from the Ashtabula Beacon-Record January 13, 1903
TRUMBULL PIONEER DEAD
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Had Been a Resident of That Place For Over Fifty Years
Geneva, Jan. 12--On Friday night at Trumbull Center occurred the death of Mrs. S. J. Holcomb, who for the past 50 years had been a resident of that place. Mrs.
Holcomb was born in Massachusetts 72 years ago, and at the age of 20 came to the Western Reserve. For the past seven years she had been suffering with the infirmities which old age brings with it, and when death came it brought welcome relief. She is survived by her aged husband, who deeply mourns the loss.
The funeral services were conducted at the Disciple church in Trumbull, burial was made in the cemetery near there.
from the Ashtabula Beacon-Record January 17, 1903
The funeral of Mrs. Merritt Holcomb, who died Friday, was held at the Church of Christ Monday, Rev.Tisdel of Buffalo officiating. Music was furnished by a quartet composed of Mesdames H. F. Nye and J. A.McFarland, and Messrs. H. F. and Ford Nye. Mrs. Holcomb was numbered among Trumbull’s oldest settlers, was 72 years of age, and had been in very poor health for some time.
from the Ashtabula Beacon Record March 24, 1903 page 5
THE LATE MERIT HOLCOMB
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A Widely Known Resident of Hartsgrove
Merit Holcomb was born in Windsor, O., June 19, 1821, and died in Trumbull, O., March 16, 1903, being 81 years, 8 months, 20 days old. He was one of thirteen children. His father, Caleb and mother,Abigail Norris Holcomb, who afterwards moved onto the farm now owned by a nephew of the deceased, Eugene Somers, where the aged parents died a few years ago. The brothers and sisters have all passed over the river of death, save Edison Holcomb, of Jefferson, O., who is in very feeble health.
When Merit was 28 years of age on the twenty-second day of October, 1849, he was united in marriage to Miss Sophia J. Sargent, a very exemplary young lady of a fine christian character. The ceremony was performed by General Charles Stearns, who lived in the residence now occupied by Frank Parker at the Center of Hartsgrove. They soon moved onto the farm in South Trumbull, O., where both spent 52 years of hard laborious, yet a happy, peaceful life, clearing up the forest as they owned and operated a saw mill. Many buildings are covered with shingles shaved from hemlock by Uncle Merit as we all called him.
Uncle Merit was a firm, ardent bible student, having embraced the old primitive christianity of Christ time as set forth by the Campbells, now known as the Church of Christ. He was a profound thinker and reader often reading the bible through several times a year. He spent over twenty years of hard study on the book of Job having declared and set forth the book to be a true biography of the life of Job instead as some believe it to be a book of fiction.
Many are the bible scholars of Uncle Merit scattered all over he United Sates, as he was a teacher in the Hartsgrove Sunday schools for nearly fifty years, being the oldest elder of Hartsgrove Church of Christ at his death.
Elder Holcomb was strictly temperate in all things which accounts for his splendid physique and power of endurance. He could and did up to within a short time of his death do as much work as the average young man of the hour. And as we sat there during the weary hours of the night watching the soul take his departure from this earthly tabernacle through the mist of tears feel that a fatherly friend, a kind neighbor, a true citizen, passed from us into eternity, as the life blood was fast ebbing away to hear him say “I am ready to go, meet me in heaven.” The radiant smile that rested upon his face long after the soul had gone to its maker, indicated to us left behind, he was happy to die in the Lord Jesus Christ and met death boldly.
The roads were in such a condition that the minister from Ashtabula failed to reach Trumbull, and Prof. D. M. Webb of Trumbull Center gave a very appropriate discourse, after reading 1 Cor. 15 and 22nd chapter of Revelations the latter chapter Elder Holcomb repeated by heart to his grandson, Clarkson Main, the day before he died.
Elder Holcomb was placed in the vault at Trumbull, where as soon as the roads will permit and Elder Frank Wright, who was a personal friend of Elder Holcomb can come to give an eulogizing sermon on both Elder Holcomb and his wife who passed two months ahead of him to the better land. The Nye family furnished very touching songs.