The Hollyman English Ancestry Quest 2019, Part 3

by Glenn N. Holliman

Our Second Stop – St. Mary’s Parish,
The 17th Century Church of the Thomas Hollyman Family

Now Re-purposed as  the Albion Archaeology Centre

Bedford, Bedfordshire

May 18, 2019

Approximately 3/4ths mile south of St. Peters de Merton, across the River Ouse, is St. Mary’s Church which is one of the oldest and most beautiful buildings in Bedford.  Even before the 1066 Norman Conquest there was a church on this spot.  The four-stage tower has been a major landmark to travelers for more than one thousand years.

It may have been founded by King Alfred the Great’s son, Edward the Elder, circa 915, when Bedford was a key stronghold in the Viking wars.  For fifty generations it was the center of community life. Tens of thousands of town folk were baptized, married and buried here, including our Hollyman families.  

  

In the 12^th Century a hermit took up residence in the Church for whom King Henry II made a grant of a penny a day for food which was passed to the religious recluse under his cell door.

Among those resting here are our Hollyman descendants, Thomas and Helena Poynard Holliman, and undoubtedly several of their children.  Baptized here was Christopher Hollyman [1618-1691], the immigrant ancestor of most American Hollimans.

Who were the children of Thomas and Helena Hollyman?

 

Genealogist Anne Holmes provides this information:

John Holliman, 1610-1645

Ellenora Holiman, 1612-1612

Jone or Jane Holliman, 1613-?, m. Barnabas Crash in 1631

Thomas Hollyman, 1616-?

Christopher Hollyman, 1618-1691 (d. in Virginia)

Judith Holliman, 1621-? (d. in Virginia)

Eleanor Hollyman, 1623-?

Stephen Hollyman, 1625-? (Member of John Bunyan’s Meeting House)

Mary Holyman, 1628-?

All the children were baptized at St. Mary’s and records indicate Ellenora and John are buried in the church cemetery.  Eight children grew to adulthood, unusual for the time when infant and childhood deaths were common.

Below, across from the now Albion Centre (St. Mary’s Church) on Cauldwell Street is a digital internet company, as a representation of 21^st Century as one can get. The Blue Boar Inn would have stood where the two buildings meet.  This is where Christopher Hollyman, our American founder, first saw the light of day.

In the 1800s, Cauldwell Street looked as drawn below.  St. Mary's Parish is at the end on the street.  On the right would have stood the Blue Boar Inn, where now late 20th Century buildings, as pictured above, fill the block.

On this site in 1618, Christopher Hollyman was born at a tavern and inn known as the Blue Boar. 

He was the fifth child and third son of Thomas and Helena, and along with his sister Judith he would leave Bedford at age 32 and immigrate to America. 

For a detailed family tree of the Hollymans of England (and tens of thousands of other Hollymans and associated families) visit the Ancestry.com site: Hollyman Tree, created and maintained by Jeanette Holiman Stewart.  Jeanette has entered over 52,000 Hollyman names (many spellings) and works closely with Anne Holmes to fine tune our English ancestry.  Jeanette’s email address is Htreekeeper@gmail.com.

Next blog, more on St. Mary's, the Albion Centre, Thomas Hollyman, his life, and the forces that may have led to his son, Christopher, immigrating to American in 1650.

When we were English LVI

by Glenn N. Holliman 

Christopher Holyman makes his way in Elizabethan England...

 Sometime in the late 1560s or 1570s, the persons, of which cumulative evidence indicates are my 9th great grandparents, married.  They were Christopher Holyman, a son of Thomas Holyman (d 1558) who died in 1588 in Cuddington, Buckinghamshire, England and Margaret Lee, daughter of Thomas Lee of Dinton, Buckinghamshire.  The Lees were substantial landowners and persons of prominence in Buckinghamshire.  We shall explore this important maternal line in the next post.

According to professional genealogist, Anne Holmes of England, during the mid to late 16th Century the Holymans of Cuddington achieved their highest level of social and economic prominence.  In that era, Elizabeth I securely held the throne, her Sea Dogs such as Francis Drake raided Spanish treasure ships, and the realm settled on a religious compromise between Roman Catholicism and rising Puritanism.  That middle way is known as the Church of England, the Anglican Church if you will.  In the United States, this form of Protestantism is known today as the Episcopal Church.

When Christopher and Judith Holyman (whom I contend were grandchildren of this first Christopher Holyman) arrived in Virginia in 1650, they were Church of England, no longer Roman Catholics as had been their grandfather at his birth. Nor were they non-conformists as was their distant cousin, Ezekiel Holliman, a founder of the American Baptist Church in the Rhode Island plantations. 

