H olden

to provide medals to be bestowed by the Society.
During his administration the photographic cor-
recting lens for the 36-inch telescope, the D. 0.
Mills spectrograph, and the Crossley reflector
were all secured and installed, and an electric
plant was built. What little time was left from
his administrative duties for personal research
was devoted largely to the photography of the
moon. After his resignation in 1897 he spent
four years in literary work. In 1901 he pre-
pared for publication the fourth volume of Cul-
lum's Biographical Register of the Officers and
Graduates of the United States Military Acad-
emy, and from November of that year until his
death he was librarian, of the Military Academy.
Some 30,000 volumes were added, the library
catalogued, and complete bibliographies pre-
pared on every military subject. In 1902 he pub-
lished a Centennial History of the United States
Military Academy. His interests were very wide
and during his career he wrote on many subjects.
"His conversation was entertaining to the point
of brilliancy/' says Campbell; "his hearers did
not always agree with his point of view, which
he defended with vigor and skill, but no one
could be found to deny that Professor Holden
had made the subject seem alive" (post, p. 357).

[W. W. Campbell, in Nat. Acad. Sci. Biog. Memoirs,
vol. VIII (1919); Proc. Am. Acad. Arts and Sci., vol.
LI (1916) ; Astro*. Soc. Pacific Pubs., vol. XXVI
(1914) ; Forty-sixth Ann. Reunion, Asso. Grads. U. S.
Mil. Acad. (1915) ; Who's Who in America, 1915-13;
Eben Putnam, The Holden Geneal. (2 vols., 1923-26) ;
N. Y. Times, Mar. 17, 1914.] ^ 5. rj.

HOLDEN, LIBERTY EMERY (June 20,
i833~Aug. 26, 1913), financier, journalist, was
born in Raymond, Me., the son of Liberty and
Sarah Cox (Stearns) Holden; and the eldest of
their eleven children. Both his parents were de-
scended from Puritan immigrants who settled at
Watertown, Mass., his father, from Richard
Holden of Suffolk, England, who came to Amer-
ica in 1634. Young Holden's early life was cast
in a rugged region, where the inhabitants were
of necessity hardy, independent, and adventur-
ous. The lessons in thrift learned in his New
England home never left him. He attended the
district school, and an academy at Bethel, Me.
At sixteen he began teaching school, in order to
enter college. By teaching, doing odd jobs, and
practising the utmost economy he obtained his
college education at Waterville College (Colby)
and at the University of Michigan, where he re-
ceived the degree of A.B. in 1858, and that of
A.M. in 1861. He started out in life as an edu-
cator, becoming assistant professor of English
and history at Kalamazoo College in 1858 and
serving as superintendent of schools at Tiffin,

Holden

Ohio, from 1861 to 1862. At Kalamazoo, Aug.
14, i860, he married Delia Elizabeth Bulkley,
daughter of Henry G. Bulkley.

He escaped from his first profession through
studying law, first by himself, and later in a
Cleveland law office. He was admitted to the
bar but never entered upon the practice of law.
In Cleveland he rapidly developed a successful
real-estate business, and steadily extended his
business connections. In 1873 he became inter-
ested in iron mines in the Lake Superior region;
the following year, in Utah silver mines. In 1876
he removed to Utah. While a resident there he
founded the Salt Lake Academy. Four years
later he returned to Cleveland. In 1884 he pur-
chased the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the fol-
lowing year the Cleveland Herald, and combined
them in the morning and evening editions of the
Plain Dealer. A partial explanation of his news-
paper ventures was revealed when the editorial
columns of the Plain Dealer espoused the cause
of free silver. He was the first chairman of the
executive committee of the National Bimetallic
League and it was under his direction that much
of its literature was prepared. President Cleve-
land's free-trade message alarmed him, and his
only published address, delivered before the
workingmen of Cleveland, Feb. 17,1888, was an
attempt to show from history the failure of the
free-trade policy. This address was published
by the Cleveland Leader, the rival Republican
newspaper. Holden was a shrewd and far-see-
ing business man, and amassed a fortune from
silver mines, the Hollenden Hotel in Cleveland,
and the Plain Dealer Company. The last-named
became in time the most fortunate financial en-
terprise. His only qualifications for a success-
ful newspaper man were ability to select able
executives and courage and vision to support
them through dark days. During his later years
public interests absorbed his attention. He was
a delegate at large to the Democratic National
Conventions in 1888 and in 1896. His chief pub-
lic service was as a member of the Cleveland
Park Commission which planned the city's park
and boulevard system. His homestead of forty-
three acres adjacent to Wade Park was pur-
chased for the Case School of Applied Science
and Western Reserve University. He was one
of the founders, a trustee, and president (1901-
07) of the Western Reserve Historical Society,
chairman of the building committee of the Cleve-
land Museum of Art, and a trustee of Western
Reserve University, to which he left a consider-
able portion of his estate. Contradictory senti-
ments and emotions made his personality an

137