Person:John Holmes (7)

From Genealogical and Biographical Record of New London County

John Holmes, a native of Scotland, who landed at Plymouth, Mass., in 1632, is the first American representative of this branch of the Holmes family.

John Holmes (  ? -1667) came from England to Plymouth, Mass in 1632, and was first messenger to the General Court in 1638.

William Spooner, the immigrant ancestor, was of Colchester, England, and apprenticed himself, March 27, 1637, to John Holmes, of New Plymouth, in America, gentleman... was transferred to John Coombs, of Plymouth, July 1, 1637.

From Rich Holmes' website

From the Peter Holmes genealogy. Comments in [brackets] are by RSH.

"John Holmes lived during the reign of King Charles II of England. [Charles II reigned from 1660-1685 -- several decades after John is claimed to have arrived in America. Was Charles I what was meant? He reigned 1625-1649. The monarch at the time of the founding of Plymouth was James I.] They came to America about 1622 on the second crossing of the Mayflower ship [The Mayflower never made a second crossing. That is, the Mayflowerthat brought the Pilgrims in 1620 never did. There were other ships of the same name, some of which did bring settlers to New England in later years. However, in the early 1620s the only ships that brought passengers to Plymouth were:

Mayflower, 1620 Fortune, 1621 Anne and Little James, 1623.

There was no one named John HOLMES, or any similar name, among the passengers on these ships.] from Holland where they had lived for several years because of the political upheaval in England. John Holmes became Captain of the Colony, two years after Miles Standish. [Miles Standish was hired by the Pilgrims as a military advisor. He served the colony in the areas of colonial defense and Indian relations, and from 1625-1627 as their representative in England. I'm not sure what "Captain of the Colony" means. The leader of the colony was the Governor. The first Governor of Plymouth was John Carver; after his death in April 1621, William Bradford became Governor and served in that office for 31 of the next 36 years.]

"John Holmes's family were wealthy, lived in Boston, [There were two British colonies in what is now the State of Massachusetts: Plymouth and Massachusetts. Plymouth was founded by what we now call the Pilgrims; they were members of a religious faction known as the Separatists, because they wanted to split away from the Church of England and form a new church. Massachusetts was founded by Puritans, who wanted to reform the Church of England from within. Boston was in Massachusetts, so if this statement is true, John's family must have moved from one colony to the other and, presumably, one religious faction to the other.] had the first embossed wallpaper from China. The Holmeses were owners of ships.

Holmes served as messenger (marshall) of Plymouth Colony for a number of years. He also appeared in town records of the time several times when arrested for being drunk in publi

1. ↑ National Genealogical Society Quarterly
   Vol. 74, June 1968, #2, p. 83-87.

   Descendants of Mr. John Holmes, Messenger of the Plymouth Court by Eugene A. Stratton, C.G., F.A.S.G.
   This source is the one I chose as being the most accurate. All data from this article is included - any data which disagreed was omitted. Robert Charles Anderson, who produced "The Great Migration Begins" says that Stratton exhausted the topic of the Holmes family in this article.

2. ↑ Savage, James. A Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England: Showing Three Generations of Those Who Came Before May, 1692, on the Basis of Farmer's Register. (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co, 1860-1862)
   Vol. 2, p. 347.

   Holmes, JOHN, Plymouth 1632, of wh[om]. we would be glad to learn more than that he was messeng[er]. of their Gen[eral]. Court and cont[inued]. there 1643. Sarah, perhaps his d[aughter]. d[ied]. there 18 Aug. 1650... Five of this spell[ing]. had, in 1834, been gr[aduated]. at H[arvard]. C[ollege]. and fifteen at the other N[ew]. E[ngland]. coll[eges].

3. ↑ ^3.0 3.1 John Holmes, in Anderson, Robert Charles. The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England, 1620-1633. (Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1995).