♂Joseph Holmes

Joseph Holmes (9 July 1665 – 26 June 1733) lived at Plymouth and Kingston, in the Plymouth Colony and later the Province of Massachusetts Bay. He was the husband of Mary Brewster, a great-granddaughter of the Mayflower passenger William Brewster. He was the sixth great-grandfather of Frederic Roger Curtis (1928–2007), through his son Jonathan Holmes (1709–1787).

Early life

Joseph Holmes was born at Duxbury on 9 July 1665, the son of John Holmes (1638–1675) and Mary Wood (1643–1714). His father died when he was about ten.

Marriage and family

He married Mary Brewster (1678–1761), daughter of Wrestling Brewster of Duxbury, about 1696. A genealogy of the Brewster family published in 1908 calls her his second wife. Compiled sources name a first wife, Sarah Sprague, married at Marshfield in 1687, but no town record of that marriage has been found. The Giles Memorial, a genealogy compiled in 1864, gives her as a daughter of Samuel Sprague of Duxbury. Joseph’s will names a son John Holmes, and that compiled genealogy makes John a son of this first marriage; the will itself does not name John’s mother.

The Plymouth town records list eight children of “Joseph Holmes & Mary his wife”, born between October 1697 and March 1719: Joseph, Ephraim, Mary, Sarah, Abigail, Jonathan, Micah and Keziah. The Brewster genealogy adds two more who died young, Wrestling and Lydia, and gives three of the birth dates differently from the town book. In October 1707 “Joseph Holmes of Plymouth .... & Mary his Wife” joined Mary’s sisters and their husbands in a deed settling her father’s estate, which is recorded in the Plymouth County deeds. According to the Brewster genealogy, he lived for many years near the Duxbury line, and in 1713 exchanged farms with his wife’s brother Wrestling Brewster, afterwards living on a farm in Kingston near the Plymouth line.

Death

Joseph Holmes died at Kingston on 26 June 1733. His gravestone gave his age as 68 years and 23 days, which agrees with his recorded birth date. Mary survived him by nearly twenty-eight years and died on 17 April 1761, aged 82.

His will, dated 2 June 1733 at Kingston, left his wife Mary the use of his whole estate for as long as she remained his widow, and made her his sole executrix. His son John received one shilling, having been given half of his father’s former homestead, which John had sold to Caleb Stetson. His other children, Joseph, Ephraim, Mary Dingley, Sarah Bearse and Abigail Turner, also received one shilling each, as they had already had their portions. The rest of the estate was to pass, after Mary’s death, equally to Jonathan, Micah and Keziah. The will was proved on 10 August 1733, and administration was committed to Mary at Marshfield on 28 August 1733.

Notes

Some online family trees give him a third wife, Lydia (Griswold) Bartlett, married at Plymouth in 1705. She married a different man, Joseph Holmes Jr. of Plymouth; this Joseph was then married to Mary Brewster, who bore him children from 1697 to 1719. English parish entries attached to him in some trees also belong to other men of the same name.

His will, dated 2 June 1733 at Kingston, is recorded in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, Probate Records, volume 6, pages 382-383.