Tahawus, New York
Tahawus was a village in the Town of Newcomb, Essex County, New York, United States. It is now a ghost town situated in the Adirondack Park. Tahawus is located in Essex County within the unpopulated northern area designated to the town of Newcomb. Tahawus was the site of major iron smelting operations in the 19th century. Although standing as as 2005, the last mining facilities have since been demolished and removed, it was in Tahawus in 1901 that Vice President Theodore Roosevelt learned President William McKinley was dying. The Adirondack Iron and Steel Company was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977. In the nineteenth century the area was mined for iron ore. Adirondac, New York was a company town of the Adirondack Iron Works. Iron deposits were first found here in 1826 by David Henderson; the iron was extracted at what was known as the Upper Works with moderate success between 1827 and 1857. In 1857, after a struggle, the Adirondack Iron Works surrendered to the remoteness of the wilderness and Adirondac became known as the "deserted village".
Impurities of titanium dioxide were present in the iron, which made it difficult for equipment of that era to properly process the ore. A local flood and a nationwide economic crisis were factors in the closure of the Upper Works. According to the New York State Adirondack Park Agency: Throughout its existence, the Adirondack Iron Works operated two farms, the blast furnace and forge, a puddling furnace and brick kilns, trip hammers and a grist and saw mill; the Village consisted of sixteen dwellings and a building with a cupola, used as school and the general assembly room. The first bank in the Adirondack Mountains opened in the hamlet of Adirondac; the mine and related works operated from 1827 to 1857, after which residents abandoned the community. The enterprise closed due in part to difficulties in extracting an unknown impurity from the local ore. During the latter nineteenth century the principal land uses at the Tahawus tract were lumbering and game; the private and informal Preston Ponds Club was formed in February 1876 by James R. Thompson, an agent of the Adirondack Iron Works.
Prior to this time he had been using the property for his own recreational purposes, inviting family and friends to come for hunting and fishing trips. But with the official club, he and his associates were better able to protect the fish and game and to socialize as well; the club leased an area around the three Preston Ponds from the Adirondack Iron and Steel Company – a incorporation of the Adirondack Iron Works. In January 1877, the club was reorganized and incorporated as the "Adirondack Club" and the entire Tahawus Tract was leased from the heirs of the original Adirondack Iron Works. In 1898 the club renamed itself again to the Tahawus Club. Club management continued to lease the Tahawus tract lands from the mine owners' heirs. Vice President Theodore Roosevelt was visiting Tahawus in 1901 during the final days of President William McKinley's presidency. Roosevelt had been vacationing in Vermont, but left for Buffalo, New York after learning that President William McKinley had been shot by anarchist Leon Czolgosz.
Hearing of the President's good prognosis and expecting a quick recovery, Roosevelt embarked on a hiking trip up Mount Marcy from Adirondac, where his family was staying. Three hours into the trip, a mounted park ranger alerted him that McKinley was in critical condition. Roosevelt began the trip from Tahwus to Buffalo, learned of McKinley's death while at the North Creek Railroad Station. In 1940 a new mine opened, this time for the purpose of obtaining the titanium dioxide, responsible for the previous mine's commercial failure. In 1940 National Lead Industries reopened the mines along Sanford Lake; this location, known as the Lower Works, was about a mile south of the original operation. A new community was established in 1943 for the mine workers, called Tahawus. By 1945, Tahawus had 84 buildings; some of the buildings left over at Adirondac were used. Forty million tons of titanium were extracted at the National Lead Industries' mines before operations ceased in 1989; the Open Space Institute took an interest in the property for conservation purposes because of its interest in the Hudson River watershed.
Joe Martens, former president of the Institute, described the Tahawus tract as "absolutely breathtaking." He continues, "Its defining natural features include rugged mountains, crystal clear, glacially carved lakes, the headwaters of the Hudson River." Four years after the 1989 mine closure the Open Space Institute opened purchase negotiations, which concluded in 2003 as a public-private partnership with the New York Adirondack Park Agency purchasing the 10,000-acre Tahawus tract in August 2003 for US$8.5 million and the OSI sharing management responsibilities. The remains of at least 10 buildings remain on the former village site. Only one of the buildings still standing on the site dates from the years when the old mining village of Adirondac was in operation, along with the remnants of the McIntyre Blast Furnace; the furnace site has been cleared, the furnace stack stabilized and cleaned. This was done as part of the Tahawus Tract project undertaken by the Open Space Institute which purchased the area in August 2003.