 

English soldiers mustered to repel the expected Spanish invasion in 1588,  As an officer of the Queen's Guard, Christopher Holyman, d 1588, may have rallied with his men.

Thomas Holyman (d 1558) had numerous children and, as we noted in previous posts, according to the laws and customs of the time, the first born son, Richard, inherited the bulk of the estate.  Our Christopher, who may have been a minor when his father died, received only some income from the harvest from one of the numerous lands of Richard. 

Thus, Christopher and his brothers who inherited little had to make their own way in the world, generally through the church or the military, or one could step down the social ladder and become a tradesman.  Alas, one of Christopher and Margaret's sons, one Thomas Holyman (d ca 1650) of Bedfordshire,  inherited very little and became a member of the merchant class in the early 1600s, a story to be explored later. 

Margaret Lee probably bought a substantial dowry into the marriage with Christopher and that no doubt eased his way in life.  We know from several sources he was a prominent person in Sherington, Buckinghamshire, the location where he lived comfortably with his wife and growing numbers of children in the 1580s.

Seeking a career, landless Christopher joined the Army. When and where we do not know, but the year he died in 1588, he was a member of the prestigious Queen's Guard, a company of soldiers who served at the Queen's pleasure.  To give us some idea of the status of this elite group, in the 1590s, a few years after Christopher's death, the famous Sir Walter Raleigh, a favorite of Queen Elizabeth, commanded the Guard.  Raleigh, North Carolina takes its name from this entrepreneur, adventurer and later writer, who attempted to found the doomed Roanoke Colony in the 1580s.
 

Above Elizabeth I, the Armada Portrait celebrating the victory of 1588.
 

The Queen's Guard survives to this day, well known to American tourists who have witnessed the Changing of the Guard in their bright red uniforms and tall bear furred head gear every day at 11 a.m. at Buckingham Palace, London.

 Was Christopher called out during the feared invasion by the Spanish Armada in 1588?  Was he in the field at Kent when Elizabeth marshaled the country's land forces in readiness?  Did our 9th great grandfather hear his Queen forcefully proclaim that she had the feeble body of a woman but the heart of a king (such as her father Henry VIII)?
 

The English fire ships wrought havoc to the Spanish fleet as captured in this painting of the time.

 

Fortunately this gathering of English soldiers was never tested.  At Gravesends, the courageous Sir Francis Drake maneuvered his smaller ships close to the hulking Spanish galleons. He sent fire ships to panic the anchored enemy fleet. Many of the larger, less agile Spanish titans, caught fire and burned.   The panicked Iberian fleet scattered only to be battered by fierce storms that decimated the remainder of the shattered Spanish fleet. King Phillip II of Spain, once Elizabeth's brother-in-law, prayed aloud asking how he, a Catholic king, could have so displeased God?!

The invasion threat receded, the English soldiers returned home, but did our Christopher leave with the germ of a common killer of soldiers, a camp fever?  He died in December 1588, not an old man.
 

Above the parish cemetery in Sherington, England. Photo taken 2011.

 

Is Chris buried in the grave yard in Cuddington, his ancestral home, or in Sherington where he and his wife, Margaret Lee, raised their family of children, one being a young Thomas at the time of his father's death?  We do not know.

 Next Post, Christopher Holyman marries well into prosperous Lee family, wealthy and growing more so!

Have questions about Holliman family history? You are invited to join the Hollyman Email List at Hollyman-Subscribe@yahoogroups.com and the Hollyman Family Facebook Page located on Facebook at "Hollyman Family". Post your questions and perhaps one of the dozens Holyman cousins on the list will have an answer. For more information contact Tina Peddie at desabla1@yahoo.com, the list and Facebook manager for Hollyman (and all our various spellings!).

Since early 2010, I have been publishing research and stories on the broad spectrum of Holliman (Holyman) family history at http://hollimanfamilyhistory.blogspot.com/ . For stories on my more immediate family since the early 20th Century, I have been posting articles since early 2011 at http://ulyssholliman.blogspot.com/ .

Let's save the past for the future! If you have photographs, letters, memorabilia or research you wish to share, please contact me directly at glennhistory@gmail.com. Several of us have an on-going program of scanning and preserving Holyman and related family records. Don't just let family's genealogical work or photographs languish unread and deteriorating in an attic. Write us please and tell us of your items. Thanks to the Internet, we are able to scan, upload to the web (with your permission) and return the materials to you.

