Arza Bartholomew, Jr., was born sometime in the 1830s in New York to Arza Bartholomew and Isabell Hunter. His father was a carpenter and joiner. The family moved to Ottawa County, Michigan, in the late 1830s, and by 1860, his father owned $1,450 of real estate and $350 of personal property. Bartholomew grew up and attended school in Ottawa County before beginning work as a farmer. He married Sarah Francis Daniels on May 21, 1860, and their son Harry was born around 1862. He enlisted in the Union army on August 14, 1862, and mustered in as a private in Company G of the 21st Michigan Infantry on September 3. In March 1863, he declared that he was a "stronger union man than when I Enlisted," but he was "sometimes...afraid that we will not be able to conquer [the Confederacy] on account of the Copperheads at the north." He died of disease in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, on May 8, 1863.