As part of a grant given for area cleanup and historic preservation, the old MacNaughton Cottage underwent restoration. This was the house that
New York (state)
New York is a state in the Northeastern United States. New York was one of the original thirteen colonies. With an estimated 19.54 million residents in 2018, it is the fourth most populous state. To distinguish the state from the city with the same name, it is sometimes called New York State; the state's most populous city, New York City, makes up over 40% of the state's population. Two-thirds of the state's population lives in the New York metropolitan area, nearly 40% lives on Long Island; the state and city were both named for the 17th century Duke of York, the future King James II of England. With an estimated population of 8.62 million in 2017, New York City is the most populous city in the United States and the premier gateway for legal immigration to the United States. The New York metropolitan area is one of the most populous in the world. New York City is a global city, home to the United Nations Headquarters and has been described as the cultural and media capital of the world, as well as the world's most economically powerful city.
The next four most populous cities in the state are Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse, while the state capital is Albany. The 27th largest U. S. state in land area, New York has a diverse geography. The state is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south and Connecticut and Vermont to the east; the state has a maritime border with Rhode Island, east of Long Island, as well as an international border with the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the north and Ontario to the northwest. The southern part of the state is in the Atlantic coastal plain and includes Long Island and several smaller associated islands, as well as New York City and the lower Hudson River Valley; the large Upstate New York region comprises several ranges of the wider Appalachian Mountains, the Adirondack Mountains in the Northeastern lobe of the state. Two major river valleys – the north-south Hudson River Valley and the east-west Mohawk River Valley – bisect these more mountainous regions. Western New York is considered part of the Great Lakes region and borders Lake Ontario, Lake Erie, Niagara Falls.
The central part of the state is dominated by the Finger Lakes, a popular vacation and tourist destination. New York had been inhabited by tribes of Algonquian and Iroquoian-speaking Native Americans for several hundred years by the time the earliest Europeans came to New York. French colonists and Jesuit missionaries arrived southward from Montreal for trade and proselytizing. In 1609, the region was visited by Henry Hudson sailing for the Dutch East India Company; the Dutch built Fort Nassau in 1614 at the confluence of the Hudson and Mohawk rivers, where the present-day capital of Albany developed. The Dutch soon settled New Amsterdam and parts of the Hudson Valley, establishing the multicultural colony of New Netherland, a center of trade and immigration. England seized the colony from the Dutch in 1664. During the American Revolutionary War, a group of colonists of the Province of New York attempted to take control of the British colony and succeeded in establishing independence. In the 19th century, New York's development of access to the interior beginning with the Erie Canal, gave it incomparable advantages over other regions of the U.
S. built its political and cultural ascendancy. Many landmarks in New York are well known, including four of the world's ten most-visited tourist attractions in 2013: Times Square, Central Park, Niagara Falls, Grand Central Terminal. New York is home to the Statue of Liberty, a symbol of the United States and its ideals of freedom and opportunity. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a global node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance, environmental sustainability. New York's higher education network comprises 200 colleges and universities, including Columbia University, Cornell University, New York University, the United States Military Academy, the United States Merchant Marine Academy, University of Rochester, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Rockefeller University, which have been ranked among the top 40 in the nation and world; the tribes in what is now New York were predominantly Algonquian. Long Island was divided in half between the Wampanoag and Lenape; the Lenape controlled most of the region surrounding New York Harbor.
North of the Lenape was the Mohicans. Starting north of them, from east to west, were three Iroquoian nations: the Mohawk, the original Iroquois and the Petun. South of them, divided along Appalachia, were the Susquehannock and the Erie. Many of the Wampanoag and Mohican peoples were caught up in King Philip's War, a joint effort of many New England tribes to push Europeans off their land. After the death of their leader, Chief Philip Metacomet, most of those peoples fled inland, splitting into the Abenaki and the Schaghticoke. Many of the Mohicans remained in the region until the 1800s, however, a small group known as the Ouabano migrated southwest into West Virginia at an earlier time, they may have merged with the Shawnee. The Mohawk and Susquehannock were the most militaristic. Trying to corner trade with the Europeans, they targeted other tribes; the Mohawk were known for refusing white settlement on their land and banishing any of their people who converted to Christianity. They posed a major threat to the Abenaki and Mohicans, while the Susquehannock conquered the Lenape in the 1600s.
