Reverend John Calvin Holbrook, born in this town [Brattleboro], was two years a student at Hopkins Academy in Hadley, Massachusetts (1818-1820), under Reverend Dan Huntington, father of Bishop Huntington of central New York; one year under the tuition of Reverend E. H. Newton and two years a cadet in Captain Partridge’s Military Academy, Norwich, Vermont, at the most prosperous period of that institution, 1821-1824, graduating in 1825. He took an active interest in military matters; and served as aid-de-camp to the general in command of Vermont Militia, Brattleboro district, 1828-1834.

He was a clerk in the store of Messrs. Holbrook & Fessenden, 1824-1828.

He became a member of the Congregational Church under the ministration of Reverend Jonathan McGee. After a few years he succeeded his father in the book publishing and paper making business, and became a member of the firm of Richardson, Lord & Holbrook in Boston, and removed to that city but returned to carry on the work in Brattleboro. The Brattleboro Typographic Company was incorporated in 1838 with Reverend John C. Holbrook president, but his want of business acumen involved the fortune of this father, who signed notes for the son until they both failed. From about this time his action seemed wholly under the control of a high ideal. Business was mainly desirable that he might have the ability to forward his religious and beneficent plans. While prosperity attended him, he assisted several young men in fitting for the ministry.

In the days of his youth his mind was much exercised in regard to the great West, for he believed the time not distant when she would control in our national councils. Therefore, not only the welfare of the Union, but of the world, demanded that the ideas of religious and political freedom, inculcated by the fathers of New England, be early implanted in the growing communities of the West. Before 1840 he removed to Davenport, Iowa. While there he became pastor of the church in the city of Dubuque, and in 1842 was ordained. Here he labored eleven years and was instrumental in building up one of th strongest churches in the state. In 1853 he removed to Chicago to establish and edit The Congregational Herald and to establish the New England Congregational Church, now one of the leading churches of the city and state. After three years of labor he was recalled to the pastorate of his former church in Dubuque, where he labored eleven years longer.

Being solicited to undertake the raising of an endowment fund for Iowa College, he removed to Boston, and, in a little more than a year, collected upwards of $40,000 for that purpose. While engaged in this work he was called to become pastor of the old Congregational Church in Homer, New York. During his ministration of six years in Homer, 1864-1870, he was induced by the American Missionary Association of New York City to visit Great Britain and address meetings held for raising funds for the education of the lately liberated slaves of this country. He collected and sent home $30,000 for this object. He also visited the principal parts of Great Britain and the continent, corresponding with The Boston Recorder, and occasionally The Congregationalist and New York Independent, as well as The Dubuque Daily Times.

From Homer he was called to the pastorate of the Congregational Church in Stockton, California, in 1870, and after two years there was chosen by the General Association of New York State, in 1872, secretary of the newly formed Home Missionary Society and removed to Syracuse, where he subsequently resided in the discharge of the duties of this office. He was pastor of West Street Church in Portland, Maine, 1882-1883.

Mr. Holbrook was married in 1829 to Miss Cynthia S. Tuttle of Windsor, Vermont, by whom he had four children, all of whom died young; she died in Davenport, Iowa, January 14, 1842, aged thirty-five. He married, second, Miss Ann L. Clark of Platteville, Wisconsin; she died at San Francisco November 20, 1896. They had no children, but adopted and brought up as their own, two sisters, both of whom married and settled in Stockton and Dubuque.

While living in Brattleboro Mr. Holbrook was chosen deacon at the same time his father was in that office in the same church (an unusual circumstance) and was superintendent of the Sunday school. In Boston he was a member of Doctor Lyman Beecher’s church, and for a time the clerk of it.

While in the West he aided in founding Iowa College, 1863-1864, and was one of its trustees. In Chicago he also cooperated in originating and founding the Chicago Theological Seminary and was one of its directors, and for a time vice-president of the board. In 1863 the honorary degree of D.D. was conferred upon him by Williams College, of which Doctor Mark Hopkins was president. After 1856 he was a corporate member of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. He was one of the originators and members of the historic Albany Convention of Congregationalists and was several times delegate to the National Council of that denomination.

In Brattleboro he manifested much interest in all public improvements, and was active in the projected railroad from Brattleboro to Troy. He was also appointed, by the governor of Vermont, commissioner to superintend the expenditure of $3000, granted by the Legislature to procure a preliminary survey of a route for a railroad from the south line of the state, north on the west bank of the Connecticut, which was accomplished by Professor Twining of New Haven, Connecticut, and which prepared the way for the present Connecticut and Valley Railroads.

He was one of the four original trustees of the Vermont Asylum for the Insane, under the will of the founder, Mrs. Marsh.

He died August 1, 1900, in Stockton, California.

He published several historical works and sermons, among them, “Prairie-Breaking, or Sketches in the Experience of a Western Pastor.” “The Recollections of a Nonogenarian” (1898) was an autobiography of his life.