Alliance is an industrial city in Stark County, situated on the Mahoning River, in northeastern Ohio about 55 miles from Cleveland. The first white settlers in the area were Quakers from Virgina who arrived in 1805. In the succeeding years, three more small settlements sprang up and in 1854, all four combined to form Alliance. In the years leading up to the Civil War, Alliance was one of the stations along the Underground Railroad, through which slaves escaping from the South were transported to Canada. In 1846, Mount Union College was founded in what was soon to become Alliance, although it was known initially as a seminary and not chartered as a college until 1858.