The subject of this notice was born June 18, 1787. The place was Simsbury Connecticut previous to 1768. That year Simsbury was divided and his birth place fell in Granby Con. that being the name of the new town. It remained so until 1804 when the line between Connecticut and Massachusetts was moved further south and his birth place fell in Southwick Massachusetts. The house was about a quarter of a mile north of the new state line, and on a road about half a mile west of the main road from Westfield to Simsbury and Hartford. Here his father and mother lived and died, having lived in three different towns and two different states without changing the place of their residence. Here Amasa was born and past his early youth. His grand father and grand mother on his fathers side lived and died in a house about thirty rods further south, on the same road. His grandfather’s name was Elijah, and was a son of Nathaniel Holcomb 3d, and married Violet Cornish of Simsbury Con. daughter of Capt. James Cornish. His fathers name was Elijah Holcomb Junr. He was a farmer and cooper. In the latter part of his life his father became involved in debt, and mortgaged the farm. His son Amasa paid the debt and the father Elijah Holcomb Junr occupied the farm until he died Oct 5th 1841. The grandfather on the mothers side was Silas Holcomb a son of Judah Holcomb 1st and grandson of Nathanial Holcomb 2d. He lived in the northwest part of Granby, near Hartland line, where he owned a large farm and beautiful home. He kept a park for deer and cultivated fruit, and made raisins. He married Mary Post of Hebron Connecticut, and in this beautiful place they lived and died. There Lucy Holcomb the mother of Amasa was born in 1767. During her short life, she was one of the excellent ones of the earth, and labored for the welfare of her children by instruction and example, until she died August 31 1800. In a very hot day in 1797, she attempted to get some cattle out a field of wheat. The men were at work in a distant field, too far off to know about it. She became heated, and never recovered, though she lived three years. During the last year of her life she became so reduced, that for a long while she could not speak a loud word, but she could and did whisper some good advice to her children. Her son Amasa never forgot it, and he always remembered his mother with affection and gratitude. She had two sisters but no brother. The house where she was born is still standing, but has passed out of the family. The house where his father and mother [lived and died][12] spent their married life, and where he was born, has been taken down, and a new house built on the same place by his brother Newton Holcomb who now owns the old home stead. Here Amasa spent his early youth and school days. There was not a schoolhouse in the district where he lived, until he was past having any use for a common school. The schools were kept in dwelling houses, one part was occupied by the family, and the other part by the school. In these schools were taught, reading, spelling, writing and the first rules of arithmetic. In some of them a little English grammar was taught. Climena Holcomb, Lois Gains, Bethuel Barber, Samuel Frasier, and James L. Adair, in the order in which they are named, were his teachers. At the age of fifteen he was asked to take a school in Suffield Connecticut. He was inspected and passed and took the school. A large portion of the pupils were older and stouter than he was, but they had the good sense to submit to be governed and taught, and good progress was made. But before this a great impulse had been given to his mind. He had an uncle Abijah Holcomb that went to sea about 1798 and never returned. Abijah had fitted for college and left a valuable collection of books. Some of them were classical, and some scientific. Here he found books on Geometry, Navigation, and astronomy. Amasa had free access to these books, and they opened a brighter world before him. He went into these studies with great pleasure, and a mind fully awake, but alone. None of these branches were taught in any school to which he had access. He had so far progressed without help, in Geometry, Surveying, navigation, Optics and Astronomy, that at the great Solar eclipse in June 1806 he could make astronomical computations, and was prepared to observe the eclipse with instruments of his own making. The stars were visible during about four minutes of total darkness. He computed, and published, an almanac for the next year 1807, and also for the year 1808. He went into the business of surveying land about this time. He loved to climb the mountains, and enjoyed fine health. In the year 1808 he married Miss Gillet Kendall, a daughter of Noadiah Kendall of Granby Connecticut. She was one of the best of women, and had no enemies, but was beloved by every body who was acquainted with her. For a while he took students into his own house, and taught them such branches as each one had engaged to be instructed in. Julius M. Coy of Suffield, studied surveying—Levi —— also from Suffield studied Navigation, and soon went to sea, and after a while command[ed] a vessel. Benoni B. Bacon of Simsbury, studied Surveying and astronomy, Joseph W. King of Suffield, studied surveying—Henry Merwin of