Historian locates McKinley kin grave

It's the second major historical find in the Niles cemetery in recent months.
By SHERRI L. SHAULIS
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
NILES -- Local historians were always a little suspicious that she was here. All it took was a little digging to make sure.
"It's a real find," said Patrick Finan, director of the McKinley Memorial Library, referring to the discovery of the grave site of President William McKinley's maternal grandmother, Anne Allison.
Finan said local historian Wendell Lauth made the discovery by looking through old cemetery records for Niles Union Cemetery, now called the Niles City Cemetery.
"It never showed up on the newer records, but he found the old records and found her name," Finan said.
Lauth said when he conducted a walking tour for the Niles Historical Society and the library in June, he decided to research which graves to visit.
"I knew there were a lot of McKinley relatives there, including William's younger sister, Abigail," he said. "I also knew there were a lot of relatives of Nancy Allison [McKinley's mother] there too."
Lauth said he began searching the city's archives of the cemetery, which was originally the Weathersfield Cemetery. He was unable to locate the earliest records of the cemetery, until he made a trip to the Youngstown Public Library.
There, he found research done by Henry R. Baldwin, who documented grave sites in cemeteries in Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana counties in Ohio, as well as in Mercer, Lawrence and Beaver counties in Pennsylvania.
Baldwin did his research in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and in his volumes were records indicating Anne was buried near McKinley's sister.
What he discovered
So Lauth made the trip to the cemetery last week and found the grave site, covered with sod and overgrown with weeds.
"I found a piece showing from the ground that was about the size of a dinner plate, so I started cutting away the weeds and clearing away the dirt," Lauth said.
The tombstone was broken into two pieces, and was a little worn by the elements and the years.
"When I dusted off the dirt, the first thing I saw was the name 'Anne' in big letters," Lauth said.
The rest of the inscription showed Anne was the wife of Abner Allison, and she had died at age 72.
Finan said the Niles Historical Society will work on getting the stone restored.
Historians believe McKinley's grandmother made the move to Niles with her daughter and her family sometime between 1840 and 1842. The 25th president was born Jan. 29, 1843, in a house on Main Street, the seventh of the nine children of William Sr. and Nancy Allison McKinley.
His grandmother died in November 1846, just a few months after McKinley's sister, Abigail, died and was buried in the local cemetery, Finan said.
He said the library staff and historians will be sure to include the location of the grave in future presentations and tours. Already, the site of Abigail's grave is mentioned, he said.
Another find
The find is the second major discovery in the city's history in recent months.
Lauth was also responsible for locating and leading the restoration earlier this year of the final resting place of William VanWye, a sergeant who died in the Civil War. His grave, featuring a newly restored monument, is in the Niles City Cemetery.
The monument to VanWye was found knocked over and twisted around, possibly as a result of the tornado of 1985.
Jim Yuhasz of Holeton-Yuhasz Funeral Home did the repair work for the monument's restoration.
slshaulis@vindy.com