The American Family of Rev. Obadiah Holmes
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NYPL RESEARCH LIBRARIES 3 3433 07897461 9 ,-•«*• V V \ \ Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2008 with funding from Microsoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/americanfamilyofOOholm , THE AMERICAN FAMILY OF REV. OBADIAH HOLMES BY COL. J. T. HOLMES > I > <> » • ' , • • I > t a. » . • » u • « • I • • • • . • * • , , • • . ' • , » • • • • . » • . ... » , • ' • • ' . • • • t »»»,»», • '•,' ' • J » * * » , " ' , • ' I {•••i, la I,' •• COLUMBUS. OHIO 1 9:iJ5 682314 COPYRIGHTED. 19 15 c c c c c c t "- c c c c . c c c C C C C I **> c r - c c < c cc ccc c t e e c t c c C c c c t c c A LINE OF ANCESTORS I Obadiah Holmes Katherine Hyde b. 1606 b. 1608? Manchester, Eng. Manchester, Eng. m. 1630 \ d. 1682 d. 1684 Newport, R. I. Newport, R. I. II Jonathan Holmes Sarah Borden b. 1633-4 b. 1644 Manchester, Eng. Portsmouth, R. I. m. 1665 d. 1713 d. 1708? Newport, R. I. Newport, R. I. III Obadiah Holmes Alice Ashton b. 1666 ;;,. b: 1671 ;,.•;''. ;;'!/ '• ' '' • Gravesend, Long Island, N . Y « I^^fiddlctown, N. T'." m 1696 d. 1745 d. 'i?l'6'" • ' Middletown, N. J. MididktbWh; N, 'f: V IV Joseph Holmes Elizabeth Ashton b. 1698 b. 1700? Middletown, N. J. Upper Freehold, N. J. m. 1722-3 d. 1777 d. 1750 Upper Freehold, N. J. Upper Freehold, N. J. 3 ' A Line of Ancestors V Obadiah Holmes Mary Clunn b. 1728 b. 1732 Upper Freehold, N. J. Lamberton, N. J. m. 1755 d. 1794 d. 1812 \\'ellsburg. Vs.. Indian Shortcreek, Ohio. VI Joseph Holmes Sarah AIcNabb b. 1771 b. 1783 Mecklenburg/^' \"a. Shepherdstown, Xa. m. 1799 d. 1868 d. 1862 Indian Shortcreek, O. Indian Shortcreek, O. VII Asa S. Holmes Mary McCoy b. 1806 b. 1814 Indian Shortcreek, O. Brownsville, Penna. m. 1837 ' f' • « ' ,', ' d'. 1891 •• . - d. 1901 » f ' • « f , , • • ' ' • , / \ ; ^bxd'ia}! Skor-tcreeii-,; Indian Shortcreek, O. Not '©P/e Qf''^U tbepe persons was ever twice married; and from 1606 to^'0''?.9Qrcii>%pcaily 300 years. *N?.nT5 'VfiaKgeHHd 'Sh^'pherdstown, 3 775. INTRODUCTION In volume 64, at pages 237-239, July number, 1910, of The New, England Historical and Genealogical Register is a brief out- line of the immediate English ancestry and connections of Rev. Obadiah Holmes. The research on the genealogical line, which led back to him, as the immigrant ancestor, was commenced in January, 1900, as the result of the receipt of two letters from relatives in the west, one residing at Kansas City, Missouri, and the other at Denison, Iowa. The former was seeking to settle his relationship to Colonel Joseph Holmes, 1771-1868, a pioneer of the early days in Western Pennsylvania, the Pan Handle of Virginia and Eastern Ohio, and the latter was disclosing a short page of manuscript about the family which he had received from a Rhode Island genealogist, who had disappointed him by his exceedingly limited discoveries, in that behalf. Obtaining a literal transcript of the family record in the Bible of Col. Joseph Holmes and a similar transcript from the Bible of his son Asa, an investigation of the ancestral line was commenced, following it backward, with the design, at the outset, of tracing from son to father, noting births, names, marriages, residences and deaths, to Colonial times, if possible. Once enlisted in the work, the enterprise and the interest grew and extended and broadened and deepened until it became the absorbing engagement—occupying every spare moment outside of the profession—of making an elaborate brief on the facts and the law of an intensely interesting case. It is enough here to say that there are more than 45,000^ manu- script pages, in bound and indexed volumes, where there was no thought, at the beginning, of ever accumulating as many as 100 pages, and, beside, there are many and various books, perhaps 1,500,^ and original documents of rare interest to the collector, 2 October 15th, 1914. ^^'ooo I 6 Introduction bearing upon the family history and its times, now in the same library. It is in compliance with the urgent solicitations of some of the distinguished members of the family—and of many, who do not stop to think of distinction^and of outside friends, to make an outline, at least, of this accumulation, that the task is undertaken while the demands of an exacting and jealous profession are still upon the author. The plan and hope for a half dozen years have been that a small volume of the family history might be written, which would show what is now known of it from the Knight in the train of W^illiam the Conqueror— 1066—-Ranulphus or Randulphus Houlme, Randolph Holmes—to the Pioneer, Obadiah Holmes, on the crest of the Appalachian range, in 1775, moving westward, with his family, as part of the tide of emigration from the sea- board