Early Life
Holcomb grew up in Southwick, Massachusetts. There were no schools in his district, so he didn't have formal schooling, but gave himself an education. He studied books on geometry, navigation, optics and astronomy that were previously owned by his uncle Abijah, who was lost at sea. At fifteen years of age Holcomb became a tutor at a private school in Suffield, Connecticut, teaching college preparatory courses to students older than himself.
Read more about this topic: Amasa Holcomb
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“Many a woman shudders ... at the terrible eclipse of those intellectual powers which in early life seemed prophetic of usefulness and happiness, hence the army of martyrs among our married and unmarried women who, not having cultivated a taste for science, art or literature, form a corps of nervous patients who make fortunes for agreeable physicians ...”
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