically, Johnson began as a Whig. After a period as a Free Soiler, he eventually joined the Republican Party. He proudly claimed to have voted in every presidential election from Thomas Jefferson onward.

His centennial celebration brought congratulatory letters and telegrams from notable public figures, including President Chester A. Arthur’s administration, former President Grover Cleveland, Ohio Governor Joseph Foraker, Pennsylvania Governor James Beaver, and James G. Blaine, who praised both Johnson’s longevity and the character he had maintained throughout his life.

According to his obituary that ran in the Stark County Democrat, published in Canton, Ellis and his brother Simon came to Ohio from Pennsylvania in 1823, built cabins, and then returned to Pennsylvania to bring their families west in 1824.

It noted that Johnson was a speaker of some note and had served Washington Township for a time as a surgeon and was several time elected mayor of Mount Union.

The obituary stated that he never had a sick day is his 100 years.

Ellis Johnson had six children with his first wife, including James M., Betty (William) Davidson, Caleb, Ellis N. Jr., John M., and Rebecca (John) Miller.

Five children were born to Johnson through his second wife, including David G., Mary (Jerry) Lee, Dorcas (Williamson) Teeters, Charles, and Ella (Lee) Grimes.

It should be noted, Ellis N. Johnson Jr. (1825-1902) was a founder Southwestern Normal School (later California University of Pennsylvania) and served as its first principal in 1852 was later a member of the state legislature from 1870 to 1874. He also was appointed to positions in the U.S. Treasury and the U.S. War Department.

It should also be noted that Mary Ann Graves Johnson, his second wife, followed Ellis into eternity just two days after his passing. They are buried in Mount Union Cemetery.

Daniel Crist

2026 | Hall of Fame

Daniel Webster Crist
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Daniel Webster Crist (1857-1929)

Class of 2026 – Business

Daniel Webster Crist was a prominent music composer and publisher as well as an educator, banker, and statesman.

One of ten children of Robert and Mary (Ruff) Crist, he was born on November 28, 1857 in New Chambersburg in Columbiana County, and was reared on the homestead farm.

He graduated from Ohio Northern University in 1882. That was the same year that he married Mary A. Reed (1864-1931), of Columbiana County. They had three children, Myrtie M., wife of Charles G. Miller; James R., connected with manufacturing industry in Canton and Arthur Dillon, a prominent businessman of Alliance.

One of the pioneer singing teachers of his day, as a young man Daniel Webster Crist began composing songs and later instrumental music, and gradually his efforts were directed to broader fields. His first publication, a collection of Sunday school music of his own composition, was published under the title of “Gospel Gleanings” in 1886. This was so successful that it proved the cornerstone of his business as a music publisher, producing  Sunday school song books, day school song books, music folios, sheet music, band music, instruction books. He was also the author of eighteen song books, besides some eighteen volumes of musical collections and over 200 special compositions.

Crist was com­pos­ing at least through 1910, when he scored the “Flow­er Girl Waltz.” His other prominent works included “The Ev­er­green Waltz;” “Joy and Praise for Sun­day Schools,” with R.A. Glenn (Cin­cin­na­ti, Ohio: H. L. Ben­ham, 1886); “Gospel Glean­ings,” 1886; and “Victory of Song.” (Moul­trie, Ohio: D. W. Crist, 1892.

For many years his business as a music publisher was conducted at Moultrie, in Columbiana County, before moving his plant to Alliance in May 1915. The company published largely the compositions and collections of Crist.

Soon after his relocation, he became one of the organizers of the Peoples Bank of Alliance and also served on the school board.

While working for 30 years as a suc­cess­ful mu­sic pub­lish­er, he al­so taught, farmed, and in New Al­ex­an­der, served as a church mu­sic di­rect­or and Sun­day school su­per­in­ten­dent.

Crist also had a career in politics. In 1901, he was elected a member of the state legislature on the Republican ticket, was reelected in 1903, and in 1905 was elected to the state senate where he advocated ideas and principles that subsequently became the ground work of the state tax commission of Ohio.

A member of the Christian Church, he was a Knight Templar and thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason, and Shriner, a member of Al Koran Temple, at Cleveland.

Crist died in 1929 and is buried in Moultrie Chapel Cemetery.

Nathaniel Gaskill

2026 | Hall of Fame

Lexington Village Commemoration Plaque
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Nathaniel Gaskill (1774-1841)

Class of 2026 – Founder

Nathaniel “Nathan” Gaskill laid out the village of Lexington in 1807 along with Amos Holloway.  Located at the intersection of the diagonal roads from Salem to Cleveland and from Deerfield to Canton, the settlement and the township took their name from the battle of Lexington in the Revolutionary War.  The settlement was on the banks of the Mahoning River, which was a grand waterway at the time, as it was declared navigable by act of legislation. 

