75He FIRST THREE GENERATIONS of HOLTS in AMERICA
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75he FIRST THREE GENERATIONS of HOLTS IN AMERICA J <;Published CUnder the Auspices of THE HOLT ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA <;l'rinted by THE MOORE PRINTING COMPANY. Inc. Newhursh. N. Y. The 1\1:odel of the Ship Mayflower, in the room of the New York Society, 44 East 23rd Street, New York City. Typical of the general style of the ships of the period in which the Holts came over from England THE HISTORICAL COMMITTEE of the HOLT ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA Clara Holt Whitmore, Chairman Mary Exton Holt Frank L. Holt Mary Abbot Holt Rosa Belle Holt Lucius H. Holt Florence Adams Chase Emily Holt Durkee Harriet Holt Perry Ethel G. Holt Philbrick Mabel Brace Ward TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE Part I. The Nicholas Holt Branch. Chap. 1. Our Founders, and their Times. Clara Holt Whitmore and Lucius H. Holt. Chap. 2. Arrival of our Founders in America. Clara Holt Whitmore and Lucius H. Holt. Chap. 3. Boston and Newbury, 1635. Lucius H. Holt. Chap. 4. Andover, Mass., as Nicholas knew it, and the Nicholas Holt Homestead. Ethel G. H. Philbrick: and Mabel B. Ward. Chap. S. The Wives of Nicholas Holt. Mary Exton Holt. Chap. 6. Samuel Holt, Son of Nicholas, and his Children. Florence Adams Chase. Chap. 7. Henry Holt, Son of Nicholas, and his Children. Mary Abbot Holt. Chap. 8. Nicholas Holt, Son of Nicholas, and his Children. Clara Holt Whitmore. Chap. 9. James Holt, Son of Nicholas, and his Children. Rosa Belle Holt. Chap. 1O. John Holt, Son of Nicholas, and his Child. Rosa Belle Holt. Chap. 11. The Daughters of Nicholas, and their Children. Mary Exton Holt. Part II. The William Holt Branch. Chap. 1. Arrival of the Founders. Clara Holt Whitmore. Chap. 2. William Holt, the First. Frank L. Holt. Chap. 3. John Holt, Son of William, and his Children. Emily Holt Durkee. Chap. 4. Nathaniel Holt, Son of William, and his Children. Frank L. Holt. Chap. 5. Mercy Holt, Daughter of William, and her Children. Emily Holt Durkee. Chap. 6. Eleazar Holt, Son of William, and his Children. Clara Holt Whitmore. Chap. 7. Thomas Holt, Son of William. From material in Durrie. Chap. 8. Joseph Holt, Son of William, and his Children. Harriet Holt Perry. Chap. 9. Benjamin Holt, son of William. From material in Durrie. Appendices. i. Holts, Members of the South Church of Andover. Compiled from the Church Book, by Mary Exton Holt. ii. The Military Record of the Holts in Early Times. Lucius H. Holt. iii. Tabular Biographical Records of the First Three Generations of the Nicholas Holt Family in America. iv. Tabular Biographical Records of the First Three Generations of the William Holt Family in America. Bibliography. Index. Preface "HAPPY is the Nation that has no History", but un happy is the family which has no historian. Fortunately, the Holt family has not been left in that plight. In 18 64 Daniel S. Durrie, who was the husband of one of the members of the family and who later was the State Historian of Wisconsin, at consider able personal sacrifice and at the expense of a large amount of labor, compiled a genealogy of the family which has been the standard since its publication and which has ~en invaluable to any one interested in the family history. The members of the family surely owe him a debt of gratitude. The present Holt Association feels that the family history should now be brought down to date and certain omissions and inaccuracies which necessarily crept into the Durrie genealogy should be corrected. They expect at an early date to take up actively the matter of compiling a new genealogy. As this work will necessarily extend over a consider able period of time, it has seemed to the Association that it might be well to publish some of the interesting mater ial accumulated by its painstaking Historical Committee relating to the very early history of the family in this country. It has there£ ore undertaken the publication of the present volume dealing with the first three genera tions of the family in America. This work is not intended to take the place of a gene alogy, and included in it is more or less material which ordinarily would not appear in a genealogical volume, and some of which perhaps is more or less traditional. At the same time, the Committee believes that all of the information contained in the volume is entirely accurate and can be depended upon, and that it is only such mater ial as is purely anecdotal in its character as to which there can be any question. Harriet Holt Perry, President Robert S. Holt, Vice-President Edith Holt