When Rufus Erastus Whitcombe Jr was born on 4 April 1819, in Hartland, Windsor, Vermont, United States, his father, Rufus E. Whitcomb Sr, was 22 and his mother, Mercy Martha Oliver, was 19. He married Susan Colston Avery about 1839, in Orford, Grafton, New Hampshire, United States. They were the parents of at least 1 son and 2 daughters. He lived in Newton, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United States in 1855. He died on 1 April 1892, in Bradford, Orange, Vermont, United States, at the age of 72, and was buried in Bradford, Orange, Vermont, United States.