Announcing also a "Seminar and Site" gathering October 18 and 19, 2013 in Fayette, Alabama for Hollimans and associated families whose ancestors are from that area.  Space at the Rose House Inn is limited for the occasion due to a football weekend. For information, contact me at the above email.  Hope to see some of you there. - GNH

When We Were English, Part XVIIL

by Glenn N. Holliman 

RETURN TO ENGLAND, Part 1

 On two occasions in 2012, I had the opportunity to travel to England to research further my Holyman family roots.  During this time I was assisted by family historian Peter Smith of Bedfordshire and professional genealogist Anne Holmes of Buckinghamshire.

Their research and my own examinations of original source materials continue to deepen my understanding of my ancestral families before the immigration of Christopher Holyman and his sister to Virginia in 1650.

 In this space for several years, I have been writing of my findings, inviting the reader into my search to discover the roots of the Hollimans.  Many of you have been 'walking' with me.  If one desires to review earlier writings, please go to the 'Archives' section of this home page or just click over the name of a person or location in "Labels' portion of the home page.

 

 

Above, Glenn Holliman, left, and right, genealogist Anne Holmes of Buckinghamshire, England examine Holyman records of the 16th Century in the archives in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom in November 2012. 

Briefly what new findings do I have to report.

1. Thanks to the research of Anne Holmes, the scenario of the Holyman family from John Holyman, d 1521 in Cuddington, Buckinghamshire to his great grandson, Christopher Holyman, d 1588 in Sherington, Buckinghamshire appears solid.  This thesis is backed up by translated wills and parish records which will be examined in future articles.

 2. The thesis that I have been promoting that Christopher Holyman of Sherington (d 1588) is the father of Thomas Holyman of Bedford and the grandfather of our Christopher Holyman (d 1691) in Ile of Wight, Virginia is not disproved and continues to be a very plausible explanation of lineage. 

 3. Thanks to Anne Holmes we know Thomas of Bedford lived near St. Mary's Parish on Caldwell Street, which even today runs in front of the church.  His wife, Eleanor Holyman, died in 1553 and is buried in that churchyard cemetery.

 4. A fascinating piece of information is that Thomas Holyman was a shoemaker, a cordwainer if you will!  While an honorable profession, this seems a comedown on the social ladder for the Holymans of Cuddington who were substantial landowners just a half century earlier.  However, he did own the Blue Boar Inn lease which he sold for 40 pds in 1640, a tidy sum in that era.  Let's call him a craftsman and a businessman.

Below, the bridge connects then north side of the Great River Ouse in Bedford to the south side.  Behind the high rise hotel on the left stands St. Mary's parish church and Caldwell Street, the lane (then) that housed the residence and business (es) of Thomas Holyman (b bef. 1587 - d bet. 1646-1652).

 5. Anne will continue to investigate the Bedford records to add context to our family story.  As yet, we have not found burial records for Thomas and Eleanor's children named Christopher and Judith (we have of their other children) thus strengthening the argument that the Christopher who arrived in Virginia in 1650 and died there in 1691 is indeed from Bedford, Bedfordshire, England.

We will follow the story wherever additional research may lead!

Much more in the next postings...

 

When We Were English, Part XXVII

A LOOK DEEP INTO THE BEDFORDSHIRE ARCHIVES

by Glenn N. Holliman

Last June, with the help of Bedfordshire family historian, Peter Smith (photo below), we explored the Bedfordshire, England Archives.  

In addition to our reading microfilm of 17^th Century parish records, the archivists (see photo below) open the files of the almost 400 year old Bishop’s Transcripts (copies held by the dioceses of parish records). 

 I held the transcripts and viewed the names of Christopher and Judith Holyman (see below), born in 1618 and 1621.  The father’s name is given as Thomas.

If there be any question about the authenticity of these two persons, that is put to rest.  

Is this then truly the Christopher who sailed to Jamestown and inhabited the Isle of Wight County?  Were there other Christopher’s in England at this time?  Can we find more evidence to support the Bedford thesis or disprove it?

Can we find the birthplace of Thomas Holyman who married in 1609 and sired Christopher Holyman, born 1618?  When did this Thomas die and where?  The parish records do not tell us, yet.

Are there other places and archives in England to investigate?

Let’s keep looking….

When We Were English, Part XXV

Are We Bedfordshire Holymans?
by Glenn N. Holliman


According to parish records,  Thomas Holiman (Holyman) of Bedford, who may or may not have been born fifteen or so miles south in Woburn, married at St. Peter’s Church in Bedford in 1609 to Helenara Poynard.  Roger Smith suggests the name Helena might be Eleanor, and Poynard, which is not yet found in other Bedford records, may be P’nard or Peynard.  Spellings were not yet ‘settled’ nor is the handwriting of parish administrators always legible.

