Trails to the Past-Vermont-Chittenden Co-Biographies Whitcomb

Biographies of Chittenden County

WHITCOMB, JOHN, the eighth of fifteen children of Thomas and Anna (Stevens) Whitcomb, was born in Richmond, Vt. on the 13th of December, 1820. The family of his mother came to Vermont from Connecticut. His father was born in Swansea, Vt., in 1781, came to Richmond about the beginning of the present century, and at the age of twenty-six years married Anna Stevens. Their fifteen children, all natives of Richmond, were born in the following order: Wesley, April 10, 1808; Louisa, October 31, 1810; Sally, December 3, 1811; Erastus, February 21, 1813; Lorenzo, January 30, 1815; Uzziel, January 21, 1817; Joshua, December 22, 1818; John, December 13, 1820; Lydia, November 22, 1822; James, October 19, 1824; Silas, April 6, 1827 ; Mary Ann, May 20, 1829; Electa, February 20, 1831. Two other children died in infancy. The following deaths, of father, mother and children, have occurred: Thomas Whitcomb died in Essex in 1871, nineteen years after the death of his wife; Wesley, their eldest son, died in Richmond in 1829; Erastus died in Essex in 1862; Lorenzo in 1886, Lydia in Williston in 1853, Silas in California in 1869, and James in California July 18, 1886, whither he removed in 1849. Thomas Whitcomb removed to the town of Essex with his family in 1835, where the family of Erastus still reside.

Mr. Whitcomb's life is a good example of what industry and perseverance can do. He came of a family noted for their distinctive traits of character, recognizing no such word as fail in whatever they undertook. He received as good an education as could be obtained in the district schools of his native town, and removed to Essex with his father's family in 1835, where he passed his minority, and continued to work on the farm for his elder brother, for four years after attaining his majority, at twelve dollars a month. Then, with his brother Joshua, he bought a large farm in Essex, where the latter still lives. They worked together four years, when, in 1852, John sold his interest to his brother and went to California. For the first year he did not choose his business, though he did not remain idle because the wages did not suit him, but made every day count him something, and watched his chances for something better. As an experiment he bought and drove cattle across the plains at great risk of his life, as Indians and wild beasts were then the terror of the emigrants. He encamped wherever night overtook him, often alone, as hiring devoured too much of the profit. This business paid well, but in the midst of his prosperity he was taken with small-pox and typhoid fever at the same time. He barely recovered, and was left in wretched health, which decided his return to Vermont. Here his health was gradually restored to him. Immediately after his marriage, in i860, he removed to the form in Williston now occupied by George Chapman and son, and about 1863 went from there to Bolton, whence after six months he returned to Williston, occupying a farm in that part of the township known as The Hollow. But the West was his ideal place for business. So in 1869 he visited Sacramento county, California, and soon after removed his family thither. There he bought a ranch of 4,200 acres, on the banks of the Sacramento River, about twelve miles from the city. This place was stocked with 600 cattle, sixty-five horses, and 4,200 sheep. He paid special attention to the dairy department, milking 300 cows the year round, making cheese in summer and butter in winter. He also raised considerable grain. Although he thus incurred a heavy debt, he paid it in a few years. After a residence here of six years he removed to his present farm in Williston, which he purchased of his brother-in-law, Hiram J. Fay. Since coming to this place he has gradually added to his possessions, owning numerous wood-lots, a farm in Jericho, one in Essex, and another in Waterbury, besides a tract of 300 acres which he bought in 1885 of his wife's nephew, Alfred C. Fay, making the total number of his acres in Vermont about 1,250. In addition to these he owns 500 acres in Valcour Island, N. Y., well stocked, 2,400 acres in Kansas, also well stocked, and 2,000 head of cattle in Wyoming territory. His great pride in these accumulations is that they were honestly gotten. Mr. Whitcomb does not confine his labors to any one department of agriculture, but endeavors, with marked success, to develop all the resources of his extensive possessions. Thus he is not dependent, as is too often the case among farmers, upon the favorable fluctuations in value of any particular product, but is morally sure to reap profits from the very variety of his produce and stock. Notwithstanding the broad extent of his domain, he understands the peculiar adaptations of every acre, and permits no jot of all his labors to be wasted.

