Fellow geneablogger Amy Johnson Crow of No Story Too Small has issued the
52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge. Basically, we have to post something every
week on a different ancestor, whether a story, picture, or research problem. For
this prompt I've tried to concentrate on ancestors I haven't researched as much
as I have others in my family tree. Usually I'm running late with these posts, but
I'm actually up to date now. My subject this week is my 10x great grandfather
Edward Holyoke Jr.
The Holyoke family is a prominent one in Massachusetts history. The family
name is carried by a city, a mountain, and a college in the state, and a Holyoke
was one of the presidents of Harvard University. (Mount Holyoke is named after
my 9x great granduncle, Elizur Holyoke, and the college is names after the mountain.
There is some disagreement whether the city of Holyoke was named after the
nearby mountain or the man. I would think if it were named after the mountain, the
city would be called Mount Holyoke instead. But I digress). I'm descended from
Mary Holyoke, one of Edward's five daughters.
As usual, my first stop looking for information was Google ebooks, where I
found this:
Edward Holyoke emigrated from Tamworth, England, to Massachusetts, and was
residing in Lynn in 1636-37. In 1638 he was made a freeman, and in the same year
the town of Lynn granted him five hundred acres of land, both upland and meadow.
He subsequently settled in Rumney Marsh, now Chelsea. “He was a member of the
Quarterly Court from 1639 to 1643, also in 1647-48, and was a representative in ten
sessions of the General Court.” His death occurred May,4, 1660. In June, 1612, he
married Prudence, daughter of the Rev. John Stockton, of Kinhalt, England. Edward
Holyoke left one son, Elizur, and five daughters.(pp103-104) Biographical Sketches of Representative Citizens of the State of Maine (Google eBook)New England Historical Publishing Company, 1903 - Maine
I've already mentioned that some of Edward's descendants were famous. What I
didn't realize was that Edward himself was well known. I'll discuss that in the next
part.
To be continued
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