The most devastating event of the century, was the Beaver Wars. From 1640–1680, Iroquoian peoples waged campaigns which extended from modern-day Michigan to Virginia against Algonquian and Siouan tribes, as well as each other; the ai
First ascent
In mountaineering, a first ascent is the first successful, documented attainment of the top of a mountain, or the first to follow a particular climbing route. First mountain ascents are notable because they entail genuine exploration, with greater risks and recognition than climbing a route pioneered by others; the person who performs the first ascent is called the first ascensionist. In free climbing, a first ascent of a climbing route is the first successful, documented climb of a route without using equipment such as anchors or ropes for aiding progression or resting; the details of the first ascents of many prominent mountains are scanty or unknown. Today, first ascents are carefully recorded and mentioned in guidebooks. Overwhelmingly, the idea of a "first ascent" is a modern one in places such as Africa and the Americas with a history of colonialism. There may be little or no physical evidence or documentation about the climbing activities of indigenous peoples living near the mountain.
For example, the volcano Llullaillaco on the border of Argentina and Chile is known to have been climbed in the prehistoric period due to the presence of Incan artifacts at the summit, yet credit for the first recorded ascent is given to Chilean climbers Bión González and Juan Harseim, who summited in 1952. The term is used when referring to ascents made using a specific technique or taking a specific route, such as via the North Face, without ropes or without oxygen. In rock climbing, some of the earlier first ascents for difficult routes, involved a mix of free and aid climbing; as a result, purist free climbers have developed the designation first free ascent to acknowledge ascents intentionally made more challenging by using equipment for protection only. Second ascents are noteworthy in climbing circles involving improving on a pioneering route through lessons learned from it, experience which may span from technical improvements to having a better understanding of how much gear and provisions to take.
Some other "first ascents" could be recorded for particular routes. One is the First Winter Ascent, which is, as the name suggests, the first ascent made during winter season; this is most important where the climate of winter is a factor in increasing the difficulty grade of the route. In the Northern Hemisphere conventional winter ascents are made between December 21 and March 21 and are not related to the conditions. In the Himalayan area, although Nepal and China's winter season permits start on December 1, the conventional winter ascents begin on December 21. Another is the First Solo Ascent, the first ascent made by a single climber; this is most important on high-level rock climbing, when the climber has to provide his own security or when climbing without any protection at all. Another type of ascent known as FFA is the first female ascent. While not considered as important, this designation remains significant on some difficult, limit-pushing climbs, where the first female ascent may not happen until well after the FA, due to possible difficulties encountered by female physicality.
The term last ascent has been used to refer to an ascent of a mountain or face that has subsequently changed to such an extent – because of rockfall – that the route no longer exists. It can be used facetiously to refer to a climb, so unpleasant or unaesthetic that no one would willingly repeat the first ascent party's ordeal. List of first ascents Notable first free ascents List of first ascents in the Alps List of first ascents in the Himalaya Glossary of climbing terms Alpinist Magazine – Peter Mortimer's First Ascent, Issue 17
United States
The United States of America known as the United States or America, is a country composed of 50 states, a federal district, five major self-governing territories, various possessions. At 3.8 million square miles, the United States is the world's third or fourth largest country by total area and is smaller than the entire continent of Europe's 3.9 million square miles. With a population of over 327 million people, the U. S. is the third most populous country. The capital is Washington, D. C. and the largest city by population is New York City. Forty-eight states and the capital's federal district are contiguous in North America between Canada and Mexico; the State of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east and across the Bering Strait from Russia to the west. The State of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean; the U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, stretching across nine official time zones. The diverse geography and wildlife of the United States make it one of the world's 17 megadiverse countries.
Paleo-Indians migrated from Siberia to the North American mainland at least 12,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century; the United States emerged from the thirteen British colonies established along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the colonies following the French and Indian War led to the American Revolution, which began in 1775, the subsequent Declaration of Independence in 1776; the war ended in 1783 with the United States becoming the first country to gain independence from a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, with the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, being ratified in 1791 to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties; the United States embarked on a vigorous expansion across North America throughout the 19th century, acquiring new territories, displacing Native American tribes, admitting new states until it spanned the continent by 1848. During the second half of the 19th century, the Civil War led to the abolition of slavery.
