544 i.
Eliza Ann HOLT was born on 12 Jun 1822 in prob Ohio. She has reference number
544.
545 ii.
Martha Jane HOLT was born on 16 May 1825 in prob Ohio. She has reference
number 545.
+546 iii.
Mary Bell HOLT.259. Judge George B. HOLT
was born on 12 Jun 1790 in Norfolk, Litchfield, Connecticut. He has reference
number 259. Reprinted in Genealogical history of the Holt family in the US;
particularly the descendants of Nicholas Holt of Newbury & Andover, Ma.,
1634-1644, & of Wm. Holt of New Haven, Ct., by D.S. Durrie. 367p. 1864.
"The following notice of him is taken from Kilbourn's Litchfield Biography:"
HON GEORGE B. HOLT
This gentleman was born in the town of Norfolk, Litchfield county, Conn., and
is now in the 74th year of his age. With fine talents, more of a practical than
of a showy kind, he has been enabled to leave his mark, broad and deep, on the
early legislation of Ohio, and the future historian, in giving to the public
that desideratum, a history of that state (for it has yet to be written), must
give the name of Mr. Holt a place among the patriotic and far-seeing statesmen
of the commonwealth, who, a quarter of a century ago, planted the seed which
made Ohio the third, if not the second in rank among the states of the Union.
The parents of Mr. Holt, early designed him for the legal profession, and his
inclinations nothing averse to the course marked out, he entered the law school
of Judges Reeve and Gould in Litchfield, and in 1812, underwent an examination,
and being found qualified, was licensed to practice law.
Ohio, at that time, was in the far west, and the hardy emigrants who had sought
its wilds, after the close of the war, were loud in their praises of its vast
fertility, and of the magnificent wildness of its scenery. The ambition of young
Holt was fired - he wished to see the country - to become a part and parcel of
it, and to share the privations of its settlers; in 1819 we find him a citizen
of the then small village of Dayton, and the following year he raised his sign
as an attorney at law.
The profession of law, at that time, was no sinecure. The circuits extended
over many counties, in most of which roads were but bridle paths, and house of
entertainment few and far between. Bridges, there were none in the country,
and when the streams were swollen with angry floods by the spring freshets, the
members of the bar had to brave the torrent, and trust to a frail canoe, after
driving their horses across, or else to plunge in, and trust to their horses
to carry them safe across; and then, wet, chilled and weary, to traverse the
woods for miles before they could espy the blue smoke of the log cabin, by whose
hospitable hearth they could dry their clothes. The history of the early bar
of that state, would be among the most readable of books, for many were the mishaps
and adventures of these disciples of Blackstone and Chitty, which still live
in memory, and are cherished by the younger members of the profession, as the
child cherishes the legends in which his father bore a part.
During the administration of Mr. Monroe, party politics measurably died away,
nevertheless there were times, places and occasions in which the spirit of party
was temporarily aroused. Such was the fact in Dayton, in the year 1822, when
Mr. Holt established, and for three years conducted, the Miami Replublican; a
newspaper devoted to news agriculture and the dissemination of democratic doctrines.
In the fall of 1824, Mr. Holt was a candidate for, and elected to the legislature
of the state, and deeply participated in the passage of the laws which made that
session the most important ever held in Ohio. The lands of the state were then
divided into first, second and third classes, and taxed accordingly - the improved
farms as high as the wild lands of the same class. The injustice of the system,
and the gross inequality of the classification, by which the sterile hills of
eastern Ohio, in many cases, were taxed as high as the rich alluvian of the Miami
and Sciota valleys, called loudly for amendment, yet it was not until the session
of 1824-25 that the evil was abated by the adoption of the ad valorem system,
which, from that time, became the settled policy of the state.
New York, under the auspices of De Witt Clinton, had commenced her canal policy,
by which the waters of the Hudson were united with those of Lake Erie, so as
to have a direct water communications between the inland seas of the northwest
and those of the Atlantic. The necessity of similar communications between the
lakes and the Ohio river, sweeping through Ohio, had excited public attention,
and with it, an opposition of a bitter kind. Judge Holt stood forward as a prominent
advocate of the work, and employed the columns of his paper to favor the measure,
and this fact brought him forward more prominently as the man for the crisis.
He was elected to the legislature, and during the session which followed, the
first canal law was passed, and under which the Ohio and the Miami canals were
commenced, and the policy of the state in favor of internal improvements, from
that moment was considered settled.
Ohio, at that time, had no school system. Parents in the thinly settled portions
of the state, were forced to rely on chance for teachers, who were themselves
better fitted to be taught, than to be the instructors of embryo men, and who
mainly relied upon the birch and ferule, to beat learning into the heads of their
pupils. Money at the time was scarce - but little produce was exported, and
many men who had a farm they could call their own, were yet in circumstances
too straitened to allow them to give their children that schooling so much needed,
to make them useful citizens of community. To remedy this evil - to give all,
the rich, the poor, the high and the low, the same benefits of a common school
education, was a matter which excited much attention. Fortunately for the state,
the legislature of 1824-25 was composed of men of more enlarged philanthropy
than any which preceded it. Mr. Holt was appointed a member of the committee
to whom the subject was referred, and that committee reported a bill which passed
into a law, and which established the common school system of Ohio. To us, at
this day, it seems a matter of astonishment, that such a system should meet with
opposition; yet such was the fact. It was deemed as a daring infringement on
the rights of property - as a tyrannical and unjust law, which drew money from
the pockets of the wealthy to educate the children of other men. The poor were
appealed to, and were told by those who opposed the law, that their children
were to be educated at pauper schools, and their pride was thus aroused to resistance;
and, at the next election, the clamor became so great that many of the friends
of the school system were sent into retirement. The colleague of Mr. Holt went
down in the contest, and the judge was reelected, chiefly from the fact that
his services in securing the passage of the law for the construction of the Miami
canal, in which his constituents felt a deep interest, gained him a popularity
which ill-founded clamor could not shake. He was reelected to the legislature
at the next section.
