- REUBEN T. HOLCOMB, the present popular and efficient clerk
of the circuit court of Green
- county, has been a resident of Monroe, Wis., for a number
of years, and is regarded as one of the brightest and most progressive
representatives that the younger generation of the State presents.
Mr. HOLCOMB was born in the town of Adams, Green county, Feb.
12, 1864, and is a son of Reuben and Sarah (WILDERMAN) HOLCOMB,
the father being a native of New York and the mother of Illinois.
They were the parents of three sons and two daughters, and four
of their children are now living; James A., of Woonsocket, S.
Dak.; Ernest H., of Adams township; Reuben T.; and Jennie, the
wife of Henry KNOWLTON, of Canton, S. Dak. The paternal HOLCOMB
was born in Monroe county, New York, May 16, 1816, and was brought
by his parents to the town of Hartland, in that State, when a
year old. Five years later his father died, and his childhood
and youth were passed in the homes of various kinsmen. When he
was twenty-five he went west into Michigan, and had homes first
in Lapeer county, and afterwards in Oakland county. In 1844 he
made a brief visit to what was then the Territory of Wisconsin.
He returned to Michigan to spend the summer, and late in the
fall of the same year he returned to what was then Iowa county,
and entered the land near the town of Fayette. He spent several
years working at his trade of carpenter and joiner, and in 1849
became the owner of eighty acres of land in the town of Adams,
Green county. This was in Section 13, and he soon after entered
adjoining land, and was the owner of a very considerable farm.
In 1855 Mr. HOLCOMB and Sarah E. WILDERMAN were married, and
began their domestic life in a small log house that was standing
on the farm in Section 13. In 1866 they put up a large and attractive
frame house which was their home until they left the farm to
live in Monroe, in October, 1897. When Mr. HOLCOMB retired from
active farming he was the owner of three hundred acres of land,
and for some years had been actively engaged in cattle breeding.
He died May 12, 1899. His father, Apolas HOLCOMB, died when a
young man, leaving three sons and one daughter. James WILDERMAN,
the father of Sarah, whose name appears above, was born in Pennsylvania,
of Dutch descent, and all his life was a farmer. He moved to
Illinois in the early days and settled in St. Clair county, near
East St. Louis, where he died well advanced in years. He had
a numerous family.
- Reuben T. HOLCOMB, the present clerk of the circuit court
of Green county, grew to manhood
- on the farm in Adams township, and received a very fair schooling
in the local schools. He became especially proficient in all
matters relating to business and commercial life, and early turned
his attention to trade as an appropriate field for his energies.
He was clerk in a store at Monticello two years, and in the fall
of 1896 was elected clerk of the circuit court, again in 1898,
and again in the fall of 1900, and is serving the county in that
position to the general satisfaction of all with whom he comes
in contact.
- Mr. HOLCOMB was married Nov. 6, 1890, to Miss Amber FESSENDEN,
a daughter of Elliott
- and Aurilla (LOVELAND) FESSENDEN, and two children have been
born of this union: Trella May and Ralph Elliott. Mr. HOLCOMB
belongs to the Masonic order, and is a member of Smith Lodge,
No. 31, A.F. & A.M. He also holds membership in the Knights
of the Globe. He is a Republican, and lives at No. 830 East Russell
street. He owns a quarter section of land in Roberts county,
South Dakota, and, with his two brothers, holds an undivided
interest in the old homestead in the town of Adams.
-
- Taken from "Commemorative Biographical Record of
the Counties of Rock, Green, Grant, Iowa and Lafayette Wisconsin,"
(c)1901 Union Publishing; p. 526.
-
- Courtesy of Carol.
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