St. Mary's parish is today an archaeological trust facility, and has long since ceased to be a place of Anglican worship.  The building and cemetery stand on a busy street corner, two blocks from the river and across the street from Bedford College.  Imagine if you will four hundred years ago, no automobiles, only muddy streets, horse carts and the Holyman couple having their children baptised in this parish.  How many of them now reside in the cemetery?  We don't know.

Again according to parish records, this couple had the following children, all baptized at St. Mary’s Church in south Bedford, two blocks from the River Great Ouse (a wonderful name!).

John, b 1610 (was he named after a grandfather?)

Eleanor, b and d 1612 (may have been named after her mother)

Joan, b 1613

Thomas, b 1616 (named after his father)

Christopher, b 1618 (the believed to be emigrant to Jamestown, Virginia in 1650)

Judith, b 1621 (the believed to be emigrant to Jamestown, Virginia in 1650)

Eleanor, b 1625 (named after her mother and deceased sister)

Stephen, b 1625

Mary, b 1628

Tombstones were rare in 17th Century England (as in Virginia).  This one of a grieving angel in St. Mary's grave yard, is only from the 1800s.  Coal smoke and  pollution have worn away the stone carving.  The cemetery, like the church, is abandoned but the lawn is kept up and the grass mowed.  Do our 8th great grandfather, Thomas, and his wife lie in these grounds?

As discussed in earlier articles, a John Holiman died in Virginia in 1650, and a Thomas Holiman (or Holman) took possession of land at Martin’s Hundred, Virginia in 1636.  Are John and Thomas  from this same family, and is this the encouragement that led to Christopher and Judith to leave for Jamestown, Virginia? 

Encouragement Christopher and Judith undoubtedly had, but the 1636 Thomas in Virginia is most probably not the off spring of Thomas who married in Bedford in 1609.  Parish records indicate a Thomas Holiman married in 1639 at St. Paul’s, Bedford, and my guess this is the second son of the 1609 marriage.  Tragically, a son Matthew, died was buried at St. Paul's in 1640.

Next posting….a visit to Woburn and the Heritage Center there.

When We Were English, Part XXIV

Back to England for More Research!

by Glenn N. Holliman

As I have written in earlier posts, in the spring of 2010, my wife and I did considerable research on the Holyman family in the Tring, Hertfordshire and Cuddington, Buckinghamshire areas of England.  The two villages are approximately a dozen or so miles apart, and in the 15th to 17th Centuries contained families named Holliman (Hollyman, etc.)

A highway leads from Cuddington, Buckinghamshire through the English countryside.  The Rt. Rev. John Holyman and other Holymans were born in Buckingham, Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire in the 1400s and 1500s.  More and more evidence suggests these persons are the ancestors of the Virginia Hollimans of the 17th Century.

As described several of these Holymans became prominent; one The Rt. Rev. John Holyman (1495 – 1558) was the Roman Catholic Bishop of Bristol, England and was caught up in the English Counter Reformation.  Another Holyman, Ezekiel, a great nephew of Bishop Holyman, ironically helped found the Baptist Church in Rhode Island.

Additional research by cousins in the States in 2010 revealed parish records of St. Mary’s in Bedford, Bedfordshire, England that registered a Holliman family that in the early 1600s gave birth to children named, among others, Christopher (b 1618)  and Judith ( b 1621)).  Two persons with these names migrated to Jamestown, Virginia in 1650. 

Judith disappears to history (probably married to one of the surplus males in the colony) and Christopher to marry, have six children and prosper financially.  He left a plantation of 1,020 acres at his death in 1691, and is credited with being the founder of all the Hollimans and various spellings in the now United States. 

And So to Bedfordshire
So in the spring of 2011, my wife and I sailed to England to research further the Holliman family (with its various spellings). In addition to American cousins doing considerable research, we have been assisted by a family researcher in Bedfordshire, one Peter Smith, seen below in the photo with the author in May 2011.  We are reviewing materials over lunch at the Swan Hotel in Bedford, Bedfordshire, north of London.

In May 2011, two couples met at the historic Swan Hotel in Bedford, Bedfordshire, England to review genealogical materials pertinent to the Holyman family.  John Bunyan, author of Pilgrim's Progress, lunched here in the middle 1600s.  Left to right are Maureen Smith, Barbara Holliman, my wife, Peter Smith, a family historian and member of the local genealogical society, and yours truly.  One can observe that not all family history research and sharing occurs in a musty archives.  More of that later.

Peter had not found (nor did I) Holymans in Bedford before the 1609 marriage of Thomas Holyman, and the subsequent birth of his children.  Peter, in his research, however, had found a John Holman born 1560 in Woburn, Bedfordshire, approximately 15 miles south of Bedford and 15 miles north of Tring, Hertfordshire.  This John married early – 1575, but no wife is named.

