OUR HOLMES’

The name Holmes had been associated with Yorkshire for some 20 generations when three Holmes men arrived within a few years of one another at Plymouth Colony. Apparently unrelated, the three may have descended from distant common ancestors. Interestingly the three intermarried with the same Plymouth families, Atwood, Bradford and Brewster. (Genealogist Eugene A Stratton has done a detailed analysis of the Holmes’ at Plymouth.)

The John Holmes from whom our family descends arrived in Plymouth Colony sometime between 1626 and 1632. On October 16, 1632 he bought a house and six acres of land from William Palmer, who had arrived on the ship Fortune in 1621. Over the years he acquired at least 50 acres more.

In Plymouth he was several times cited for drunkenness, and in April 1633 was according to Robert Charles Anderson:

...censured for drunkenness, to sit in the stocks, & amerced in twenty shillings fine.

Notwithstanding, John Holmes became a Freeman, which meant he could vote, and in 1637 was referred to as a gentleman and hired a servant, William Spooner of Colchester, Essex. Eugene Stratton hints that John Holmes may also have come from Colchester, and that he may have been “the black sheep of some good family.” (This suspicion is in line with anecdotal history reported by Duncanson.) Although not certain, it is probable that John Holmes’ father was Thomas Holmes a maltster of Colchester who died in 1637.

In 1638 John Holmes became the Messenger of the court, which meant he delivered court summonses and was jailer and executioner of the Colony, a position analogous to marshal or sheriff. In his first year he showed both compassion and a practical nature when an unmarried servant of a Mayflower descendant became pregnant and named the man responsible. For a fee of three pounds and other considerations from the accused man, John took the woman into his home where presumably she assisted his wife Sarah.

According to Eugene Stratton, John did execute at least one person, in 1642:

Thomas Graunger, late servant to Love Brewster of Duxborrow, was this court indicted for buggery with a mare, a cowe, two goats, divers sheepe, two calves, and a turkey and found guilty, and received sentence of death by hanging until he was dead.

The accused was caught in the act with one beast and confessed to the other offences. The executioner was Mr. John Holmes, the Messenger of the court, and in his account he claimed as due him one pound for ten weeks boarding of Granger, and two pounds ten shillings for executing Granger and ten beasts. The animals were individually killed in accordance with Leviticus 20:15 and buried in a pit.

He married a woman known to us only as Sarah. She delivered two sons, John and Nathaniel. (Some writers have claimed additional children but the evidence is thin.) Son John Holmes married, first, Patience Faunce, daughter of John and Patience (Morton) Faunce, and secondly, Patience Bonham, daughter of George and Sarah (Morton) Bonham. The second son, Nathaniel Holmes, married Mercy Faunce, sister of Patience, December 29, 1667. Both sons had families and there are many descendants.

Nathaniel and Mercy Holmes had seven children. Their fifth child, another John Holmes, was born March 22, 1662. John Holmes married Sarah Church in 1709, but in 1711 took a second wife, Mercy Ford.

Mercy gave birth to Peleg Holmes in 1715. Peleg not only represented the fourth Holmes generation in New England, he also descended from First (or Old) Comer Pilgrims John Faunce and George Morton and their wives. In 1740 Peleg married Abigail Bradford, a descendant of Governor William Bradford and Elder William Brewster both of whom had arrived on the Mayflower in 1620. Peleg and Abigail had eight children. These children and their progeny descend from five Pilgrim families, namely Bradford and Brewster who arrived on the Mayflower and Faunce, Morton and Carpenter who reached Plymouth on the Anne.

The British had obtained permanent possession of Nova Scotia, formerly a part of the French colony of Acadia in 1713. However in 1755, because of renewed war with France and doubts about the loyalty of the Acadians, the British colonial authorities removed most Acadians from their lands and dispersed them among the other colonies in America. The authorities then encouraged settlers to take over the Acadian lands.

Like thousands of other New Englanders in search of land, Peleg, Abigail and their children moved in 1762 to Nova Scotia. According to Duncanson, Peleg was granted 1115 acres at Chebogue near Yarmouth, Yarmouth County. At his death he owned many hundreds of acres, and so the following source, Campbell, History of Yarmouth, has to be taken with a grain of salt:

In a return of the settlers of Yarmouth in 1763-4 the name of Peleg Holmes appears with 9 in his family, 13 cattle, 8 sheep, 6 hogs, 1 schooner, 85 acres. In a grant dated 7 April 1767 Peleg Holmes is listed as a grantee. Peleg Homes arrived in Yarmouth in 1762 from Plymouth and Kingston, Mass. and settled at Holmes Landing, Chebogue.

