Re: Oliver Wendell Holmes

["John S. Quarterman" <jsq@mids.org>]

Beverly,

>Wow !!!! You are quick...and soooo good....

Merely avoiding work.  Just this one more and then I will go do some.

>I would like to hear more about the Oliver Wendell Holmes connection...

Hon. Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841 -- 1935), Justice of U.S. Supreme Court
father: Oliver Wendell Holmes MD (1809 -- 1894), physician, writer
father: Rev. Abiel Holmes (1763 -- 1837), Pastor
brother: Liberty Holmes (1776 -- )
wife: Susannah Quarterman (1784 -- 1805)
brother: Rev. Robert Quarterman (1787 -- 1849), Pastor
son: Edward William Quarterman (1808 -- 1863)
son: Thomas Shepard Quarterman (1848 -- 1926)
son: David Sinclair Quarterman (1875 -- 1960)
son: David Sinclair Quarterman Jr.
son: John Sinclair Quarterman

So as you can see there is no known direct blood relation.
However, the Holmes family was of the same general group of
Puritans in Mass. as the Ways and others of the Midway group.

Justice Holmes' grandfather Rev. Abiel Holmes was pastor of Midway
Congregational Church from 1785 to 1791; then he was pastor in
Cambridge, Mass., for 40 years.  That latter period, 1791-1831,
overlapped with the period, 1823-1849, that Rev. Robert Quarterman 
was pastor at Midway.  Hm, that leads to an interesting question.
I wonder if the Cambridge church preserved any correspondence between
them?

The Holmes family, which mostly resided in Woodstock Connecticut, is
also part of the Connecticut connection.  As late as the Justice's
father's generation there was active communication between the Midway
people and some descendants of the other branch of the Dorchester Mass.
church that had moved to Windsor, Conn.

In the book is a newspaper writeup that David Leon found of the wreck
of the schooner Sally that was going from Newport, Georgia to New York City.
Among those who died that day, 13 April 1801, were Lathrop Holmes, brother
of Abiel and Liberty.

My father was very familiar with the sailing ship, Old Ironsides,
and we went to see it when he visited me when I was living in Boston.
The timber for that ship came from Liberty County, Georgia, and of
course it was Abiel's son and Justice Holmes' father the doctor
who wrote the famous poem ``Old Ironsides'' which helped organize
the preservation of the ship.

>-------------------------------
>Thanks so much for all your hard work

You're welcome.

>Sincerely,
>Beverly Jones Saunders (daughter of Dorothy Quarterman Jones)

John S. Quarterman <jsq@mids.org>