While young, it may have been a required marriage as one Thomas Holiman was born in Woburn in 1576.  Two other children are recorded of that marriage – Robert, b 1581 and Joan, 1586, both born in Woburn.    Hmmm…..interesting.  Could this Thomas be Christopher Holyman, Sr.’s father?  Some believe this Woburn, Bedfordshire Thomas is an ancestor of ours.

Next posting in Woburn, Bedfordshire....

Our Family's Colonial Era, Part XXIV

Joe Parker is a diligent researcher of Holliman family history tracing his ancestry back to Christopher Holyman, Sr.  He  has  facts at his finger tips on the family from the early 1600s in Bedford, Bedfordshire to his 21st Century relatives in his home state of Texas.  Below, he shares his observations on just who those early Holymans were and what could their relationships be to one another. - Glenn N. Holliman


Christopher, Judith and John Holliman, some Additional Information concerning their Emigration to Virginia
by Joe Parker  


The Headrights of Christopher and Judith Holyman 


In 1650 when they arrived in Jamestown, both Christopher and Judith Holyman received head rights to acreage in the Virginia Colony.  My understanding is that when a man received a head right to any block of land, the wife also has ownership of that tract, by privilege of being married to the man who received the acreage.

This 1751 work depicts a colonial dock with hogsheads of tobacco on the wharf.  West bound from England, the ships would carry English goods and immigrants.  East bound from Virginia to England, tobacco in casts would be the item transported.

Why then would - Judith in this case - receive separate notice of receiving such acreage, unless she was possibly recipient of such land as a separate individual?  Conclusion, Judith was not the wife of Christopher, but yes, as the Bedfordshire English parish records indicate, more likely was his sister. - Joe Parker


Genealogist Robert W. Baird in his web site Understanding Headrights publishes the following which helps us to grasp more fully some of the reasons our Holymans might have come to the Virginia colony.


"The headright origin is found in the London Company’s “Greate Charter” of 1618:

“That for all persons…which during the next seven years after Midsummer Day 1618 shall go into Virginia with the intent there to inhabite, if they continue there three years or dye after they are shipped there shall be a grant made of fifty acres for every person… which grants shall be made respectively to such persons and their heirs at whose charges the said persons going to inhabite in Virginia shall be transported…”

• There were no restrictions on age or gender.  Headrights could be, and often were, children.  In fact, many imported indentured servants were teenagers.
• Persons settled in Virginia who subsequently left the colony and returned were sometimes successfully claimed as headrights.   A number of patents claimed importation of a specific person “the second time” or the “the third time” (or in one case, a total of six times.)   Although this seems contradictory to the spirit of the system, it appears to have been an accepted practice from the very beginning, for several Ancient Planters claimed multiple rights for their own arrivals in Virginia.  
• Because there was no system for validating or accounting for headright usage, headrights were often claimed more than once, and persons who had no “intent to inhabit” were used as headrights.  More on this later.

Hmmm....much to consider here as we look not just to the mid-1600s, but also the late 1600s and early 1700s and see the Holliman family utilizing the 'headright system'. - GNH

Keeping an Open Mind on just Who was John Holleman

As to John Holleman, who died in 1650 in Northampton County, Virginia, I have an open mind on this individual.  The fact that he left no worldly goods to any children should be looked at carefully.  He may have divided his fortune with his children (if any) before his death, and this could have left him virtually penniless at death.  John left his remaining goods to a friend who would help to settle the estate.  Conversely, this John Holleman could have been the husband of Judith, who arrived two weeks after  his death in Virginia.  Or John could have been her brother, born 1612 in Bedford, Bedfordshire, England.

I am not forming any set opinions until we search more in the Bedfordshire Archives and study additional works.  For now, I will return to my review of passenger lists of boats arriving in the Virginia Colony in the 17th and 18th Centuries.  - Joe Parker, Texas

Our Family's Colonial Era, Part XXII

This continues a series of articles by cousin Robert Holloman, a B.A. in history from the University of Virginia.  In the previous article Robert explored our possible royalist connections in the English Civil War.  In this post, he presents information and raises questions on who transported our ancestors to Virginia.  Again evidence points one in the direction of Bedfordshire, England as the origin of the Holliman (and various spellings) families in the New World. - Glenn N. Holliman


Who were the Sponsors of the First Virginia Holymans?

by Robert Holloman

In regards to the early settlement of Holymans in Virginia,  I have been attempting to track down information on the named sponsors of Judith and Christopher (and William in 1656) Holliman. According to records, these sponsors were John Cos(x), Thos. Wilkinson, John Sherlock and Thomas Rolph (William's sponsor). In May 1650, John Cox received 1,000 acres of land in Northumberland County on the south side of the Rappahannock River, for the transport of twenty persons including two John Coxes, Elizabeth Cox, Xtopher Holleman and Judath Halloman.