By the end of the century, the United States had extended into the Pacific Ocean, its economy, driven in large part by the Industrial Revolution, began to soar. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the country's status as a global military power; the United States emerged from World War II as a global superpower, the first country to develop nuclear weapons, the only country to use them in warfare, a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. Sweeping civil rights legislation, notably the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Fair Housing Act of 1968, outlawed discrimination based on race or color. During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union competed in the Space Race, culminating with the 1969 U. S. Moon landing; the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the world's sole superpower. The United States is the world's oldest surviving federation, it is a representative democracy.
The United States is a founding member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States, other international organizations. The United States is a developed country, with the world's largest economy by nominal GDP and second-largest economy by PPP, accounting for a quarter of global GDP; the U. S. economy is post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge-based activities, although the manufacturing sector remains the second-largest in the world. The United States is the world's largest importer and the second largest exporter of goods, by value. Although its population is only 4.3% of the world total, the U. S. holds 31% of the total wealth in the world, the largest share of global wealth concentrated in a single country. Despite wide income and wealth disparities, the United States continues to rank high in measures of socioeconomic performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP, worker productivity.
The United States is the foremost military power in the world, making up a third of global military spending, is a leading political and scientific force internationally. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a world map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America in honor of the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci; the first documentary evidence of the phrase "United States of America" is from a letter dated January 2, 1776, written by Stephen Moylan, Esq. to George Washington's aide-de-camp and Muster-Master General of the Continental Army, Lt. Col. Joseph Reed. Moylan expressed his wish to go "with full and ample powers from the United States of America to Spain" to seek assistance in the revolutionary war effort; the first known publication of the phrase "United States of America" was in an anonymous essay in The Virginia Gazette newspaper in Williamsburg, Virginia, on April 6, 1776. The second draft of the Articles of Confederation, prepared by John Dickinson and completed by June 17, 1776, at the latest, declared "The name of this Confederation shall be the'United States of America'".
The final version of the Articles sent to the states for ratification in late 1777 contains the sentence "The Stile of this Confederacy shall be'The United States of America'". In June 1776, Thomas Jefferson wrote the phrase "UNITED STATES OF AMERICA" in all capitalized letters in the headline of his "original Rough draught" of the Declaration of Independence; this draft of the document did not surface unti
Adirondack High Peaks
The Adirondack High Peaks is the name given to 46 mountain peaks in the Adirondack Mountains of New York, United States that were believed to comprise all of the Adirondack peaks higher than 4,000 feet. However surveying showed that four of the peaks in the group are under this elevation, one additional peak, close to this elevation had been overlooked. Due to tradition, no mountains were removed from or added to the group as a result of the revised elevation estimates. All except four are located in central and northern Essex County south of Lake Placid and Keene Valley; the others are just to the west in Franklin County. All the summits are on land owned by New York State as part of its Forest Preserve. Forty-two are in a vast tract of nearly 300,000 acres known as the High Peaks Wilderness Area, subdivided into central and outer zones. Nine of the peaks in the outer zone are in an area known as the Dix Mountain Wilderness Area, added to the High Peaks Wilderness in 2018. Giant Mountain and Rocky Peak Ridge are in the adjacent Giant Mountain Wilderness Area.
Whiteface Mountain, which has a downhill ski area and a toll road to its summit, Esther Mountain are set to the north, in Wilmington. Those who have climbed all 46 High Peaks are eligible to join the Adirondack Forty-Sixers club. Neither Mount Marcy nor Algonquin Peak, the two highest, require technical skills, but Algonquin Peak is regarded as the more challenging climb. Twenty peaks have no official trail to the top, although rough informal routes referred to as "herd paths," have developed over the years and no true bushwhacking is required on any of the peaks, although some are still quite primitive. Atop the highest peaks, above the tree line, there is a total of 87 acres of extraordinarily fragile alpine ecosystem; the region contains many alpine lakes and meadows, wetlands and forests. The Eastern High Peaks Wilderness area is the most regulated area. Fires are not permitted; some surveys list MacNaughton Mountain at 4,000 feet, some argue that it should be included in the High Peaks. However, more recent surveys list the mountain at 3,983 feet.