Granby studied Surveying, Jefferson Cooley, a graduate of Yale College, studied surveying and civil engineering. He had also students from Granville Mass. But the school interfered with his other business, and he discontinued it. He manufactured about this time a good many sets of surveyors instruments—compasses, chains, scales, protractors, and dividers, some for his pupils and some for others. He also manufactured, magnets, electrical machines, leveling instruments, and some others. He was greatly attached to the business of surveying, and had more applications than he could attend to. He was compelled to leave it in 1825, and go into the business of civil engineering, which also in a few years, gave way for the business of manufacturing telescopes. At the commencement, he never thought of its ever becoming a business of profit. About the year 1830 he had completed an achromatic telescope, which he took to New Haven, and asked Prof. Benjamin Silliman to look at it. He did so, and at once took an interest in it, and published a notice of it in the American Journal of science, of which he was editor. He manufactured principally Reflecting telescopes, of the Herschelian kind. About the year 1833, he began to have orders for telescopes. Among these orders was one from William J. Young, a celebrated Philosophical instrument maker of Philadelphia, who wanted two small diagonal metallic reflectors for two Transit instruments that he was making. Mr Holcomb made the articles wanted, and thought he would take them and a telescope and visit Philadelphia. Mr Young introduced him to the late Sears C. Walker, and Mr Walker introduced him to Mr Hamilton, Actuary of the Franklin Institute of the State of Pennsylvania, and the Actuary appointed a committee to examine the telescope. He selected the committee from the standing committee on Science and the Arts of the Institute. Mr Patterson of the Mint, Alexander D. Bach superintendent of the Coast survey, Dr Robert Hare the chemist, James P. Espey, Sears C. Walker, Isiah T. Lukens and some others. These were among the first scientific men of America. The committee examined the telescope, and compared it with others of European manufacture. The Report of that committee may be found in the Journal of the Franklin Institute Vol. 14 p. 169. The next year 1835 he took a larger telescope to Philadelphia, and offered it to the same committee for examination and comparison with European telescopes. That Report may be found in the Journal of the Franklin Institute Vol 16 p. 11. The next year 1836 he presented a Telescope 14 feet long to the same committee. Their report may be found in the Journal of the Franklin Institute Vol. 18 p. 312. These Reports furnish the best information in regard to the performance of these telescopes. The committee gave them a high character, and they were sold in almost every state in the Union. One went to Seramp in the East indies, and one to one of the Sandwich islands in the Pacific ocean. While he was pursuing his labors as Engineer, and manufacturing Telescopes, and other instruments, in 1839 the news reached this country from Paris, of Daguerre’s great discovery of taking pictures on silver plates by solar light. The discoverer had not then succeeded in taking likenesses from life. Holcombe immediately commenced experimenting and soon succeeded in taking portraits, on silver plates, made sensitive to light by Iodine. There was soon a great demand for instruments to take portraits. He had for a considerable time as much as he could do to supply the applications he received for these instruments, from 1839 to 1845. As the calls for these instruments lessened he continued the manufacture of telescopes. He was the first that sold a telescope of American manufacture. All the telescopes used in this country before 1833, had been obtained in Europe. It had been said that they could not be made in this country. He had been greatly assisted in his sales, by the influence and recommendation of scientific men. It was soon discovered that telescopes could be made in America and about 1845, one after another went into the business, and there is now no further need of going to Europe for telescopes, as good ones can be made in the United States as can be made in Europe. The whole market was in his hands during thirteen years. During this time the business was good and paid well. The competition afterward reduced the profit. In 1816 he was chosen select man and assessor in his own town, which office he held during four successive years, and held the office occasionally by subsequent elections. In 1832 he was chosen to represent the town in the Legislature of Mass and he was reelected three successive terms. In 1852 he was elected to the State senate. In 1833 he was appointed a Justice of the Peace for the county of Hampden, which office he has held every year since, and his last commission does not expire until May 1875, at which time, if he should live to see it, he will be but a few days less than 88 years old. In 1837 he received from Williams College the Honorary degree of A.M. In 1831 he was ordained a minister in the Methodist Episcopal church. He preached constantly on the sabbath during many years, and afterward occasionally until he was eighty years old.