OBADIAH HOLMES (HULME)

Obadiah Holmes was the son of Robert Holmes.     On the 20th day of November 1630, at the Collegiate Church, Manchester, Obadiah Holmes married Katherine Hyde. On the 27th day of June, 1633, the records show that they buried at Stockport, John, "infant of Obadiah Hulmes of Redich".

    With two brothers, John and Samuel, it is said that he was educated at Oxford University, but it is not certain that he graduated. Samuel is known to have graduated. In his mature years, Obadiah expressed regret that he had been somewhat wild and had given his "loving Mother" serious concern about himself and his ways when he was passing from boyhood to manhood. He related that he had been neglectful and strayed from his religious duties and responsibilities for a period of five years. If this was the case, he certainly atoned for it later in his life.
 

    In 1638 Obadiah Holmes, with his wife Katherine and their son Jonathan, then perhaps a little more than three years old, sailed from Preston, on the river Ribble, in Lancashire, some 28 miles northeast of Liverpool and about the same distance northwest of Manchester, for the new world. They had an extremely stormy voyage that prevented them from entering Boston harbor until six weeks had passed -- quite a difference from the six hours that it would take us to make the same trip today in a Concorde.

    Soon after landing at Boston the little family made its way up the coast and settled at Salem, destined to become, within the lifetime of the immigrant, associated in history with the prosecutions and executions for witchcraft.
 

    He was, according to the record, admitted to membership in the First Church of Salem on the 24th day of March, 1639. Within that year, with two others, he was granted two acres of land at Salem, on which they established glass works, believed to be the first in America. They made the common window glass.

    Obadiah Holmes had done some thinking and been, at times, somewhat disturbed on religious subjects while attending Oxford University, and prior to and after his marriage. It seems fair to say that the rigidity of the established church, as he found it in the new country, disappointed him. His mental tendency was toward dissent from some of its doctrines and practices, and it was neither his desire nor inclination to keep silent in the midst of religious discussions. So warm did these discussions grow, as the months and years went by, our dissident ancestor decided the church and civil laws could not be tolerated any longer.

    Obadiah's decision to move was probably more influenced by the fact that church and civil authorities would not tolerate him. They excommunicated him from the church and practically drove him from Massachusetts because of his religious views. Apparently a change seemed to be in the best interests of his family before he was thrown out. On 1st of January 1644, Obadiah drew lot 37 in a division of land at Rehoboth, sixty miles away, which he forfeited a year later because he failed to fence or move his family to it. He waited too long. The next year he was excommunicated from the church and moved to Rehoboth, where he settled on the little river of that name.

The children of Obadiah and Catherine (Hyde) Holmes:
1. Mary, d 1690+-, m. John Brown
2. Martha, b 1640, d 1682+
3. Samuel, b 1642, d 1679, m Alice Stillwell 1665
4. Obadiah, b 1644, m ... Cole
5. Lydia, m John Bowne
6. Jonathan, d 1713, m Sarah Borden
7. John, b 1649, d 2 Oct 1712
8. Hopestill, m ... Taylor

    The marriage of Lydia Holmes and Capt. John Bowne had as one of their descendants Abraham Lincoln. Lydia and John settled at Middletown in East Jersey. One of their daughters, Sarah, married Richard Salter. Hannah, the daughter of Richard and Sarah Salter, became the wife of Mordecai Lincoln and the mother of his son John -- "Virginia John", -- who was the great grandfather of Abraham Lincoln. "Virginia John's" son Abraham was the President's grandfather, and was killed by Indians in the 1780's, after moving to Kentucky.