Holt Genealogy of Blue Hill, Maine

We will now pass on and turn the corner of the road leading to the former site of the tide mills.Ascending the little elevation in the road to the house of A. R. Conary we recognize the site of the house and inn of Nicholas Holt. He came from Andover Massachusetts, in 1765, with his family. He was born March 10, 1716; married first Hannah Osgood, May 6, 1739; she was born May, 1714; died Sept. 1, 1744; married second Lois Phelps, April 29, 1751; she died Jan. 4, 1815; he died March 16, 1798. Their children were:

1. Jedediah Holt, born April, 1740; died Sept. 1740.
2. Hannah Holt, born Nov. 16, 1741; married Jonathan Darling.
3. Phebe Holt, born Feb. 9, 1752; married Israel Wood; she was child of second wife.
4. Jedediah Holt, born March 12, 1754; married Sarah Thorndike.
5. Nicholas Holt, born Sept. 23, 1756; married first Phebe Bachelor, second Molly Wormwood.

At the house of Nicholas Holt town meetings were held in early days. He was a justice of the peace, and when the town was incorporated in 1789, it was he that was designated to call the first town meeting under the act of incorporation. He was elected to town office and was an influential person in the town.

The father of the writer called the field “the Granny Holt Field”, and a little way back of the cellar to the old house were several apple trees, one a greening, probably the first of its kind in the town.

Upon this site later stood a shoemaker’s shop used as a dwelling by a Mr. Sawyer, who came from Biddeford to work for John Cheever, who carried on shoe making previous to 1840, and after him occupied by Mrs. Joanna Parker and family, but long since gone.

The Jedediah Holt Place is the next in order, and in the boyhood of the writer was the last house upon the road before reaching the meeting house. The first Jedediah Holt house was of two stories; that was burned seventy years or so ago, and upon its site was built a story-and-a-half house in which Mr. Holt resided until his death, Aug. 8, 1847, aged ninety-three years, four months and fifteen days.

He was the son of Nicholas Holt, who came from Andover, Mass., to Blue Hill in 1765. Jedediah was born at Andover, March 12, 1754. He married Sarah Thorndike, Feb. 24, 1778. She died Jan. 15, 1836. They had six children as follows:

1. Jedediah Holt, born March 3, 1779; married Polly Viles; he died Sept. 4, 1842,
2. Jeremiah T. Holt, born May 24, 1781; married Elizabeth Osgood; he died April 14, 1832. See further.
3. Jonah Holt, born Nov. 4, 1783; married first, Eliza O. Stevens; second, Almira Wilcox; he died Feb. 19, 1860. See further.
4. Samuel Phelps Holt, born July 8, 1786; married Lydia Lowell; he died Sept. 29, 1827.
5. Stephen Holt, born May 10, 1788; married Efy Parker; he died May 16, 1830. See further.
6. Sally Prince Holt, born July 3, 1792; died Nov. 14, 1803.

Mr. Holt outlived his wife and all his children but Jonah. The writer remembers him as an aged man, past labor, with his grandson, Samuel Phelps Holt, living with him in the old house that was burned. He lived an honorable and respected life, saw the town grow from a half dozen families to nearly 2,000 inhabitants, and to be a place of thrift and owning a large number of vessels built in the town, beside the granite and other industries. His farm contained a good many acres on both sides of the road, cleared, cultivated and used as fields and pastures, which were covered by the primeval forest when he first began work upon it. After Mr. Holt’s death the place was sold to other parties.

Jeremiah T. Holt Family Genealogy

The next house and place to the Fisks’ is the Jeremiah T. Holt house and place, for many years a tavern named “Travellers Home”, with swinging sign suspended from a post in front, and for many years the only tavern or hotel in the village.

Jeremiah Thorndike Holt was the second son of Jedediah Holt, and grandson of Nicholas, who came to the town from Andover in May 1765, settled at the Falls, and was the first keeper of a public house in the infant settlement. Jeremiah Thorndike Holt was born May 12, 1781; married Elizabeth, daughter of Joseph and Hannah Bailey Osgood, Nov. 24, 1808. She was born Nov. 5, 1789, and died Feb. 4. 1858. He died in April, 1832. The children of that marriage were:

1. Jeremiah Holt, born Dec. 27, 1810; died Nov. 1, 1816.
2. Julia Ann Holt, born April 2, 1812; married Samuel S. Smith; died July 22, 1853.
3. Frederic Alex Holt, born Feb. 20, 1814, died Nov. 6, 1814.
4. Jeremiah Thorndike Holt, born May 8, 1817: married Lovinia Darling.
5. Frederic Alex Holt, born Feb 12, 1821; married Elizabeth Ellis; died in Boston.
6. Thomas Jefferson Napoleon Holt, born Nov. 1, 1827; married Clarissa E. Peters.

