Andover Townsman Abbot Article Series

Number 13.

Nicholas Holt's Children

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The early history of Andover settlers is full of the long pull for land and cash. Self-help, rather than missionary schemes and village improvement, occupied their minds. They had to build reads and had not forgotten their old Roman arts. As I read over my note and gather what these busy Holts accomplished, I wonder if we would have been slightly fat and slow like out "moss-back" neighbors over the line, if we had been content to stay under English rule. The war for Independence and the one we fought for Unity has taken the English love for a dollar pretty well out of us. What would Nicholas think of out borrowing, here in 1896, to pay the losses of our spend-thrifts (how the old yeoman hated the unthrifty) and, at the same time, subscribing from the hoard in the full pocket, for the work of getting the Turkish wolf out of his den, left just now for a woman Putnam to accomplish.

Nicholas, in his old age, turned his attention to making ladles and other wooden ware at the old site, probably on Ladle Brook, which he leave to his son Henry, deeding the land in 1681, and in 1686, a year after his father's death, Henry builds a new mill on Ladle Brook. He married Sara Ballard, daughter of William, of the Ballard Vale district, who somehow seems to be a father of mills. Henry spends his 75 years in providing for the most enormous of the Holt families. He had five daughters and nine sons, only one dying young. Most of the descendants through Oliver, William, James, Josiah and Humphrey stay here, those through Henry, Paul and George, emigrating in the third generation.

Elizabeth married Benjamin Harnden, probably on the Wilmington line; Sara, a John Cram (the only Cram I ever knew kept a shoe store in Lawrence in its beginning, and the primary school was in the hall above, while the new schoolhouse was made ready) Dina married David Pierce of Woburn, Ketura taking cousin Joshua, son of Uncle Nicholas, and going off to Windham after her brothers. Zerviah, one of my own three highly prized Holt grandmothers (extra g's must be left behind) married Jonathan Abbott of (2) Ben, George Senior's line. They built their farm now held by the heirs of Stephen David Abbott, who are the sixth in succession on the place. The old white rose bush, "The Abbott bush," still blooms under the parlor windows. Zerviah lost her Jeremia in the French War; several children went to Pembroke, NH; she was the grandmother of the famous "kicker". (5) Jonathan who kept the church alive so many years; a granddaughter, who married Abiel Holt, broke the Abbott record, dying at 103, only two others, her Uncle Reuben of Concord and his father's cousin, Priscilla, attained 100. The Holt average, especially the grandmothers, is above the usual one, even in long lived Andover stock. There seems to be very few spinsters in any of the Holt lines, and they lived to be very old a a rule. Tabitha in 'Henry, (4) Ben, (5) Joseph's family, Sunset Rock Farm, born 1785, was living in 1860. In fact, most of the maiden seem to come in the family that returned from Albany, ME, to the old place, now pulled down, but formerly in Sunset Rock pastures.

Joseph's wife was Lydia Jones, and as Ebenezer Jones had swapped lands with the Holts, when they emigrated, the family may have been drawn back by their kin. Here Joseph of the Bible House, NY., was a boy. Mary Kimball Holt, the mother of five Jones daughters, has one granddaughter now residing with her father, Deacon Hezekia Jones, near the old home. Eliza, we all recall as the wide of Ebenezer Easton, this childless couple residing for many years in the house lately held by Frederick Ray on School Street. Henry Holt married two Blunt sisters, and now Lucy Blunt, granddaughter of Joseph Holt, married back into the old Abbott line again; and I doubt if there is a family of children in Andover that owns more Holy ancestors that those of the young James and Lucy Abbott, living near the old Holt's woods and Holt's bridge, as it was once called. I am looking for the Albert A. Jenkins who married Elinor M. Holt. The late Mrs. Corse, whose family is now all with her, was of this line through Ruth, the wife of Abner Abbott.

Many will recall Mrs. David Holt, who made a home in her old age for our fellow townsman T. A. Holt, a son of one of the emigrant Holts in another line. This bereaved woman needed no better staff in her old age. We gained by the return of this branch of Henry's family. Albany, ME, settled by an army of Holt's got one of the typical workers of the line, a man, who at 73, after surveying the whole state of Maine, and buying and selling and settling estates, and caring for the land claims of the Phillips Academy trustees, found he was "tired out" and settled down as an S. S. Superintendent. He married one of our remarkable woman, Hanna, daughter of Capt. Ben Farnum, such as the Farnum line has always furnished for pioneers. The Maine woods proved too much for her at 45, and she left the ten children for the eldest daughter to care for. They all turned out ministers and doctors and captains. By the way, it was the Holt oxen of Uriahs' father Jacob that went to Bunker Hill to make defences. This Revolutionary hero had married Rhoda Abbott, and in 1798, young Uriah, Stephen and Rhoda went up to Albany, ME, and cleared the land, building the log house, and in his 60th year, old Jacob, his wife Rhoda and the other three children make the 200 mile trip over a trying road with an ox sled, canvas covered, carrying the furniture and the family, in 15 days. These hustling Holt's were bound to be educated, and Uriah came back to Phillips Academy after he was a man, studied navigation and came near being a sea captain. Uriah's brother Ephraim went to Greenfield, NH, raised rye and brought the oars he made down to Marblehead in the winter.

Our Otis Chickering and his cousin George of Methuen, late of Andover, are grandsons of Jacob's daughter Mary Osgood Holt, who came back to marry Zecharia Chickering. From the Sunset Rock Farm went Lydia Holt to marry Moses Wheeler Holt, her third cousin. They get back from up Londonderry way, with Hanna born in Tewksbury, who draws our friend Daniel Cummings along from Manchester, and down they settle, these birds of passage, on the lovely rock opposite Joseph Holt's estate (now occupied by Charles Blunt). Mr. Cumming's place and the old house adjoining is th4 most picturesque of all the old estates. is daughter Luella has fitted to Florida, a journey much easier than the one her ancestors took for Albany in the years back.

I must tell you of Moses Holt's Uncle Amos up at Holden, who with two wives, raised 22 children, one of whom, cousin Aaron Porter Holt, after a second marriage, had the pluck to graduate at a medical school. He practiced medicine here in 1840 and in Lowell. This winds up the story of the children of Henry who went north, and it is only a sample of what there is to tell if there were time. When I am bothered to get my conundrums ready on time, I shall fall back upon the Holts.

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Transcribed by JAS 2004 from Andover Townsman published January 17, 1896. Spelling errors occur in original record and were not corrected. All data is copied as it appeared in the original newspaper. I cannot vouch for the authenticity of the author's research. This information should be used as a starting point as I cannot confirm or deny the factual data the stories contain. Copyright JAS 2004-2008