Below in the center of this map by Joshua Fry and Peter Jefferson in 1751, one will find Northumberland and Lancaster Counties.  Just below the left red line is the Rappahannock River; above are Lancaster and Northumberland Counties. Click on the map to enlarge.

In August 1653, John Sherlock received land in Lancaster County (which was created from Northumberland County in 1652) for the transport of three persons that included Epper a (possible corruption of Christopher?) Holliman, and another grant in November 1653 for the transport of four persons that included both Judith and Christoper Holliman.

A possible connection to both John Cox and Christopher Hollyman is a Vincent Cox who was transported to Virginia as an indentured servant to a Richard Cole on the ship Honor in October 1649.  His birth in 1632 can be traced to Bedford.  His father was Henry Cox, and he had a younger brother, John Cox but that brother died ten days after birth in 1634 according to Bedfordshire record.  In 1653 Cox and Cole legally disputed the end to his term of indenture and that legal fight provides us today the detailed record to trace his passage from England.  After winning his release, Vincent Cox settled in Westmoreland County (which was also created from Northumberland County in 1652) and later would receive land in both counties several times in the 1660s.

Both the Wilkinsons and the Coxes are known to have property in Isle of Wight County in the time period of Christopher and Judith's arrivals.  The Cox and Wilkinson families later intermarried.

There is a recent 2006 (expanding a 1996) book on the history of the Wilkinsons entitled The Wilkinsons of Isle of Wight, Surry and Sussex Counties and Related Families (including Cox) by Gene Cox Wilkinson and George Carroll Wilkinson. I have recently attempted to contact the authors to see where in England these families had originated and any information on Cox and Wilkinson's activities in the years of Christopher and Judith, but have had not had success as yet.- Robert Holloman


More in the next post concerning possible Royalist connections....

Our Family's Colonial Era, Part XII

by Glenn N. Holliman

What Can We Learn from the Will of John Holyman?

I am indebted to Joe Parker, a serious Holliman genealogist, for the material below from the Northampton County, Virginia Record Book, Vol. III, 1645 - 1651, page 448. The work is edited by Dr. Howard Mackey and Marlene Alma Hinchley Groves. Opinions and any errors in this article are mine alone.

Below is the will of John Holyman dated May 8, 1650, two weeks before Christopher Holliman Sr. and Judith Holliman arrived in Jamestown, Virginia.

"Memorand That this day ye Last will & Testant' of John Holoman of Northampton County, planter, dec'd was pr'ved:

J'No Hollowman his will & desire is that hie giveth unto Christopher Kirke towe cowes & one heyffor with towe steers & one yearlinge, and towe calves & towe sowes & towe barrowes, and more. towe shutes of clothes & a gun w'th a chest & a cutlace, and my Bedd w'th covinge w'th three sheets. As witness my hand this 8 daye of May 1650./ JNo [ his mark ] Hollowman. Wit: Wm Mortt [Mott?]

JNo Hollowman his Acco'tt the 8th day of Maye 1650/ of what Debtes is oweinge him abroad w'thout any spec. as followeth, witnes' my hand.

Test: Wm Moulte/ JNo [ his mark ] Hollowman"

Translation? John leaves to one Christopher Kirk two cows, a heifer (a cow not yet giving milk), two steers, a yearling, two calves and two pigs (female). The barrows are neutered male pigs. And he leaves more, which we assume are farm tools. Judging from the above John is a small farmer with a modest amount of livestock, typical for a yeoman planter at that time in Virginia's history. Christopher Kirk fathered a line of successful children and grandchildren, and their story may be explored further in colonial records (just Google the name and time).
What else? Two suites of clothes, a gun, a cutlass, a chest and a bed with three sheets. Okay, John could defend himself from wild animals and Native Americans (was John present in 1644 when 500 plus colonists died, a very serious uprising?).
Above left a 17th century French cutlass, a curved short sword.

