Hollis Latham was fifth of fifteen of James Latham and Mary, daughter of Amos Robinson and Bethany Jones. He was born March 12, 1812, al Northfield, Vermont ; learned enough at home and at district school to make him a plain, good American; came in 1836 to Milwaukee and early in 1837 to Spring Prairie : joined Mr. Rockwell’s party on its way to Elkhorn, and chose his home m the Genevan quarter, section 6.
In April, 1838, he married Mrs. Lemira Lewis, daughter of Capt. Daniel Edwin Bradley and Elizabeth Sturgis. He served the town for many years as justice of the peace, the county as clerk of the board of commissioners and as a superintendent of the poor, the state as trustee of the school for the deaf, the town and county Democracy as its candidate for many defeats, the Republican party when it did not care to send Richard B Flack to the Assembly of 1862, the agricultural society for several years as its secretary and several more as its treasurer. In the second constitutional convention he had been a member of the committee on “executive, legislative, and administrative provisions.”
Like his old friend Mr. Hollinshead, he had the unhesitating confidence of his fellow men, though there were many observable differences between these two “grand old men.” Mrs. Latham was born June 21. 1806, and died July 25, 1885. She left two sons, not now living: LeGrand, firstborn of Elkhorn children, and Edward Marshall; also a daughter of her first marriage: Elizabeth Ann Lewis, wife of Phineas C. Gilbert, Mr. Latham died February 22, 1886. His brother Loren (1823-1897) lived forty-five years in Geneva and at Elkhorn.
From: Beckwith, A.C. (1912). History of Walworth County Wisconsin