_Amasa Holcomb was born in 1787, the year John Fitch demonstrated his steamboat before the Constitutional Convention assembled at Philadelphia, and three years before the death of Benjamin Franklin. Two of Holcomb’s telescopes remained in the attic of the family home in Southwick, Massachusetts, until 1933, when they were offered by his descendants to the Smithsonian Institution.[11] With them came a manuscript book of meteorological and astronomical notes, and the following short sketch of the life of Holcomb, unsigned but almost certainly autobiographical. It appears to have been written when the subject was about 80 years old (1867)._ 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.