By Julie Huebel, Pierce County Historical Association
ELMWOOD, WI – After posting the original, shorter H post on the Elmwood, WI History Facebook page someone graciously brought in their very well organized family records for me to scan so we could add a digital copy to our archives. This is a great way to ensure that the hard work done on one’s ancestry research is not lost. It will live on for future generations to access and learn from. So, thank you Roberta Holcomb for sharing your research! That’s my way of saying, H is for Holcomb…
Levi Benjamin Holcomb was born in 1806 in Fort Ann, New York (another source says Granby, NY) to Levi (Sr.) and Sarah per the record from his second marriage. In 1828, Levi Benjamin married Angeline Rathborn. She was born in 1801 in Pennsylvania. Levi and Angeline were married in 1828 in Jasper, NY. They had 17 children per a source on the Ancestry website. Angeline died in 1872 and was buried in the Old Rock Elm Cemetery at the time of her death.
Per the 1877 plat map, Levi owned 80 acres in section 8 of Rock Elm Township. On the 1880 census, he was living in Spring Lake Township. Levi remarried in 1879 to Marinda (Gibson) Hooker, they were married by James K. Webb.
Levi died in 1888 and is buried in Poplar Hill Cemetery. Per his obituary, his second wife, Angeline, was moved from the smaller cemetery a bit southwest of Rock Elm along with two of their children to his plot in the “new” cemetery.
In my initial write up on the Holcombs I was a bit shaky on the Holcomb line, only having found names listed in Levi, Jr.’s marriage record. Per Roberta’s pedigree chart for this family, she has Levi’s parents listed as Levi Holcomb born in 1767 in Granby and married to Martha Benjamin. And Levi, Sr’s parents being Joseph Holcomb and Elizabeth.
In 1975, Dodge County, Wisconsin dedicated a marker on the grave of at the time the only known Revolutionary War soldier there, a Levi Holcomb that per his headstone there was born in 1763 and died in 1854. He is buried in the Burnett Corners Cemetery NE of Beaver Dam. The marker reads: “Levi Holcomb was born in Granby, Connecticut on January 15, 1763. He enlisted at the age of 16 or 17 as a substitute for his brother Enos. After serving for two months in Captain Phelp’s Company, Holcomb again enlisted as a substitute, this time for this brother, Ezra, who had been drafted for six months. Levi served the enlistment in the Simsbury Mines guarding British prisoners. Then he received his discharge, he at once enlisted in Captain Granger’s Company of Colonel Samuel Canfield’s Regiment for a period of 13 months. During this final period of service, Holcomb was stationed at Stratford, Connecticut. After the war, Levi lived in New York and Pennsylvania. Holcomb moved to Wisconsin Territory where he died in Dodge County around 1854. Levi Holcomb is buried in the Burnette Corners Cemetery.”
An idea of mine is that this may be our Levi Holcomb’s father, but I don’t know for sure. Can anyone prove or disprove this hypothesis? I found a record on Ancestry website from, Connecticut Headstone Inscriptions Vol 17, that reads: “Holcomb, Levi, died Jan. 17, 1831, age 64. Holcomb, Martha, wife of Levi, died Mar. 15, 1850, age 79.” (Headstone inscriptions from Granby Street Cemetery) Who is this Levi? It’s so common for a family to use and reuse names. For example, I’ve seen a person’s sons all name one of their sons after their father, resulting in several men with the same first and last name. It’s stuff like this that can make ancestry research a bit complicated at times. All we can do is gather as much information as we can until we either build a case to prove or disprove something. Some things, like this Levi Holcomb business, may go on being a mystery.
There is a Holcomb buried in Granby Cemetery where it has been mentioned that our Holcombs hale from, a Thomas Holcomb I, born in 1609 in England and died in 1657 in Connecticut. He was one of the 60 “Puritans & dissenters” who moved in the years 1635/36 to found the town of Windsor, CT. He served on the General Court for his area and worked in the framing of the Constitution of the Colony of Connecticut. This is very likely, the ancestors of our Elmwood Holcombs. Isn’t this ancestry stuff fun? It is definitely a journey and not always an exact science.
