Allison Francis Page was born in Wake County to Anderson and Mary Hayes Page. Although his father was wealthy enough to send his 10 children to college, Allison, aka Frank, went the way of the lumber industry, first piloting rafts of logs on the Cape Fear river, then as a lumberman with a water powered mill near Umstead Park. In 1849 he married Catherine Frances Raboteau who bore him 9 children, all of whom were well known in their own rite, as clergyman, physician, food commissioner, and ambassador. In 1863 he relocated the mill to his home property and turned to steam power. By the end of the war he was bankrupt as several businesses were, and though he ran his sawmill round the clock for the confederacy, he thought it "a foolish enterprise". After the war he won a seat on the North Carolina General Assembly and with his new prosperity was able to donate land for a railroad station. In 1868 he built the Page Motel, now known as the Page-Walker Hotel and Page Walker Arts and History Center, for passengers of the railroad. It was built in the Second Empire style and served the railroad from 1868 until 1916. Until 1980 it was a boarding house and private residence after which the Cary town council purchased it and with the work of many volunteers, the home was restored to its original design. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. In 1869 he laid out what was to become the central district of Cary, NC and incorporated the town, becoming mayor in 1871. History shows that he also designed and built a tobacco factory, although it was never used due to the Panic of 1873.

In 1880 he and son Robert expanded the family enterprises to include banking, real estate and the railroad in the area now known as Aberdeen, where the family moved in 1881. Page became known as the founder of Aberdeen when he had the city incorporated in 1889.

In 1893, the family moved once again to Raleigh, their last home, and Allison Page built the Park Hotel (see A. G. Bauer, 1894) and an opera house. Catherine Page passed away in 1897 and Allison remarried a short time later. Early in 1899 Page "bequested to the Methodist Orphanage his Academy of Music property valued at $20,000".* The orphanage's first building was completed in 1900 and the first child admitted in 1901. Mr. Page passed away in October 1899, and although his last wishes were to be buried in Oakwood Cemetery in Raleigh, his sons reclaimed his body and had him buried next to their mother in the family plot in Aberdeen. Allison Page is remembered as the founder of both Cary and Aberdeen, NC and a pioneer in the railroad, lumber, and building industry.

Bio by Catherine Cramer.