Austin Dickinson Loomis was born on September 4, 1828, in Amherst, Massachusetts, to Austin Loomis and Hannah Dickinson. His father was a farmer who owned $3,500 of real estate in 1850. Loomis grew up and attended school in Amherst, and by 1850, he was working as a farmer. He married Martha Newell on May 25, 1854, and they had at least four children: Francis, born around 1856; Nellie, born around 1858; Charles, born around 1859; and Harriet, born around 1863. They lived in Amherst in Loomis’s parents’ household. By 1860, he owned $3,500 of real estate and $700 of personal property. He died of “old age” and asthma in Amherst on December 1, 1904.