Born in Henderson, Kentucky, in 1853, Young Ewing Allison overcame partial deafness from an early age to become an avid reader and writer. He began his journalism career at just fifteen as an editor for the Henderson News. He later moved to Evansville, Indiana, before his reporting talent earned him the position of city editor at the Louisville Courier-Journal in 1880. In 1887, he founded the trade journal The Insurance Field, serving as its editor for nearly four decades until 1926.
Allison wrote both prose and verse, earning lasting recognition for his poem "Derelict." This piece was written to complete the famous "Fifteen Men on the Dead Man's Chest" verse fragment from Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island. In 1890, he wrote the libretto for Henry Waller's The Ogallallas, which is recognized as the first American-Indian opera. Allison also maintained active literary correspondences with prominent contemporary writers such as Eugene Field and James Whitcomb Riley, the latter of whom dedicated multiple poetry volumes to him.
In his later years, Allison focused on researching and preserving the history of Kentucky. Alongside his close friend J. Christian Bay, he explored regional history, writing several articles about the Trappist monastery, the Abbey of Gethsemani. He also played a key role in establishing Federal Hill—the Bardstown mansion associated with Stephen Foster's song "My Old Kentucky Home"—as a state historic site in 1922.
