Will County IL Archives Biographies.....Holmes, Myron P ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/il/ilfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Deb Haines ddhaines@gmail.com September 7, 2007, 8:58 pm Author: Genealogical & Biographical Record MYRON P. HOLMES. During the long period of his residence in Spencer, extending from the spring of 1866 to the present time, Mr. Holmes has been proprietor of a general store in this village and has gained a wide circle of acquaintances among the people in the northern part of this county. He has erected a store building and residence and in other ways has added to the development of the village. Various local offices have been filled by him, among them those of road commissioner (three years), collector (four years) and assessor (one year). For years he has been a member of the school board, serving much of the time as its treasurer. He has been active in the Republican party ever since he cast his first vote for John C. Fremont, and keeps posted concerning the problems that are of national importance. In an early day three brothers by the name of Holmes came from England to Connecticut and from there removed to New York state many years before the Revolutionary war. In the latter conflict Orsamus Holmes, our subject's grandfather, bore an active part as a member of the army of the frontier, serving with Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga and being twice taken prisoner. After the war he settled upon a farm in Chautauqua County. He was proprietor of a hotel on the stage line from Buffalo to Dunkirk, which was also a changing post for the stages and mails. His son, Asher, was born in Chautauqua County, N. Y., and in 1835 came to what is now Will (then Cook) County, Ill., where he took up a claim on the southeast quarter of section 22, New Lenox Township, and secured the land at the first land sale in Chicago, in 1836. In the spring of 1837 he bought one hundred and sixty acres, upon which he began general farm pursuits. On this place he died in 1853, at the age of fifty- six. A man of mental activity, he took an interest in early political affairs as a Jeffersonian Democrat and served as judge of elections. At the time he settled in this county Joliet contained only nine houses. He lived to see the transformation wrought in the ensuing years, but died before the city reached a high state of prosperity. Chicago being the only market for grain, he was accustomed to make frequent trips to that city. During the war of 1812 he took part in the service as a member of a regiment from Dunkirk that took seventeen prisoners; at the time he was only seventeen years of age. The lady whom Asher Holmes married was Eliza Ann Elmore, who was born in New York and died at the old homestead in Will County when seventy-five years of age. Of their union six children were born, namely: James, deceased; Myron P.; Eliza A., deceased; Orsamus, of New Lenox; Lydia, wife of Henry Glacier; and Julius, of Chicago. The subject of this sketch was born in Chautauqua County, N. Y., June 8, 1830. He was about four years of age when his parents came to Illinois, and he grew to manhood in the county where he has since resided. His education was received principally in Albion (Mich.) College. In 1850 he joined a party of Argonauts en route to California, and, reaching the Pacific coast, spent five years engaged in mining, with fair success. On his return to Illinois he spent two years with his mother, then again went to California, where he operated mines and carried on a lumber business. In 1864 he returned to this county and two years later opened the store of which he has since been the proprietor. He is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church of Mokeua, in which he has been a trustee for years. By his marriage, in 1864, to Lydia Fager, who was born in Ohio and came to Illinois at an early age, he has four children, namely: Ada, wTife of E. E. Swing; Mary, who married L. F. Wilson; Myron H., who is in Michigan; and Edith, at home. Additional Comments: Genealogical and Biographical Record of Will County Illinois Containing Biographies of Well Known Citizens of the Past and Present, Biographical Publishing Company, Chicago, 1900 File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/il/will/bios/holmes945gbs.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/ilfiles/ File size: 4.6 Kb