In 1827, during the palmy days of the militia system, Mr. Holt was elected brigadier
general, and for some years commanded one of the finest brigades in the state.
At the annual election in 1828, Mr. Holt was elected to the state senate, and
served during the sessions of 1828-29 and 1829-30. He was chairman of the committee
on internal improvements, then one of the most important in that body. During
the last session of which Mr. Holt was a member of the legislature, he was elected
president judge of the circuit court, in which he had practiced law, and served
during the constitutional term of seven years. At the commencement of his term
of service on the bench, the circuit was composed of the counties of Montgomery,
Clark, Champaign, Logan, Miami, Darke, Shelby and Mercer. The counties of Allen
and Putnam were subsequently attached to the first circuit, over which Judge
Holt presided, in lieu of Clark, Champaign and Logan, which were transferred
to the seventh circuit.
At the end of his service as president judge, Judge Holt partially resumed the
practice of law, and, during which time, under appointment of the court, he served
on year as prosecuting attorney of Montgomery county, one year in the same office
in Mercer, and two terms in the same station in the county of Van Wert.
At the session of the legislature of 1842-'43, Judge Holt was again called to
the bench, by a reelection to the office of president judge of the same circuit,
and served out his constitutional term.
During the interval between his first and second term as presiding judge of the
common pleas court of his circuit, Judge Holt divided his time between his practice
and agriculture, and stock growing, of which latter he was always passionately
fond, and spent large sums in improving the breed of cattle - he having introduced
into the counties of Miami, Mercer and Montgomery, the first thorough bred short-horned
Durham cattle - part of which time he filled the honorable station of president
of the agricultural society of Montgomery count.
At the breaking out of the cholera in Dayton, during the summer of 1849, it became
an object of much concern, to have an able and energetic board of health, that
the fell ravages of the disease might be stayed; Judge Holt having been among
the earliest and constant volunteers to visit and minister to the relief of the
sufferers was made president of the board; in which capacity his services were
constant, efficient, and highly valued by the citizens.
During the spring of 1850, in casting around for a man, at once available for
his personal worth and popularity, and with an enlarged mind, to be the candidate
of the democratic party, in a county where the tide of popular favor runs in
a contrary direction, Judge Holt was found to possess all the requisites, and
he received the nomination, and was elected to the important station of delegate
to revise, amend or change the constitution of the state. On his arrival in
Columbus, he met Jacob Blickensderfer, of Tuscarawas, who had participated as
a member from the county he represented in the house of representatives during
the important session of 1824-'25. From the adjournment of that legislature,
Judge Holt and Mr. Blickensderfer had never met, until they came together as
delegates to form a new constitution for the state, for which they had aided,
a quarter of a century since, in giving a canal policy and a school system, which
have stood the test of time, and have aided much in bringing Ohio to its present
proud position.
As president judge of the first judicial circuit, Judge Holt gained an enviable
reputation. He ranked, before his election to the bench, as a sound lawyer,
and to that we soon added the highest reputation of an able and impartial judge.
During a service of fourteen years, in the service of the state, as presiding
judge of a circuit distinguished for the legal talent of its bar, it is a high
compliment to say, that he gave entire satisfaction, and that, popular as he
ever has been as a man, his popularity as a judge exceeded it.
For forty-four years past, Judge Holt has been a member of the Presbyterian church,
and although far from being a bigot in his religion, has ever been recognized
as a sincere Christian. While on the bench he saw, in worst form, the evils
of intemperance, and he was among the early, and he has ever been the steady
friend of the temperance cause.
The mind of Judge Holt, as we before intimated, is less showy than solid. The
distinguishing traits are a subjection of all questions to a philosophic test;
industry in investigation, and a persevering pursuit of and rigid adherence to
the just and true. In his domestic attachments, ardent and constant; ready and
reliable in his friendships; and an active philanthropist. In politics he is
a democrat, with a strong tendency to radicalism. In the convention he was at
the head of the committee on jurisprudence, and though a silent member, yet if
we mistake not, his impress for influence and utility, in the result of its deliberations,
will be found deep and enduring.
He was married to Mary BLODGETT in Jun 1821 in prob Dayton, Ohio.
Mary BLODGETT was born about 1800 in poss Ohio. Judge George B.
HOLT and Mary BLODGETT had the following children:
544 i.
Eliza Ann HOLT was born on 12 Jun 1822 in prob Ohio. She has reference number
544.
545 ii.
Martha Jane HOLT was born on 16 May 1825 in prob Ohio. She has reference
number 545.
+546 iii.
Mary Bell HOLT.