Santa
Clara County
Biographies
HUGH NOBLE HOLTHOUSE
Standing high among the keen, enterprising and
progressive business men of San Jose is Hugh Noble Holthouse,
well known as one of the popular liverymen of this city, and as a successful
farmer and grain raiser of Santa Clara county. A Californian by birth and
breeding, he was born July 12, 1866, in Plumas county, a son of Eberhardt Henry Holthouse.
A native of Osnabruck, Hanover,
Germany, Eberhardt H. Holthouse
was the son of a farmer, and was reared on the parental estate. Immigrating to
America when young, he lived for a time in St. Louis, Mo. In pioneer days he
crossed the plains to California, paying the sum $125 for the privilege of
following an ox team train on foot. Locating in Plumas county he was first
engaged in gold mining, and afterward was also in mercantile pursuits.
Accumulating considerable money he subsequently invested in quartz mines and
lost nearly all of his wealth. Coming to Santa Clara county
in 1870, he was for four years engaged in dairying near Alviso. In 1874 he
purchased his present ranch, and has since been profitably engaged in general
farming and stock-raising, his farm, which is situated about two miles from
Alviso, now being managed by his youngest son. He married Mrs. Elizabeth
(Madden) Ratliff, who was born in Dublin, Ireland, a daughter of Michael
Madden, who died when she was an infant. She subsequently immigrated to America
with the remaining members of the family, settling in New York City. Two of her
brothers came to California by way of Cape Horn in 1850. One of these brothers,
Hugh Madden, was murdered in Ragtown, the present
site of Carson City, Nev., in 1855, while the other brother is now a prominent
orchardist of San Jose, and one of it earliest settlers. She married for her
first husband a Mr. Ratliff, who died in Iowa, leaving one child, W. P.
Ratliff, who is now postmaster at Tulare City, Cal. After the death of her first
husband, Mrs. Ratliff came to her brother, Michael Madden, at Taylorville,
Plumas county, and here married E. H. Holthouse, in 1864. She died December 27, 1902, at the home
farm near Alviso, leaving by this marriage five children, namely: Herman, a blacksmith
in South Africa; Hugh N., the subject of this sketch; Mrs. Mary Rabidoux, of Alviso; Mark, a farmer in Sunnyvale, Cal.; and
Frederick, residing on the home farm, near Alviso.
Brought up on the home ranch, Hugh
Noble Holthouse received a practical education in the
district schools of Santa Clara county, and
subsequently labored industriously on the farm, which he helped to pay for,
living with his parents until twenty-three years old. For two years thereafter,
he ran a hay press summers, and in seeding time assisted his father in putting
in crops. The two years following he was engaged in hay pressing and farming,
and after his marriage rented four hundred and fifty acres on land, which he
managed with success for four years, carrying on general farming, including
dairying and the raising of hay, grain and stock. In 1896 Mr. Holthouse purchased from Mr. Johnson the Park stables,
located at No. 232 North First street, San Jose, and has since carried on a
large and profitable livery business. His stables are very commodious, having a
frontage of sixty-four feet on First street, and
extending back to Second street. Mr. Holthouse is
also prosperously engaged in agricultural pursuits, owning fifty acres of land
in Evergreen, and in addition renting three hundred and fifty acres, the whole
of which he devotes to grain and hay raising. In 1904 Mr. Holthouse
entered into a co-partnership with his youngest brother, Frederick Holthouse, for the purpose of raising stock. They jointly
purchased a stock ranch in Santa Cruz mountains, six
miles west of Morgan Hill, and about nineteen miles south of San Jose. This
ranch contains a fraction less than one thousand acres, and will be largely
devoted to the raising of beef cattle.
In 1890 Mr. Holthouse
purchased a handsome home at No. 56 Fox avenue, one block north of the broad
gauge depot.
At Mountainview,
(sic) Cal., Mr. Holthouse married Miss Nellie Hare, a
native of that town, and the daughter of Hugh Hare, a pioneer farmer of the
place. Of the union of Mr. and Mrs. Holthouse five
children have been born, namely: Genevieve, Beatrice, Tessie, Zeta and Mamie.
Politically Mr. Holthouse is an earnest supporter of
the principles of the Republican party. Fraternally he
is a member of the Ancient Order of United Workmen; of the Ancient Order of
Hibernians and also belongs to Palo Alto Parlor, N. S. G. W.
Transcribed By: Cecelia M. Setty.
Source: History of the State of California & Biographical Record of Coast
Counties, California by Prof. J. M. Guinn, A. M., Pages 1334-1335. The
Chapman Publishing Co., Chicago, 1904.
© 2016 Cecelia M. Setty.