Adirondack Mountains Adirondack Park Catskill High Peaks Munro 4000 footers Northeast 111 Quebec 1000 meter peaks Adirondack 46ers TrailsNH.com — Current trail conditions for the Adirondack High Peaks, compiled daily Interactive map of the Adirondack 46 Peaks Sympatico.ca: Adirondack High Peaks
United States Geological Survey
The United States Geological Survey is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, the natural hazards that threaten it; the organization has four major science disciplines, concerning biology, geography and hydrology. The USGS is a fact-finding research organization with no regulatory responsibility; the USGS is a bureau of the United States Department of the Interior. The USGS employs 8,670 people and is headquartered in Reston, Virginia; the USGS has major offices near Lakewood, Colorado, at the Denver Federal Center, Menlo Park, California. The current motto of the USGS, in use since August 1997, is "science for a changing world." The agency's previous slogan, adopted on the occasion of its hundredth anniversary, was "Earth Science in the Public Service." Since 2012, the USGS science focus is directed at six topical "Mission Areas", namely Climate and Land Use Change, Core Science Systems, Ecosystems and Minerals and Environmental Health, Natural Hazards, Water.
In December 2012, the USGS split the Energy and Minerals and Environmental Health Mission Area resulting in seven topical Mission Areas, with the two new areas being: Energy and Minerals and Environmental Health. Administratively, it is divided into six Regional Units. Other specific programs include: Earthquake Hazards Program monitors earthquake activity worldwide; the National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colorado on the campus of the Colorado School of Mines detects the location and magnitude of global earthquakes. The USGS runs or supports several regional monitoring networks in the United States under the umbrella of the Advanced National Seismic System; the USGS informs authorities, emergency responders, the media, the public, both domestic and worldwide, about significant earthquakes. It maintains long-term archives of earthquake data for scientific and engineering research, it conducts and supports research on long-term seismic hazards. USGS has released the UCERF California earthquake forecast.
As of 2005, the agency is working to create a National Volcano Early Warning System by improving the instrumentation monitoring the 169 volcanoes in U. S. territory and by establishing methods for measuring the relative threats posed at each site. The USGS National Geomagnetism Program monitors the magnetic field at magnetic observatories and distributes magnetometer data in real time; the USGS collaborates with Canadian and Mexican government scientists, along with the Commission for Environmental Cooperation, to produce the North American Environmental Atlas, used to depict and track environmental issues for a continental perspective. The USGS operates the streamgaging network for the United States, with over 7400 streamgages. Real-time streamflow data are available online. National Climate Change and Wildlife Science Center implements partner-driven science to improve understanding of past and present land use change, develops relevant climate and land use forecasts, identifies lands and communities that are most vulnerable to adverse impacts of change from the local to global scale.
Since 1962, the Astrogeology Research Program has been involved in global and planetary exploration and mapping. In collaboration with Stanford University, the USGS operates the USGS-Stanford Ion Microprobe Laboratory, a world-class analytical facility for U--Pb geochronology and trace element analyses of minerals and other earth materials. USGS operates a number of water related programs, notably the National Streamflow Information Program and National Water-Quality Assessment Program. USGS Water data is publicly available from their National Water Information System database; the USGS operates the National Wildlife Health Center, whose mission is "to serve the nation and its natural resources by providing sound science and technical support, to disseminate information to promote science-based decisions affecting wildlife and ecosystem health. The NWHC provides information, technical assistance, research and leadership on national and international wildlife health issues." It is the agency responsible for surveillance of H5N1 avian influenza outbreaks in the United States.
The USGS runs 17 biological research centers in the United States, including the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center. The USGS is investigating collaboration with the social networking site Twitter to allow for more rapid construction of ShakeMaps; the USGS produces several national series of topographic maps which vary in scale and extent, with some wide gaps in coverage, notably the complete absence of 1:50,000 scale topographic maps or their equivalent. The largest and best-known topographic series is the 7.5-minute, 1:24,000 scale, quadrangle, a non-metric scale unique to the United States. Each of these maps covers an area bounded by two lines of latitude and two lines of longitude spaced 7.5 minutes apart. Nearly 57,000 individual maps in this series cover the 48 contiguous states, Hawaii, U. S. territories, areas of Alaska near Anchorage and Prudhoe Bay. The area covered by each map varies with the latitude of its represented location due to convergence of the meridians. At lower latitudes, near 30° north, a 7.5-minute quadrangle contains an area of about 64 square miles.