The source book by Smith and Smith confirms the arrival of the family in 1762, that officials recorded the names and birth dates of the children and, importantly, that Abigail was the daughter of Ephraim Bradford.

Ruth Perry had this to say:

When the Holmes family came to Chebogue from Plymouth, Mass, they came ashore on a little gravelly cape that became known as Holmes’ Landing. As time went on the cape was split and became known as Pickney’s Landing and Beveridge’s Landing. The Beveridges bought a house and land belonging originally to the Holmes family. Between the river and the present road stood an old cellar marking the site of the Holmes’ first house. Across the road George Beveridge’s house stands where the house of Samuel Holmes once stood. Directly opposite the landing is a house that was built by Nathaniel Holmes, which in time became a parsonage.

Abigail died in Chebogue in 1790, Peleg in 1799. In his will Peleg called himself a husbandman – meaning a farmer. He remembered all children still living, but left most of his land to his only surviving son, Nathaniel. Amongst other things each of his daughters got a cow. One of the possessions listed was his pew in the meetinghouse at what was called at the time Jebogue.

What was the Peleg homestead is situated midway between today’s Argyle Street and Wyman’s Road.

Our Holmes’ were a religious and industrious family who farmed, built ships and sailed the seven seas. In the 19^th century they participated in Nova Scotia’s greatest era, when the province became shipbuilder to the world.

Peleg’s son, Nathaniel Holmes was not only a deacon but, in later life, a committee member of the Yarmouth Temperance Society formed in 1829. In 1784, Nathaniel married Abigail Kimball whose family had not only arrived in America in 1634 but whose pedigree could be traced back to 1303. She gave him eight children. One of these children, Captain Peleg Holmes, was born at Yarmouth in 1785. He married his first wife, Mary Trefry, in 1806. Mary descended from all three Mayflower passengers named Hopkins: Stephen, Giles and Constance. After Mary’s death, Peleg married Mary Lockhart in 1826. While the Lockharts had emigrated from Ireland as late as the 1700s, they had married into other families who had arrived earlier during The Great Migration. His two wives gave Peleg a total of 21 children, although several died as infants. A staunch Baptist, Peleg organized a Baptist Church at Hantsport in 1830 and was its first deacon. Hattie Chittick wrote:

In 1830 (sic) three families came from Yarmouth to Hantsport, among them was Peleg Holmes. The Holmes property or part of it is now owned by J.M. Hancock. Elisha Holmes, Peleg’s brother, moved to the hill that now bears his name. He had 4 sons and 2 daughters. He divided his land among his children, and they all settled there. The first school was in the home of Robert Davison on Holmes Hill. The present school was built in 1858 and among the pupils was Captain G. L. Holmes.

Old records state that in 1858 (sic) Peleg Holmes and others were building ships for the West Indies trade. The names of Peleg, Delos, John W., George L. and Dewilton Holmes are all listed as Master Mariners of Hantsport.

Captain Peleg’s obituary in the Christian Examiner says the year the Holmes’ moved to Hantsport was 1820. Archival material by George Brown (see references below) indicates the move actually took place in 1821. Peleg’s grave marker, just inside the main entrance of the Riverbank Cemetery at Hantsport, reads “For 20 years a deacon of the Baptist Church at Hantsport, who died Dec. 3 1856. Blessed are they that die in the Lord for they rest of their labours and their works do follow them.”

During the golden era the people of Hantsport built some 200 sailing ships and claimed their town was the 5^th busiest port in the world. The decline of the forests and the advent of steam changed everything, although to this day you can still see many of the mansions built by the shipbuilders and ship owners in those halcyon days.

