JOSEPH SAMUEL HOLBROOK 691 The first Joseph Samuel Holbrook, known as J.S. or Joe, was the fourth of ten children of the second Ralph and Nancy Spicer Holbrook, born in 1842, five years after the opening of Trap Hill post office, an opportune time in the development of the area. Among his earliest playmates were children of the Siamese Twins, who lived on an adjoining farm. Once when his mother took him to visit them, a wife of a Twin remarked, "What I would give if my child were as fair as yours!" In a log house about a mile away to which Joe walked to school with his brothers Harden and James and sister Jane, in 1848 the teacher was Robert B. Bryan, son of Thomas, who held school three months in the year for a salary of $8.00 a month. That year geography and grammar were added to the three R's. Joe's family had strong convictions regarding the preservation of the Union, as did the Bryan’s. Having no grounds for exemption as his older brothers, Harden, a miller, and James, a postmaster, Joe hired a substitute, who was killed. Then in an attempt to pass through the lines to the Union army in Tennessee, he was caught and imprisoned a while. Later he was appointed captain of the home guard. In 1865 he took the oath of allegiance, and on March 18, 1866, he took an oath of another kind of allegiance -- matrimonial -- to Frances Caroline Alexander, called Fannie, who was born December 30, 1839, daughter of John and Mary. Up that state road, laid off in 1858 from Elkin by Trap Hill and Longbottom, he drove with horse and buggy to bring Fannie and her trunk to a house built in 1826 on a farm then owned by the heirs. To pay for that farm, Joe, leaving a young schoolboy, Bob Stiller with Fannie, struck out in the spring of 1869 by train from Salisbury, keeping a diary along the way, to Denver and the Fairplay gold mines; he was too late for gold, but a year's work on a ranch accomplished the mission. In 1871, the year after his return, J.S. became a trustee, with J.QA. Bryan and Dr. T.W. Smith, of an interdenominational school sponsored by the Methodist church, which had been organized the previous year. He remained trustee as the name changed from Seminary to Academy to Normal Institute until financial troubles forced a sale to the Methodist church, which controlled Fair View College. In a short time afterwards he became secretary of the board, with J.S. Kilby president, of a Baptist preparatory school, Trap Hill Institute. He was active in fraternal organizations, charter member and secretary of the first Masonic lodge #346 in 1876 and later of #483 and in 1892 of the Odd Fellows. The only son of Joe and Fanny, the first John Alexander Holbrook, called John A. was born April 28, 1878. A land grant for 640 acres on Greenstreet Mountain, which adjoined Joe's farm, raised his holdings to 1,000 acres in 1884. From 1884 to 1895 Holbrook Brothers, H.S. and J.S. were listed as cooperators of Trap Hill Mill. Beginning in 1886, J.S. served three terms as county commissioner and as chairman in 1895 when the present courthouse was built, with his name on the cornerstone. He represented Wilkes in 1893 in the North Carolina Legislature. From 1897 until his death in 1920, the chief interest of J.S. Holbrook was the attempted development of the resources of the Stone Mountain area. Under the president, G.W. Hinshaw, of Winston-Salem, he served as Local agent of Stone Mountain Granite and Timber Company, Stone Mountain Railway Company and the Wolf Rock Granite Company, as well as the Payne and Deemer timber lands. A red-letter day for the area was October 16, 1917, when a lunch of country fare was served under the direction of J.S. Holbrook at the foot of Stone Mountain to 50 or 60 members of the National Granite Association, principally from New England, which was holding the annual meeting in the south for the first time. The old farm gate at the Holbrook drive that had swung open wide to welcome two new-made brides and had closed on the funeral train of one, Mattye Smith, closed on three in 1910; Nancy Spicer Holbrook's, age 95; John A's on April 28, his 32nd birthday, and James Boyd's, his infant son, on October 5; both of the latter were buried in Traphill Baptist cemetery. Joe and Fanny celebrated their golden wedding in 1916. Four years later in 1920, he died in a buggy accident. Although frail physically, Fanny stayed mentally alert and managed the farm 17 years longer, past her 98th birthday in 1937. Both were buried in Traphill Baptist cemetery. At the death of Joseph S. Holbrook. His grandson, originally named Samuel Herbed Holbrook, born Aug. 11,1904, decided to take his grandfather's name but to write it J. Sam instead of Joseph S. After graduation from Wake Forest and the University of Pennsylvania Medical School followed by internship at the Marine Hospital and a stint in public health work, he joined the staff at Davis Hospital in Statesville and succeeded Dr. James L. Davis as medical director. He was in 82nd Airborne Division of W.W.II to the end. Dr. Holbrook was elected as Potentate of Oasis Shrine, 1968. He married first, Nancy Cox of Raleigh and named his first son, born May 31, 194- J.S. Holbrook, Jr., shifting back to Joseph S. Joe is an industrial real estate agent in Greensboro. Sam's daughter, Nancy, is counselor with the Downtown Church center in Winston-Salem, and his second son, Dr. Robed, is a recent graduate of Bowman Gray School of Medicine. Dr. J. Sam was married May 9, 1970 to Frances Foley Butler. Sources: Personal knowledge. Beatrice Holbrook The Heritage of Wilkes Co., North Carolina, Greensboro Public Library, Greensboro, North Carolina. NC 975.682, H54.