J. D. Hollett, BiographyPorter County biographical sketches . . . .
Transcribed biography of J. D. Hollett
J. D. HOLLETT, of the firm of Haste & Hollett, hardware dealers, is a native or Orange County, N. Y., his birth occurring May 11, 1848. He is next the youngest of a family of six sons and four daughters, one daughter of whom is dead, born to Thomas A. and Deborah A. ( Benjamin ) Hollett, also natives of the State of New York. Thomas A. Was a farmer; moved to Porter Township, Porter Co., Ind., from Orange County, N. Y., in 1851, and moved to Valparaiso in about 1864, and he and wife are yet living here, not actively engaged in any pursuit. J. D. Hollett was reared principally in Porter County, where he received the common school education. At the age of sixteen, he began for himself and up until nineteen years of age was going to school and clerking in Wood Brothers' grocery store in Valparaiso. In 1867, he was employed as fireman of an engine on the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne & Chicago Railroad, and after firing two and a half years, entered the engine and machine shops in Chicago, remaining there about a year, when, by reason of his habits and previous satisfactory work, he was given an engine. For four years he was employed as freight and passenger engineer on the Fort Wayne road. The fall of 1874, he became the "Co" of the hardware firm of Hawkins, Haste & Co., but at the end of two years, Mr. Hawkins retired from the partnership and the firm of Haste & Hollett was continued to the present with success. They carry everything found in the first-class hardware and farming implement store, and do as large a trade as any firm of the kind in the town. Mr. Hollett is a member of the Masonic fraternity, and is a Sir Knight of Valparaiso Commandery, No. 28. He was married, February 21, 1872, to Miss Lura Freeman, daughter of Azariah Freeman , one of the old settlers of Valparaiso, and by her has two children - Freeman and Ida May. The parents are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church.
Source: Goodspeed, Weston A., and Charles Blanchard. 1882. Counties of Porter and Lake, Indiana: Historical and Biographical, Illustrated. Chicago, Illinois: F. A. Battey & Company. 771 p.
Page(s) in Source: 249
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Biography transcribed by Steven R. Shook