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- HON. JOHN ANDERSON HOLMES, banker, and civil engineer,
- Beloit, was born March 9, 1819, at Londonderry, N.H., fifth
child of John HOLMES. The history of the HOLMES family in America
is interesting. Abraham HOLMES and wife, of Scotch descent, with
two children, came from Ireland with the first settlers of Londonderry,
N.H., in 1719. Elder John HOLMES, one of these two children,
had a family of nine. Thomas, the seventh, raised a family of
twelve. William M., his youngest son, and grandson of Thomas,
with his sons, all live on the farm, at Londonderry, first occupied
by the family. John, the eldest of these sons and father of the
subject of this sketch, located on a farm in the same town, where
John Anderson HOLMES was born on the date above mentioned, his
mother, Sarah (ANDERSON) HOLMES dying on the day of his nativity.
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- Mr. HOLMES' early years were passed on the farm and in the
district schools in vogue at that
- place and time, and the last three or four years of his minority
were spent at New Ipswich and Pembroke academies, with winter
vacations which he employed in teaching. Being more partial to
mathematics than to other studies, on leaving school he procured
instruments and began surveying which he has followed since,
doing a large share of both farm and city work wherever he has
lived.
- He remained in Londonderry and engaged in farming and building,
and in trade during the four
- years preceding 1861, when he removed to Concord at Penacook.
Here he farmed for a time, but soon engaged with a young partner
in the hardware trade. After remodeling and enlarging the first
store he bought and occupied, he sold it and, in partnership
with G. W. ABBOTT, erected a block of four stores, offices and
halls, at a cost of $24,000, in which he still retains a half
interest. He remained there until 1874, when he sold his stock
of goods and came to Beloit and erected a substantial set of
buildings, in which he still lives.
- From the age of twenty-one while he remained in New Hampshire,
there was not a time when
- he had not charge of one or more children as guardian - twenty-four
in all - and two insane or spendthrifts, and scarcely a time
when he was not settling from one to six estates. On the organization
of the Beloit Savings Bank, in 1881, he was requested to take
charge of it as Secretary and Treasurer, which office he still
holds, having in such capacity the responsible care of $50,000
much of it the property of working men and women to whom the
absolute safety of their savings is of the most vital importance.
- Mr. HOLMES was married in 1844 to Miss Deborah ROLFE, of
Penacook, N.H., who died
- childless, April 6, 1882; and again in February, 1883, to
Clara E. SLEEPER, of Boston, Mass., by whom he has two children
named Sarah and John Sleeper HOLMES.
- The care of the banking interests entrusted to him, with
the city and other surveying, and proper
- attention to seventy acres of farm land, consume Mr. HOLMES'
time so entirely that he must be reckoned as among the busiest
men in the community. He has also at times been called to fill
responsible official positions. He was four times elected Alderman
from the first Ward in Concord and served two years as representative
of his district in the Legislature of New Hampshire. In Beloit
he has served six years in the City Council and, besides being
City Surveyor, was for a time county Surveyor of Rock County.
As a citizen he takes the highest rank and as a man of affairs
he has always enjoyed the fullest confidence of all classes,
both in his integrity and his judgment, as is attested by the
numerous and valuable interests confided to his management. He
is a member and since 1877 has been an elder in the Presbyterian
Church, and he has been a delegate of the Milwaukee Presbytery
to the General Assembly two years, and Treasurer of the society
eight years. A fine portrait of Mr. HOLMES will be found on another
page.
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- Taken from "The Portrait and Biographical Album of
Rock County, Wis." (c)1889, pp. 675-676; lithograph from
same book.
-
- Courtesy of Carol
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