Thomas Jefferson Napoleon Holt Family Tree

After the death of the head of this family, his widow carried on “Travellers Home” until the marriage of her youngest son, Thomas Jefferson Napoleon, to Clarissa E. Peters on Aug. 6, 1851. He brought his bride to the home to live, and the house as a tavern ceased. Napoleon, as he was known by the people of the town, attended the school at the academy with the writer, and also Miss Peters, who later became his wife. In August, 1901, they celebrated their golden wedding anniversary, when the writer had the pleasure of sending them his congratulations in verse through the mail. Within two years of that date he passed on to the other life beyond the river.

He was a painter by trade, and a pleasant friend, as boy and man, to meet and know as the writer knew him. His widow still occupies the old house in summer, but has spent the last two winters in Boston with her only living child, a daughter. She had three children by her marriage:

1. Alice Annetta Holt, born Nov. 7, 1854.
2. Clara Peters Holt, born April 2, 1857; died May 16, 1882.
3. Maud M. Holt, born April 17, 1866; died Dec. 12, 1880.

The house, built more than seventy-five years ago, still stands in good repair, as a landmark in the village, and seems good for as many years more as it has already stood.

Samuel Phelps Holt, Jr. Family Genealogy

The next occupant of the The Moses Carleton place after the Jonah Dodge family was Capt. Samuel P. Holt, son of Samuel P. and Lydia (Lowell) Holt, born Sept. 13, 1820. He married Mary Jane, daughter of Joseph Jr., and Phebe (Holt) Osgood, Aug. 29, 1844. She was born Jan. 28, 1820; died June 4, 1851.

He was brought up by his grandfather, Jedediah Holt. He went to sea and became master of several Blue Hill vessels, and died at the Sailors’ Snug Harbor, Staten Island, New York, fifteen or twenty years ago. After the death of his wife, Capt. Holt vacated the house and it was bought and occupied by Ingerson McIntire, son of Jeremiah and Lydia (Knowles) McIntire. His children, born in this house, were:

1. Frank Holt, born April 10, 1845.
2. Mary Jane Holt, born March 31, 1850.

Jonah Holt Family Genealogy

Jonah Holt was owner and occupant of the Jonah Holt House in the youth of the writer. He was the son of Jedediah and Sarah Thorndike Holt, born Nov. 4, 1783; married, first, Eliza Osgood, daughter of Theodore and Dorcas (Osgood) Stevens, Feb. 27, 1811. She was born Dec. 8, 1792 and died childless, Nov. 1847.

He married, second, Almira W. Wilcox, March 11, 1849, by whom he had one daughter:

1. Sarah Thorndike Holt, born March 2, 1850.

Sarah and her mother are both dead, and her father died Feb. 19, 1880, aged seventy-six years, three months and fifteen days.

He was a representative to the legislature in 1836, a man of business activity, a store keeper, and largely interested in vessel-building and owning. He built, about 1835, the brick block afterwards known as the Pendleton house, in which he carried on business until near the time of his death. His widow continued a resident of the place for some years after his death and it was then sold to Albina H. Carter.

Stephen Holt Family Genealogy

The Stephen Holt house and place adjoins the the Thomas Coggins place, and was built probably about 1825. Stephen Holt was the fifth son of Jedediah Holt, born May 10, 1788, and died May 16., 1830, of consumption. He married Edy, daughter of Robert and Ruth (Wood) Parker, Nov. 23, 1819. She was born Mar. 3, 1795; died at Thomaston, Me. They had two children: .,

1. Charlotte Augusta Holt, born April 13, 1821; married Ephraim Barrett of Thomaston Oct. 1, 1842, and removed to her husband’s home.
2. Sarah Thorndike Holt, born Aug. 18, 1822; died Nov. 18, 1831.

After the removal of Mrs. Holt and daughter, the house was occupied by different parties, but finally became the property of Wilford Grindle, the present owner and occupant.