Mr. Whitcomb always guides his political conduct with the compass, and under the regulations of the Republican party ; but, though always interested in the success of that great organization, and well abreast of it in his ideas of State and national economy, he has never been ambitious to hold or control the disposition of political office, preferring rather to express his opinions by his votes. He is an attendant at the Universalist Church, to the support of which he contributes. He was united in marriage, on the 30th of April, 1860, with Edith, daughter of John Fay (a native of Richmond) and granddaughter of Nathan Fay, one of the first settlers and most prominent residents of Richmond. The family are closely related with the Fays of Burlington and Bennington, a partial genealogy of which reads as follows:

John Fay, the elder, emigrated from England and settled in Massachusetts. He married Elizabeth Wilmington, by whom he had eight children; Basheba married John Pratt; Dinah married Daniel Goodenough; John married Elizabeth Childs; Eunice married Isaac Pratt; James married Lydia Childs; Benjamin married Patty Miles; Mehitable married-Fletcher; and Stephen Fay, the youngest, married Ruth Childs. Stephen Fay had eleven children - John Fay, who was killed in the battle of Bennington at the age of forty-three years; Jonas, secretary of the Council of Safety, and author of the declaration of independence for Vermont, who first married Sarah Fasset and afterwards Lydia Warren; Mary, who married Governor Moses Robinson and died in February, 1801; Beulah, who married Major Samuel Billings and died in the eighty-ninth -year of her age; Elijah, who married Deborah Laurence and died in the eighty-eighth year of his age; Benjamin, who married Sarah Robinson, became the first sheriff in the State, and died in 1786; Joseph, who married Margaret, daughter of Rev. J. Dewey, and died in New York of yellow fever ; Sarah, who married David Robinson and died January 25, 1801; David, who married Mary, daughter of John Stanniford, of Windham, Conn., and died at the age of sixty-seven years; and two others. John Fay, the one who was killed at the battle of Bennington, had five children, as follows: Susan, who married Timothy Follctt and had five children ; Nathan, the early settler in Richmond, who married Mary, daughter of General Samuel Safford, of Bennington, and had eight children-John, Henry, Nathan, Polly, Safford, Hiram, Jonas and Truman; John, who married Susan Fay, daughter of Jonas and niece of his father, and had two children ; Helen, who married Bissell Case and had five children ; and Henry, who married Betsey Talcott and had ten children.

John Fay, eldest son of Nathan, married Polly, daughter of Daniel Bishop, of Hinesburg, on the 15th of September, 1805, when she was sixteen years of age. and had eight children - Roswell B., Electa, Roxana, Daniel B., Ransom, Julius, Edith and Hiram J. Of these Daniel B., Ransom and Julius are deceased. The father, John Fay, died on the old place in Williston November 27, 1871, aged eighty-nine years, and was followed by his wife, Polly, September 6, 1881, aged ninety-two years, one month and six days. Edith, as has been stated, became the wife of the subject of this sketch. She was born on the 23d of February, 1828. Mr. and Mrs. Whitcomb have one child, Marcia Fay, who was born on the 4th of May, 1861, and upon whom they have spared no pains to bestow the graces and accomplishments of a good education and the experience of two years in the Old World.

WHITCOMB, JOSHUA. The subject of this sketch, the fifth son and seventh child of Thomas and Anna (Stevens) Whitcomb, who have been mentioned more in detail in the preceding sketch, was born in Richmond, Vt., on the 22d of December, 1818. He received a common school education in his native town and in the town of Underhill, where he first worked out for himself. The next few years he passed in the employment of Charles Huntington, proprietor of a large tavern in the village of Richmond. Thence he went to Montpelier and engaged his services as commercial traveler for the large mercantile house of Cross & Hyde, and for about six years drove a cracker team [for them. In this employment he received a business training which has stood him in good stead in all his after years. On the 1st of April, 1848, he purchased the old Captain Joe Sinclair farm in Essex, upon which he has ever since resided. The farm originally consisted of about 300 acres, but by steady and successful diligence Mr. Whitcomb has enlarged its boundaries to such an extent that it now contains about 600 acres. It is one of the best farms in the town or, indeed, in the county, being adapted for almost any agricultural purpose, and by virtue of careful cultivation producing uniformly good crops. Mr. Whitcomb's attention, however, has been devoted principally to dairying. His cows, about sixty in number, are of a mixed breed of Ayreshire and Durham, with a slight intermixture of the Jersey stock. The milk is taken to the creamery in Jericho, which uses the milk from most of the cows in this vicinity. Mr. Whit-comb in past days has raised a great many sheep and horses, but the decline in the former led him to discontinue his interest in them. He now keeps four horses, chiefly for work on the farm.