At 49° north latitude, 49 square miles are contained within a quadrangle of that size. As a unique non-metric map scale, the 1:24,000 scale requires a separate and specialized romer scale for pl
William McKinley
William McKinley was the 25th president of the United States, serving from March 4, 1897, until his assassination six months into his second term. During his presidency, McKinley led the nation to victory in the Spanish–American War, raised protective tariffs to promote American industry and kept the nation on the gold standard in a rejection of free silver. McKinley was the last president to have served in the American Civil War and the only one to have started the war as an enlisted soldier, beginning as a private in the Union Army and ending as a brevet major. After the war, he settled in Canton, where he practiced law and married Ida Saxton. In 1876, he was elected to Congress, where he became the Republican Party's expert on the protective tariff, which he promised would bring prosperity, his 1890 McKinley Tariff was controversial, which together with a Democratic redistricting aimed at gerrymandering him out of office led to his defeat in the Democratic landslide of 1890. He was elected governor of Ohio in 1891 and 1893, steering a moderate course between capital and labor interests.
With the aid of his close adviser Mark Hanna, he secured the Republican nomination for president in 1896 amid a deep economic depression. He defeated his Democratic rival William Jennings Bryan after a front porch campaign in which he advocated "sound money" and promised that high tariffs would restore prosperity. Rapid economic growth marked McKinley's presidency, he promoted the 1897 Dingley Tariff to protect manufacturers and factory workers from foreign competition and in 1900 secured the passage of the Gold Standard Act. McKinley hoped to persuade Spain to grant independence to rebellious Cuba without conflict, but when negotiation failed he led the nation into the Spanish-American War of 1898; the United States victory was decisive. As part of the peace settlement, Spain turned over to the United States its main overseas colonies of Puerto Rico and the Philippines while Cuba was promised independence, but at that time remained under the control of the United States Army; the United States annexed the independent Republic of Hawaii in 1898 and it became a United States territory.
Historians regard McKinley's 1896 victory as a realigning election in which the political stalemate of the post-Civil War era gave way to the Republican-dominated Fourth Party System, which began with the Progressive Era. McKinley defeated Bryan again in the 1900 presidential election in a campaign focused on imperialism and free silver, his legacy was cut short when he was shot on September 6, 1901 by Leon Czolgosz, a second-generation Polish-American with anarchist leanings. McKinley died eight days and was succeeded by his Vice President Theodore Roosevelt; as an innovator of American interventionism and pro-business sentiment, McKinley's presidency is considered above average, though his positive public perception was soon overshadowed by Roosevelt. William McKinley Jr. was born in 1843 in Niles, the seventh of nine children of William McKinley Sr. and Nancy McKinley. The McKinleys were of English and Scots-Irish descent and had settled in western Pennsylvania in the 18th century, tracing back to a David McKinley, born in Dervock, County Antrim, in present-day Northern Ireland.
There, the elder McKinley was born in Mercer County. The family moved to Ohio, he married her later. The Allison family was of English descent and among Pennsylvania's earliest settlers; the family trade on both sides was iron-making, McKinley senior operated foundries throughout Ohio, in New Lisbon, Niles and Canton. The McKinley household was, like many from Ohio's Western Reserve, steeped in Whiggish and abolitionist sentiment, the latter based on the family's staunch Methodist beliefs. William followed in the Methodist tradition, becoming active in the local Methodist church at the age of sixteen, he was a lifelong pious Methodist. In 1852, the family moved from Niles to Poland, Ohio so that their children could attend the better schools there. Graduating from Poland Seminary in 1859, he enrolled the following year at Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania, he was an honorary member of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity. He remained at Allegheny for only one year, returning home in 1860 after becoming depressed.
He spent time at Mount Union College in Alliance, Ohio as a board member. Although his health recovered, family finances declined and McKinley was unable to return to Allegheny, first working as a postal clerk and taking a job teaching at a school near Poland, Ohio; when the Southern states seceded from the Union and the American Civil War began, thousands of men in Ohio volunteered for service. Among them were McKinley and his cousin William McKinley Osbourne, who enlisted as privates in the newly formed Poland Guards in June 1861; the men left for Columbus where they were consolidated with other small units to form the 23rd Ohio Infantry. The men were unhappy to learn that, unlike Ohio's earlier volunteer regiments, they would not be permitted to elect their officers. Dennison appointed Colonel William Rosecrans as the commander of the regiment, the men began training on the outskirts of Columbus. McKinley took to the soldier's life and wrote a series of letters to his hometown newspaper extolling the army and the Union cause.
Delays in issuance of uniforms and weapons again brought the men into conflict with their officers, but Major Rut
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