Captain Peleg's fifth child, Joshua Holmes, born 1814, married Naomi Lockhart a first cousin once removed of his stepmother and a first cousin of Sir Charles Tupper the Canadian Prime Minister. A “Daughter of the Great Migration,” Naomi descended from a number of early families in New England – including Whipple, Dorman, Goodhue, Knowlton, Watson and Rice. Joshua and Naomi had ten children – their births recorded in the Francis Fulton Bible. One of these, Grace Almira, moved to Ohio about 1878 where she married Levi Dewitt. Her descendants continue to live in Ohio and Michigan.

A letter from Peleg to Joshua written in 1852, refers to several close relatives. Little Georgie was at sea all summer but is now back to school. (This presumably refers to his son George Levi aged 13, and is likely the Captain G L Holmes referred to in a previous paragraph [above]). A nephew, Captain George Holmes, is sailing to New York for the winter; another nephew, Captain Whitman Holmes, sailed with his bride, Grace, to New York on his honeymoon, and has now taken a load of potatoes to Richmond. (Grace was Peleg’s fifth daughter. This was her second marriage. For her new husband this was a third marriage, the second to a first cousin. He would die the next year.) Another son (and captain) Peleg Jr. is ready to sail with a load of potatoes to New York. (He would die as a result of a shipwreck the next year.) Mary Ann, relationship uncertain, has had a picture taken of him for her family. Joshua’s stepmother (Mary Lockhart) sends her love. Peleg sends his love to Joshua’s wife Naomi (Lockhart). Joshua is living in or near Parrsboro in Cumberland County, across Minas Basin from Hantsport. Elisha Holmes (Peleg’s brother or nephew) owes Joshua money. Peleg agrees to help get it, but points out that Elisha is away for a month. Moreover, Peleg is feeling poorly and thinks his days are numbered.

Captain and Deacon Peleg Holmes would die four years later aged 71, having outlived eight of his 21 children.

Life was hard. James, Peleg’s fifth son, drowned at sea aged 28. Captain George Holmes, son of Elisha, Master of the brig Alamode, died from Yellow Fever caught in Puerto Rico. Peleg’s grandson, Philemon Holmes, died at Port-au-Prince.

A Nova Scotia Directory of 1871 records John, Nathaniel and Samuel Holmes farming at Chebogue. At Yarmouth, George A Holmes is a mariner. At Hantsport William Holmes as well as both Elisha Holmes junior and senior are farmers. Whitman Holmes is a mariner, John William Holmes a master mariner. Nancy, widow of George Holmes, and Mary, widow of Peleg, are also recorded. At Parrsboro D Y Holmes is a storekeeper; John and William E Holmes are tanners.

Rebecca Jane Holmes and Emma Julia Holmes, the daughters of Joshua Holmes and Naomi Lockhart, both married Fultons. Rebecca married Robert Starritt Fulton in 1864 and subsequently delivered twelve children. Emma married Robert’s nephew, David Beatty Fulton, in 1879 and had three children.

See Fulton for further descendants.

The help of two descendants of Peleg Holmes -- Jean Rebecca (Fulton) Rawluk and Kim MacDonald -- is gratefully acknowledged.

Updated 15 September 2000.

SOURCES: Plymouth Colony, by Eugene A Stratton, 1986, Ancestry Publishing, Salt Lake City; “Descendants of Mr. John Holmes, Messenger of the Plymouth Court,” article in the June 1986 National Genealogical Society Quarterly, by Eugene Stratton; The Great Migration Begins, (Immigrants to New England 1620-1633) by Robert Charles Anderson; Falmouth, a New England Township in Nova Scotia, by John Duncanson, 1990, MIKA, Belleville; History of Yarmouth, by Campbell, 1876; Nova Scotia Immigrants, by Smith and Smith, 1992, Genealogical Publishing, Baltimore; The Central Yarmouth Story, by Ruth Perry, 1970, Yarmouth NS; Hantsport on Avon, by Hattie Chittick, 1968; The Trefry Family, by George S Brown, Boston, 1901 (Yarmouth County Museum Archives); last will and testament of Peleg Holmes, 1799; Mayflower Website of Caleb Johnson; Mayflower Website of Scot McGee-Lori Steadman; Holmes Website of Randy Adams; letter of Peleg Holmes to his son Joshua; many births, deaths, marriages from the Baptist paper, Christian Messenger, the (Francis) Fulton family Bible; and Rose Weinbrecht of Toledo, OH www.familytreemaker.com/users/w/e/i/David-W-Weinbrecht/index.html .