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1900 Whiteside Bios > Watson C. Holbrook

Biographical Record of Whiteside County, IL 1900

Transcribed by Denise McLoughlin
Tampico Area Historical Society
www.tampicohistoricalsociety.citymax.com

Page 188

WATSON C. HOLBROOK needs no special introduction to the readers of this volume, but the work would be incomplete without the record of his life. No man in the county has been more prominent identified with the its growth and development in the last quarter of a century, and for twenty-one years he has most capably and satisfactory served as county surveyer. He now makes his home at No. 1103 Eighth Avenue, Sterling.

Mr. HOLBROOK is a native of the county, born in Genesee township, February 20, 1848, traces his ancestry back to Thomas HOLBROOK, who was in the cattle business near Weymuth and Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1640. In his family were four sons and from them all of the HOLBROOKS in Massachusetts were descended.  In the early part of the seventeenth century there was one of the family who was a professor of mathematics in Harvard College. The genealogy of this family can be traced back in England through eleven centuries.

The founder of the family in Whiteside county was Henry HOLBROOK, the grandfather of our subject, who was a soldier of the war of 1812. He came to the county in 1838 and located a land warrant in Genesee township, where he died in 1842. Only two of his children came to this county; Henry H., and Elzina, wife of Ivory COLCORD the first school teacher of Genesee township. 

Henry H.HOLBROOK, the father of our subject, was born in Cornish, New Hampishire, May 24, 1815, and came to this county with his father in 1838. Although he learned the shoemaker's trade and worked at the same at times, he followed farming throughout the greater part of his life During his entire residence in Whiteside county he lived upon the land which he purchased from the government. In Steuben county, New York, he was married, April 11, 1833 to Miss Caroline ROSS, who was born in Florida, Orange County, New York, March 5, 1815, and was one of a family of four children. She belonged to the old WHITNEY family, of New York, which can be traced back to the time when Queen Anne made an attempt to settle the new world. Mr. and Mrs. HOLBROOK made the journey to this county overland in  1838, arriving here in November of that year. Upon their farm in Genesee township they made their home until called to their final rest, the father dying January 28, 1896, the mother August 13, 1890.

To this worthy couple were born ten children, the three eldest born in Cameron, Steuben county, New York, the others in Geneseee township, this county. They were as follows: (10) Jane, born January 5, 1834, is the wife of S. A. HEATH, a farmer living near Audubon, Iowa, and they have two adopted children. (2) Abigail, born November 7, 1835, married Martin THAYER, by whom she had ten children, five now living, David, Esther J., Minnie, Milton and Ransom, all residents of Wisconsin. After the death of her first husband she married Oliver BROWN, a pensioner of the Civil War and a resident of Richland county, Wisconsin, (3) John H., born May 28, 1837, was a member of an Iowa regiment all through the Civil war and is now living on a farm near Catlin, Washington. He married Elizabeth JOSEPH, and of their eleven children, eight are living, Eli, Frank H., Henry H., John H., James, Jesse and Elias, (4) Silas, born Etta, April 25, 1839, is said to be the second white child born in Genesee township. He was married, July 1, 1863, Mary E. HARRIS, by whom he had two children, one now living, Jennie M., wife ofGeorge E. JONES, of Waverly, Iowa. Silas joined a Wisconsin regiment during the Rebellion and after serving for a time was discharged for disability, but he never recovered nd died August 30, 1866. His wife is also deceased, (5) Sarah M., born April 26, 1841, married John McWILLIAMS, of Vernon county, Wisconsin, and died there January 26, 1880, leaving one child, Henry S., now a stationary engineer and farmer of that county. (6) Watson C., our subject, is the next in order of birth., (7) Eliza, born January 3, 1850, is the wife of Joesph ERWIN,  farmer of Garwin, Iowa, and of their ten children, eight are living, Augustus W., a medical student; Harry; Mattie; George; Chester; James; Eva and Duffy. (8) Mary E., born August 28, 1853, is the wife of William E. BROWN, of Genesee township, and they have three children: Addie, wife of Kasper SMITH, of Sterling; Jesse and Harry. (9) IsaacH., born March 31, 1855, lives in Coleta, and is highway commissioner for Genesee township. He married Almira LENHART and has six children, Burt, Charles, Bertha, and an infant and two deceased. (10) Addie, born December 20, 1859, is the wife of Henry YAKELY, a farmer of Viola, Richland county, Wisconsin.

Watson Curtis HOLBROOK, of this review, is a graduate of the Rock Island High School, and also of the Wisconsin University, where he pursued both a scientific and civil engineering course. On the completion of his education he returned to Whiteside county, and successfully engaged in teaching school for a few years in this state. In 1878, one year before retiring from the teacher''s profession, he was elected county surveyor, and has since most acceptably filled that office. Since he gave up teaching he has devoted almost his entire time and attention to civil engineering. While serving as county surveyor he has spent much time in the west, surveying for railroads and locating town site in Dakota, along the dfferent railroads of the northwest. He was in Huron when it was a very small village, and in Aberdeen when it contained but one shanty, and has seen large herds of buffalo east of the Missouri river. He has done surveying in fifteen counties of Illinois, and has been called upon to settle boundary lines and prevent litigation of the matter if possible. He has made designs and surveyed for several steel and iron bridges over the Rock river, and for city sewers and farm drainage. In all his undertakings he has been very successful, and his labors have given the utmost satisfaction. At one time he wrote an ordinance on sanitary regulations for cities and  villages, which he then considered correct, and the same has been adopted verbatim by over thirty cities and villages. When disputes arise over boundaries his services are always in demand, and through him they are nearly always settled amicably.

On the 16th of March, 1836, Mr. HOLBROOK married Miss Katie A. THORP, who was born December 19, 1860, a daughter of Newton and Sarah (PARRISH) THORP, and granddaughter of Watson PARRISH. She is the younger in a family of two children, her brother being Henry E., of Marshalltown, Iowa. Our subject and his wife have four children, whose names and dates of birth are as follows: Ida Belle,, October 7, 1887; Glen Thorp, May 11, 1891; Caroline Blanche, August 22, 1893; and Jennie Louisa, August 25, 1897.

Mr. HOLBROOK owns fifty-one acres of land in Genesee township, but makes his home in Sterling. Politically is a Republican, and religiously is an active and prominent member of the methodist Episcopal church, of Sterling, of which he is a trustee. Over two hundred years ago some of his ancestors heard the noted Dr. WHITFIELD preach, who was one of the founders of that denomination. While engaged in school teaching Mr. HOLBROOK devoted considerable time to studying and investigating the mounds found around this county, and he wrote many able articles on prehistoric man and of the scientific subjects. He has in his possession a good collection of fossils, minerals and prehistoric implements, which  himself discovered. He also has letters from Darwin and other scientists thanking him for fao\vors and specimens which they received at his hands. Of late years his increasing business has required all of his attention, and he has been compelled to give up his investigations long that line. For the past fifteen years he has been compiled many private records of the oldest families of Genesee township, and his researches have extended far back, tracing the genealogy of these families through several generations in the old country. He is widely known throughout the northern part of the state, and is highly respected by all with whom he comes in contact.

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