Tydeman, Secretary Cleveland B. Holt, Treasurer Frank L. Holt, Recorder Clara Holt Whitmore, Chairman of Historical Committee. PART I. The Nicholas Holt Branch CHAPTER I. OUR FOUNDERS, AND THEIR TIMES WHEN an American Homer shall touch the harp to sing the great epic of the founding of America, may he not forget the catalogue of ships. With hearts of oak, looking for guidance to the moon and stars, relying on the never-£ ailing compass, these little vessels, seldom more than three hundred tons burden, plied between the southern shores of England and the New World, until in 1640, when immigration practically ceased, they had brought over about twenty thousand people with their horses, cows, sheep and household goods. The officers who commanded these ships were of the same class and mettle as the British admirals and commanders who had met the Spanish Armada or, like Drake, had circumnavi gated the globe. Their names should be honored in the great American epic. In looking over the list of passengers of these small craft, one is impressed by their youth. William Brewster, the Plymouth elder and eldest, and Thomas Dudley, whose legal and diplomatic knowledge proved so useful to the Massachusetts Colony, were both men whose span of life had passed the half century. But every vessel brought its family groups, where the father was a man of thirty, the mother a little younger and the youngest mem ber of the family a babe in arms. What courage must have inspired these fathers, as, turning their backs upon worldly comforts, they led their families into the Un known, where, they believed, their children would be freed from the heresies and temptations of the Old World! In the hearts of these mothers glowed the same reli gious zeal, the same love of liberty, as in the breasts of the fathers. It was because of the courage of their women that this country was settled in such a large meas- 14 THE FIRST THREE GENERATIONS ure by the English people.- The French and the Spanish could never induce their countrywomen in any large num bers to settle in the wilderness. So it was not only the enthusiasm of youth, but the spirit of the home that pre sided over the birth of the nation. Southampton was a port of importance with a long history. From this harbor the soldiers under Richard Coeur de Lion had set out for the Holy Land near the close of the twelfth century. During the Hundred Years War, ships and soldiers had sailed from here to invade France. Only five years earlier, a little squadron headed by the A rbella, had here taken their fare well of England, and had journeyed westward to plant a colony on the shores of Massachusetts Bay. It was a safe harbor pro tected from the high waves of the English Channel by the beautiful Isle of Wight. Among the people gathered at Southampton in the spring of 1635, waiting to sail on the ] (,ltJnes, was Nicholas Holt, a young man of thirty-three. It is believed that his wife, Elizabeth, and their little two-year-old daughter, Hannah, accompanied him. In the passenger list pre served at Westminster, Nicholas Holt is given as a tanner {or turner, i.e. wood turner) from Romsay. As there is no mention of Nicholas Holt among the carefully pre served records of the old Abbey Church of Romsay, it is believed that the real place of his nativity, and his occu pation, were concealed. THE ENGLAND OF THE TIME OF NICHOLAS HOLT The England into which Nicholas Holt was born in 1602 was Tudor England. _To have lived when he did was to have been the compatriot of Bacon and Raleigh, of Drake and Sidney, of Milton and Shakespeare; it meant that he was participating in a great period. The Elizabethan age was one of which Englishmen have been OF HOLTS IN AMERICA 15 justly proud ever since. Elizabeth, last of the Tudors, died in 160.3, but the impress of her reign, the culmina tion of a century of change, was to affect greatly the future of all men of English birth. It is this England which we shall briefly portray in order to see how Eng lishmen lived at home, and to examine into those causes religious and political which impelled them to leave their native land, cross the tempestuous Atlantic, and take up their life anew in a little known and uncivilized country. It is our desire to tell something, too, of the new land to which the early settlers felt drawn, and the problems which confronted them in making their homes under strange and trying conditions. It is said that no age is ever stationary. This state ment is especially true of the century preceding the Puri tan migration. At the beginning of this period, England was still recovering from the decayed medievalism with which it had been permeated so long.