What's missing from this will? Well, number one, every thing is left to a friend and not to a spouse or children (or a brother and sister). If Christopher Sr. and Judith yet had not arrived from England, it is not too surprising that nothing is left to them, if one assumes John is either their father or more likely, their brother. No wife? Women were still scarce in Virginia in 1650, and perhaps this John never married or a spouse may have died.
No mention is made of land? Did John rent land? Possibly unless he had given it away before writing the will, which seems odd. So probably he rented some acres. He was not an indentured servant or he would not have had the livestock. However, he did not have any sheep, so wool or clothe would have been precious. A wife was important for spinning wool and making clothing. Cotton was not yet grown, so clothes, generally all imported, were expensive and highly prized. Hence clothes left to a friend in the will.
No furniture or kitchen items, silverware or other items described. Virginia was not yet a mature or abundant colony. Most English, approximately 15,000 by 1650, were yeoman farmers, struggling to plant Indian corn, some beans and tobacco (as much as possible).
I have searched databases of Northampton County, Virginia and have found no other listing of John Holyman (or similar name) during these times. Northampton is also on the Eastern Shore, the southern most county. Granted this is the entrance to the Chesapeake Bay, but it is some distance by water from Jamestown or Isle of Wight County.
So is John Holyman a possible ancestral uncle? Or as is claimed by one Hollyman web site, the father of Christopher Holyman Sr.?
Let's refresh our memories. Remember these dates and names from my October 14, 2010 posting?

1610 - September 16, one John Holliman baptised. John married a Mary Parrell on July 25, 1641 at St. Mary's Parish, Bedford, England. If this be our John, did Mary make the trip to Virginia with him?

1616 - Thomas Holloman, brother of the above John, baptised at St. Mary's Parish, Bedford on March 20. Is this the Thomas of Martin's Hundred near Jamestown who took land in the 1635? Did this Thomas start the family moving to Virginia when he was only 18 or 19 years old?

1618 - Christopher Hollaman, brother of the above, baptized on September 2. Is this our Christopher Holyman Senior who immigrates to Jamestown in 1650, raises a large family, makes his earthly fortune and dies 1691?! Is this my generation's 8th or 9th great grandfather?

1621 - Judith Holliman, sister of the brothers above, baptised on February 11. Is this the Judith who arrives in Jamestown with a Christopher in 1650 and/or later in 1653?!

Genealogy is not an exact science, and it is so frustrating not to be able to tie these lines of kinship together. My opinion is that this John Holyman is a brother (and not their father) of Christopher and Judith Holyman who arrived in Virginia at the time of John's death. Evidence and logic - yes. Proof? I have none.

Next posting, we shall look at the Holliman migrations across the Southern English Colonies and United States.

Our Family's Colonial Era - Part IX

by Glenn N. Holliman

More on Thomas Holeman, 1635 Land Owner at Martin's Hundred in Virginia

Martin's Hundred, a real estate development if you will, was named after the Society for Martin's Hundred of London, a land holding group in 1618. This huge settlement was located east of Jamestown and west of Skiffe's (Keith's Creek). It contained 20,000 acres and was a principle settlement site at that time. The website Jamestowne Rediscovery has an excellent summary.

Records indicated 140 or so English lived in the development when in 1622 on Good Friday, a surprise American Indian uprising took the lives of at least 78 of the settlers in Martin's Hundred. The remaining were captured or fled to Jamestown. According to historian Bob Dean in his book The River Where America Began, 347 settlers, more than 1/4th of all the colonists died in that one day massacre.

The Virginia colony was in great jeopardy, but struck back violently the next year against the Native Americans. The Crown took control of the dispirited colony from the Virginia Joint Stock Company that had founded Jamestown and had hoped to make a financial fortune.

Slowly the colony recovered, and immigrants arrived again. One being Thomas Holeman who purchased land in Martin's Hundred in 1635. Fifteen years later, Judith and Christopher Holyman, perhaps his siblings, arrived. Judith probably married quickly, and her name is lost to history.

In that same year of 1650, one John Holyman of Southampton, Virginia died leaving a will listing worldly goods but no land. He named a friend as an executor. When did he arrive and were Thomas, Judith and Christopher his siblings, all from Bedford, England?

We know Christopher survived and thrived, dieing in 1691 with an Isle of Wight County farm of 1,020 acres and numerous children. Most of us reading this today are his descendants.

In 1627, approximately 1,500 English persons lived in Virginia, mainly along the James. From 1606 until 1624, the Virginia Company had sent out over 7,000 settlers of whom over 6,000 died! By 1650, the year Christopher Holliman arrived, some 15,000, ten times as many white settlers were present, or about seven times as many Anglos over Native Americans by this time in Virginia. Many of the Indians had been destroyed by European diseases and malnutrition, as well as warfare. The English were living longer thanks to better diet and shelter.

What happened to Thomas? At this writing I know of no research that has surfaced a will or marriage record. He purchased land, and may have died early as did many. Unfortunately James City County records were destroyed when Richmond was burned during the Civil War, and only some land patent records survive to my knowledge. Martin's Hundred ceased to exist as an entity in the early 1700s.

Did Thomas survive long enough to welcome to Virginia other members of his family - assuming John, Judith and Christopher Holyman were his siblings (families often immigrated together or after one had settled and encouraged others to immigrate)? Can we ever know the whole story?

