Holcomb, Pentheus J.

Born: 1789-XX-XX Vergennes, Vermont

Flourished: Bond County, Illinois

Pentheus J. Holcomb was a grocer, farmer, merchant, mill owner, and early settler of Bond County, Illinois. Holcomb moved from his native Vermont to Ohio, arriving as early as 1816. He settled in Cincinnati, where he purchased land and opened a grocery business. He married Ruth A. Francisco, with whom he would have six children. He emigrated from Ohio to Bond County, Illinois, in 1831, settling his family on a farm. In 1836 and 1837, Holcomb acquired 520 acres of public land southeast of Greenville in what would become Okaw Township. He also established a mercantile business in Greenville. In 1850, he was farming and owned real property valued at $5,000.

Ellen T. Berry and David A. Berry, comps., Early Ohio Settlers: Purchasers of Land in Southwestern Ohio, 1800-1840 (Baltimore: Clearfield, 1986; rep., Genealogical, 2004), 149; The Cincinnati Directory (Cincinnati: Oliver Farnsworth, 1819), 124; William Henry Perrin, ed., History of Bond and Montgomery Counties, Illinois (Chicago: O. L. Baskin, 1882), Part 1:122, Part 2:326; Illinois Public Domain Land Tract Sales, Bond County, 145:113, 168, Illinois State Archives, Springfield, IL; U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), Bond County, IL, 386.