27 September 2010

John Knight Newcomb

John Knight Newcomb (b. 10 Oct 1809, BMN #922) married Julia Ann Enock (b. 17 Apr 1814).  B.M. Newcomb said that John and Julia were married in Apr 1833 and that their son William was born in Jan 1833. This is extremely unlikely. In the 1830's in a respectable, middle-class family, a couple would manage to get married before the birth of the child.

20 September 2010

Perry Winfield Newcomb

Perry Winfield Newcomb (b. 5 May 1881, BMN #2621) married Estherline C. Adams (b. May 1879).  B.M. Newcomb gave their marriage date as 18 April 1901, but they were already married a year at the time of the 1900 census, and had been married 11 years at the time of the 1910 census.

14 September 2010

Thomas Newcomb (1843-1906)

B.M. Newcomb wrote:


Mr. Newcomb received his education at Punahou College, Sandwich Islands; Poultney Academy, Vermont; and at the College of California. He mastered several branches of business to qualify himself for his later position. He was a good chemist, practical assayist, and skillful telegraph operator. For a time he devoted himself to the study of law in its several departments, and made himself practically acquainted with stock operations on the Pacific coast. He became city editor of the San Francisco Morning Call, circulation 30,000, and was one of the finest writers in his special department in the state. As a caricaturist he achieved a reputation second only to Nast. He was first president of the Bohemian Club, San Francisco, organized 1872. Residents of California who were graduates from colleges and universities formerly met annually at Oakland, organized into an alumni society with historian, poet, etc. In 1872 Mr. Newcomb was named poet.


In 1880 Mr. Newcomb was made notary or appointment clerk in the executive chamber, Albany, by Governor Cornell, a position which he held through the different administrations until that of Governor Odell in 1903, when he was transferred to the Adjutant General's office. At the time of his death he was secretary to the Governor of New York. He was a member of the Fort Orange Club of Albany. "Thomas Newcomb was a man of ability and genius. Naturally of a keen intellect, his education developed him into a humorist of the most pleasing, refined type. His lyrics were models in composition and his prose was cleancut and of the purest diction. He was equally as clever at delineation with his pen as he was in composition and many excellent examples of his talent are cherished by those fortunate enough to possess them. His reputation as a newspaper writer was known from the Atlantic to the Pacific."

06 September 2010

Norman Newcomb

Norman Newcomb (BMN #2020) was born 16 Mar 1852, the son of Ebenezer Newcomb (b. 30 Nov 1819, BMN #984). He married a woman named Emma (b. Feb 1853), possibly Emma Hinman. BMN did not provide much information about Norman and appears to have confused him with a different Norman Newcomb, who may or may not have been a son of Frank P. Newcomb (BMN #1360).

According to BMN, Norman #2467 was born around 1873. However, if his father was Frank P. Newcomb, this would have been impossible, since Frank was born in 1870.