The son of Daniel and Huldah (Mott) Gaskill, he was born in Burlington County, New Jersey, in 1774, A Quaker farmer, Nathan Gaskill married Hannah Owens (1774-1845) in Burlington County, New Jersey, in 1797. They were among five families that originally settled in Lexington. They had 10 children, including Martha, Joseph (1798-1866), Elizabeth Hamlin (1801-1876), Daniel IV (1802-1854), Israel, Abigail Wood (1807-1869), Abraham (1808-1895), Levi, Mary, and Wesley.

After its formation in 1807, Nathan Gaskill became the first justice of the peace of Stark County in 1812. He also served a second term in 1817.

Gaskill died in 1841 and is buried in Canal Fulton.

C.C. Davidson

2026 | Hall of Fame

Charles C. Davidson
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C.C. Davidson (1842-1926)

Class of 2026 – Educator

For more than 50 years, Charles C. Davidson was a leader in educational and financial circles in Alliance, active in the business of both at the time of his death in 1926 at the age of 84.

Vital in the development of the Alliance public school system, he served as superintendent of schools for nine years. Following retirement from that post, he served on the board of education at various times, including nine consecutive years at the time of his death and had presided as president of the body during a meeting just two weeks prior.

He was also influential in banking around Alliance, being among the organizers of every bank that existed in the city in 1926, including the Alliance Building and Savings Company, which he founded and was still actively associated, as well as the People’s Bank of which he was still a director.

A lifelong member and regular attender of the First Methodist Church and the Masons, C.C. Davidson was marked by devotion to any duty and had missed only two board of education meetings during his many years of service.

Born near Caldwell on February 24, 1842, he attended Ohio University and eventually graduated from the Normal School at Worthington.

Following graduation, he was superintendent of schools at Quaker City, near Columbus, for two years. In 1876, he took the same position at Lisbon, serving for seven years. In 1883, he took over as head of the Alliance Schools. One of his major contributions as superintendent was starting a book drive in 1886 that eventually led to the first public library service in Alliance.

He organized the Alliance Building and Savings Company in 1899, serving in an executive capacity until his death. He was recognized as a “major capitalist” of the city through his banking connections.

He married Mary Martha Patterson (1850 – 1942) on October 13, 1875. The couple were parents to Carl, who was a representative of the Goodyear Company in the Philippines in 1926.

They lived at 59 West Ely Street.

C.C. Davidson died on December 6, 1926 and is buried at Alliance City Cemetery.

 

Amos Holloway

2026 | Hall of Fame

Amos Holloway
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Amos Holloway (1759-1842)

Class of 2026 – Founder

Amos Holloway was credited with platting the village of Lexington, along with Nathan Gaskill. The village, which does not exist today, was the first settlement in Lexington Township – both named after the Battle of the Revolutionary War.

Holloway, was born on September 7, 1759, in Burlington County, New Jersey. He married Hepzibah Stanton (1770-1824) in October 1785 in Lynchburg, Virginia. The Quaker couple had several children and were among five families that located to present Lexington Township in 1805-06 to live in a state that did not allow slavery.

Holloway, a farmer, was credited with building the first house in Lexington Township with a shingled roof. That structure later became the village’s first store.

Amos Holloway died in December 1842 and is buried in Lexington Quaker Cemetery.

Listed among his children are Phebe Holloway Frey (1787-unknown), Stephen Holloway (1789-1877), Rhoda Holloway Burden (1789-unknown), Job Holloway (1793-1824), Aaron Holloway (1795-1873), Huldah Holloway Hatfield (1798-1863), Jason Holloway (1801-1884), Anna Holloway Rockhill (1803-1870), Elizabeth Holloway Gaskill (1805-1875), Margaret Holloway (1808-1855), Zebulon Holloway (1810-1810), Lydia Holloway Buckman (1812-1906), Sarah Holloway Pellett (1814-1857), and Amos Holloway Jr. (1816-unknown).

Orville Hartshorn

2026 | Hall of Fame

Orville Nelson Hartshorn
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Orville Nelson Hartshorn (1823-1901)

Class of 2026 – Founder

Orville Nelson Hartshorn was the founder and first president of Mount Union College.

Born on August 20, 1823, in Nelson, Ohio, Hartshorn was visiting a gravely ill sister in the village of Mount Union in 1846 when local residents learned that he had been a teacher in Meadville, Pennsylvania, and requested he start a school for their children. On October 4, 1846, Hartshorn founded Mount Union Seminary with six students on the second floor of a carding mill. In January 1858, it was chartered as a college.

On November 1, 1849, Hartshorn married Amanda Melvina Brush (1828-1909). The couple had five children – Lucetta Abigail “Setti” Hartshorn Jacob (1850-1932), Dora Hartshorn Lehman (1854-1905), Homer Hartshorn (1865-1926), Emma Hartshorn Beck (1865-1926) and Walter B. Hartshorn (1867-1921).

An ardent fighter for the cause of temperance, Hartshorn was licensed to preach by the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1852. He was a professor of moral and intellectual philosophy and international law at Mount Union College in addition to serving as president of the institution until 1887.

After hearing of the assassination of President William McKinley on September 6, 1901, Hartshorn had a series of attacks and died on September 17, 1901. He is buried in Mount Union Cemetery.