In the 1970s with a grant from the National Geographical Society, archaeologist Ivor Hume, excavated part of Martin's Hundred, now included in the Carter Grove Plantation and incorporated in the Williamsburg Foundation. Much of Hume's 1988 book (pictured above) focuses on the 1622 Good Friday Massacre and the physical remains of that day. The cover of the book shows an English soldier of the time, garbed in armor. It is compelling reading.

More in the next posting on our Colonial past....

Our Family's Colonial Era - Part VII

Conflict with Native Americans – A Clash of Cultures
by Glenn N. Holliman

Between April and June, 2010, I published six articles on the Holliman family in 17th Century Colonial America (they can be found in the archive section of this blog). After having published 23 articles on our English past, I now return to the history of the Virginia English colony and the travails our family experienced.

This was truly a new frontier with both opportunity and premature death. Only the brave or foolish ventured from England to Virginia from the early to mid -1600s. Perhaps our pioneering family of Christopher Holliman, Sr. was a mixture of both.


Michael Mallary in his 2004 work, Our Improbable Universe, makes the point that everywhere farmers went taking their technology and culture, the hunter-gatherers melted away before them. “The high population density that could be supported by agriculture depleted game well below the density that hunters (such as American Indians) required” observed this historian.

This then was the societal reality when Christopher C. Holliman, Sr. with his probable sister, Judith, arrived in Virginia in 1650. The frontier required bravery, a tenacious attitude to attack the virgin forests and a strong constitution not to succumb on the voyage or to disease and malnutrition upon arriving. Fortunately this Holliman family had such attributes, although Anne, Christopher's first wife, died in the 1660s. Mary Grey, perhaps the daughter of a member of the House of Burgesses in Jamestown, became Sr’s second wife.

In only a generation or so, soil exhaustion from tobacco cultivation forced families or young farmers to move to virgin land, to push the American frontier ever westward. The quest for land to grow tobacco and later cotton meant more and more Native Americans were displaced. The result was violence as American Indians naturally resisted encroachment on their hunting grounds and villages. The Indian did not go quietly to his cultural demise in Virginia and greater America.

The founding of Jamestown in 1607 meant the English had come to stay. Unlike the earlier 1580s failed Roanoke experience, this time our Anglo fore bearers mustered the necessary resources to establish a permanent colony. The English Diaspora employed superior technology, organization and the financial resources to grasp and hold an expanding piece of the New World.

Perhaps 15,000 to 25,000 Native Americans lived in Southern Virginia in the early 1600s. Benjamin Woolley’s Savage Kingdom records Captain Christopher Newport’s 1607 initial visit up the newly named James River to the site of present day, Richmond. He sighted numerous Indian villages. John Smith’s adventurous tales record numerous Indian settlements and evidence of many warriors. What English people knew as Virginia, Native Americans called Tsenacomoco.

Although there were numerous skirmishes and at least one large assault on early Jamestown as the two cultures brushed and bruised each other, the English were fortunate the central Indian chief was Powhatan. By and large he was an accommodating weroance (chief) who failed to anticipate the ultimate threat of the English invasion.

At his passing, his brother, Opechancanough, already an old man, recognized the Anglo incursion for what it was – a death threat to Indian culture and territory. On the Christian Good Friday in March, 1622, this war chief unleashed a Pearl Harbor on the small colony. By stealth, Indians conducted well-coordinated attacks on plantations and settlements all up and down the James River on both south and north banks. Over 1/3rd of the English colonists were killed in one day – 347 men, women and children. It was a close run thing if the colony could repel the attacks.

While a tactical victory for Native Americans, the attacks were not enough to drive the English into the ocean. Within a year, the colonists struck back and killed over 200 Indians, although Opechancanough escaped. For two decades the frontier was mostly quiet, but in 1644, now almost 100 years old, ever determined Opechancanough struck one last time. Five hundred settlers died, particularly along the York and Pamunkey rivers. (Records indicate several settlers named Holyman already were living in the colony in the 1630s and 40s. We will explore this in later postings.)

This time under a controversial but stubborn royal governor, Sir William Berkeley, the Virginia militia now much stronger and more numerous than warriors the Indians mustered, captured Opechancanough and destroyed most of his forces. The old chief died in captivity in Jamestown, slain by a vengeful guard. Surviving Native Americans were relegated to a piece a land near the fall line, at present day Richmond.

Of course, beyond the settled frontier, other Indians remained as yet only modestly undisturbed by the ever westward moving Europeans. As yet undisturbed….

Next posting more on our Holliman family and their challenges in a new world.