Owing to his close attention to his private affairs, Mr. Whitcomb has refrained from engaging very zealously in the disturbing pursuits of political office seekers, and has never displayed that feverish thirst for official position which is the bane of American politics. He has a clear understanding, however, of current political events, and shapes his course in harmony with the principles of the Republican party. His religious belief is in universal redemption, and he attends the Universalist Church and aids in its support.

On the 18th day of April, 1848, he married Diantha, daughter of Benjamin Willey, of Middlesex, Vt She was born on the 22d of April, 1825, and died on the 15th of October, 1885. They had five children : Mira, now the wife of William Mackintosh, of Boston, born September 22, 1849; Ella, wife of J. E. Rugg, of Cheyenne City, Wyoming, born May 5, 1853; Demis, wife of L. B. Abbott, of Boston, born October 24, 1856; Willie, born April 15, 1858, and now living with his father-after an experience of four years following 1879 on work on railroads and in mining camps in Southern Utah, Leadville, and other parts of the West; and Caira, who was born on the 9th of June, 1861, and died on the 3d of February, 1883.

WHITCOMB, LORENZO DOW, was the third son and fifth child of Thomas Whitcomb, of Richmond, of whom we have spoken in the second preceding sketch. He was born in Richmond on the 30th of January, 1815, and in that town received his education in the district schools. When his father came to Essex in 1835 Lorenzo accompanied him, and afterwards removed successively to Richmond, Jericho, Bolton, Richmond again, and in 1867 to the farm which is now in the possession of his children in Essex, known as the old Stanton farm. From the original moderate dimensions of this farm Mr. Whitcomb enlarged the tract to its present size, a piece of more than 570 acres. It has been for many years and is now a dairy farm, which in the winter of 1885-6 supported no cows, besides eighteen horses and about twenty head of young cattle. The milk from these cows goes to supply the wants of the people in Burlington. Such are a few of the un-dramatic but greatly significant events in the life of one of the most respected citizens of Chittenden county. The motto that awards a blessing to that country which has no history may well be applied to the quiet and industrious life of men like Mr. Whitcomb. They are the nerve and sinew of the land in which they live, at once the source and bulwark of its prosperity. After more than half a century of peaceful and productive toil, on the 16th day of January, 1886, the subject of this sketch passed away. What his neighbors and acquaintances thought of him may be gathered from the following obituary notice, which appeared in the columns of the Burlington Free Press for January 22, 1886:

"Died in Essex, January 16, Lorenzo D. Whitcomb, aged seventy-one years. Mr. Whitcomb was born in Richmond, named after the celebrated Lorenzo Dow, and spent his minority in the town of his birth. After his majority he lived there and in the neighboring towns for several years, working at farming with good success, single-handed, until he had accumulated enough to warrant him in taking a wife and making a home of his own. At the age of forty-two he married Miss Cornelia, daughter of Blossom Goodrich, of Richmond, and lived there and in Bolton and Jericho respectively for a few years, and then bought and moved on to the River farm, about a mile from Essex Junction. There he lived for the last nineteen years, accumulating a handsome property, his dairy of no cows furnishing in part milk for the city of Burlington. He was a good man, an able financier, sound in counsel, and will be greatly missed by his neighbors and a large circle of relatives and friends. His wife died four years ago, and since that time and for some time previous his health has been on the decline, and for the last year he has expected death at any time. But he was ready and prepared, and arranged all his worldly affairs to that end. He leaves three children, two sons and a daughter. His funeral was attended Tuesday from his late home, whence a large procession followed him to the place and monument he had himself prepared in the beautiful cemetery at Essex Junction." Among other observations made by The Gospel Banner and Family Visitant published at Augusta, in the issue of February 11, were the following :

He was a good man, in Christian faith a Universalist, and an active member of our parish at the center of the town. He loved the gospel, and it was his delight to attend upon the preached word and contribute for its support. At the closing scene he called his family, brothers and sisters, to his bedside, bade them good-bye, and then peacefully closed his eyes in death to open them in heaven. And may the mantle of wise counsel, of faith and confiding trust, of Gospel love, of patience and resignation have fallen upon them [his children].

Mr. Whitcomb was married on the 24th of May, 1857, and had four children, Wesley, Laura F., Edward M., and James H., all but one of whom, Wesley, are now living on their father's farm. Wesley, who was born in 1860, died at the age of nine months. Mrs. Whitcomb's death occurred on the 17th of December, 1881. Mr. Whitcomb's political preference was decidedly Republican, but, like the other members of his fathers family, he was too much absorbed in the management of his private affairs to seek office.

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