colonies to the wilderness, through which for almost half a century, stretched the wavering and crimsoned line between savagery and civilization, from W^yoming to the mouth of the Beautiful River. Such volume was to be followed by a second, like unto it^^ which should connect with the first and show something of the history of that pioneer and his descendants, as, in the next century and a quarter, or more, they lived and labored and struggled and fought along that line and when it was finally broken, spread away across prairies and plains and mountains, taking part in founding and building the greatest empire the world has ever seen. The plan and hope mentioned have not been realized, and this fact, with the danger of loss of the material, by fire or other calamity, furnishes the basis of the more urgent of the solicita- tions to make an outline. No extended or connected genealogy of this branch of the family, or of any part, of it, worthy of the name, has been found, and the more pretentious of the partial lists contain numerous errors or inaccuracies, omissions and imperfections. The de- scendants seem— all to have been too busy with the present or look- ing forward "still achieving; still pursuing"—to take the Introduction 7 backward look beyond the range of living memory and mere traditions ; too busy making history to waste the time, as it must have seemed to them, to make any special record thereof ; and no stranger to the blood has been found to assume the burden, financial and literary. Such a synopsis or resume, as is here presented, may be useful to the descendant, or the collateral, or the stranger to the blood, who may, at some later time, undertake to compile from the record, if preserved, the larger history of the family, if such history should be left by the collector partly or wholly unwritten. If the accumulations, in these libraries, should be lost or destroyed, original investigation and research anew from east to west, here pointed out, may be materially aided. The credit for the Register article referred to, in opening, is largely due to Ernest Axon, Esq., genealogist and correspondent, of Manchester, England. It does not do him or his work justice, because it is a mere excerpt and condensation of a part out of the English line and the wealth of facts and data prepared and fur- nished by him from the records of Lancashire and Cheshire churches and offices and courts, and elsewhere in England, through some two hundred years preceding the birth of Obadiah Holmes, the immigrant, and now a portion of the accumulations mentioned. This will not be a genealogy or a history, but a mere memoran- dum along a line, on which some one may later work, genealogi- cally and historically. By way of illustration, a careful approximate estimate was made and it was determined that, in 1790, the descendants of Rev. Obadiah Holmes then living and dead numbered five thou- sand. Details, though many are at hand, cannot be given place in such an outline and the memory of what the record shows rather than a research of it must be relied on, largely. Thanks are due and hereby cordially tendered to hundreds of correspondents, who cannot now be named. It would be ingrati- tude, however, even under the circumstances, not to make special mention of the indebtedness for most intelligent and valuable aid 8 Introduction to Judge George C. Beekman of Red Bank, New Jersey, to Judge John C. Burke of the Newport, Rhode Island, bar, and to Mrs. Mary Hohnes Rue of Cream Ridge, Monmouth County, New Jersey. Colonial Archives and documents and histories of Massa- chusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York^ New Jersey, Virginia and Pennsylvania and the Northwest Territory ; county, city, village and church histories genealogical works ; state, county ; and family records ; mortuary inscriptions, documents, letters, memories, all have contributed. Columbus, October 15, 1910. Ernest Axon, Esq., Manchester, England \ REV. OBADIAH HOLMES Obadiah Holmes, the immigrant to this country, was born near Manchester, England, in 1606-7. His baptism occurred at Didsbury, on the 18th day of March, 1609-10, as "Obadiath s. of Robert Huhne." For as much as an hundred years after his birth the name con- tinued to be spelled in different ways : Hulme, Hulmes, Hullmes, Holm, Holme, Holmes, and otherwise, when it finally, about the beginning of the eighteenth century, gradually settled down to the present form—Holmes. The name is said by different authors to be a derivative, like Hill, Dale, Wood and others, from the character of the land or place, of residence of the first person, who took and thereafter bore it, and signifies a meadow surrounded by water, low, flat land, the deposit or made land at the confluence of two rivers or streams.