----Source: 1891 Bio. Hist. Of Clark Jackson Co., Wisconsin, pg. 224 :

ELIAS M. HOLDEN, of Neillsville, was born in Jay, Essex County, New York, December 6, 1836, the son of Levi and Ann (Mc GILL) Holden, the former a native of Massachusetts, and the latter of England. They had six children, of whom only three survive. The mother, a native also of England, was a daughter of a Scotch-Irishman, and the father of our subject descended from Joseph Holden, who came from Ipswich, England, in 1634. Levi Holden died when our subject was six years old. Elias M. received a limited education in his native town, and at the age of twelve years was thrown upon his own resources, after which he supported himself by working on a farm. At the age of sixteen years he went to live with an older brother, and learned the trade of house and carriage painting in Fitchburg, Massachusetts. In 1857, at twenty-one years of age, he came to Wisconsin, where he has since remained, having spent eleven years in Jackson County and the remainder of the time in Clark County. He worked eleven winters in the logging camps on Black River, and farmed during the summers, the most of the time on his own farms.

He was married August 21, 1861, to Margaret Hyslop, who was born and educated in Nova Scotia her parents came from Scotland. They have no children of their own, but adopted Ella A. Bourn, Mr. Holden's sister's daughter, at six years of age. She is now the wife of John N. Richardson, to whom she was married in 1882. They have a happy family of three boys and two girls, and live on a farm in the town of Weston, six miles from Neillsville. Mr. and Mrs. Holden worked hard on a farm until eight years ago, when they sold out and built a house in Neillsville, where they expect to spend the remainder of their lives. They have means saved from former years.

Mr. Holden had two brothers in the late war, who enlisted in 1862, and one was killed in the battle of the Wilderness, and the other escaped without injury, being discharged March 4, 1865. Mr. Holden came out of the logging camps and enlisted under Captain O. F. Waller, and at that time weighed 175 pounds, but when discharged from the hospital, in October, 1865, was reduced to 121 pounds. Coming North saved his life, but the army life cost him his health. He now belongs to the G.A.R. post at Neillsville. He has been a Republican all his life, and is a believer in the Bennett school law. He also believes this to be the best nation in the world, and Wisconsin one of the best States, and no man need want that will work and save his earnings.

Elias M. & Margaret (Hyslip) Holden

Weston, Clark Co., Wisconsin

1880 Federal Census--Weston, Clark, WI

Elias Holden @45, b. NY, Farmer, Father b. MA, Mother b. England

Wife: Margaret @49, b. Nova Scotia, Father b. Scotland, Mother b. Nova Scotia

Niece: Ella A. Bourn @18, b. VT, Father b. MA, Mother b. NY

1895 Wisconsin State Census, pg. 98.

1905 Wisconsin State Census, pg. 63.

Military Records

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Clark Co., WI History Buffs

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Obituary of Ella A. (Bourn-Holden) Richardson