Holden

enigma to his associates; but pluck and perse-
verance were his outstanding traits.

[Eben Putnam, The Holden Genealogy (2 vols.,
1923-26); C. E. Kennedy, Fifty Years of Cleveland
(copr. 1925) ; Western Reserve Hist. Soc.t Tract No.
94, Nov. 1914; Who's Who in America^ 1912-13;
Cleveland Plain Dealer, Aug. 27, 1913.] E.J.B.

HOLDEN, OLIVER (Sept. 18, J76s-Sept. 4,
1844), carpenter, minister, musician—the com-
poser of the tune "Coronation," was the fourth of
the six children of Nehemiah and Elizabeth Hol-
den and was born at Shirley, Mass. He was de-
scended from Richard Holden who emigrated
from Suffolk, England, to America in 1634. For
a year (1782-83) he served as a marine on a
frigate first called the Dean, and later the Hague.
This vessel sailed for the West Indies in August
1782 and captured a British prize, which was
sent back to Boston with a prize crew of which
he was a member. On account of this service he
was granted a pension on Feb. 16, 1836, at the
rate of forty dollars per annum. About 1787 he
moved to Charlestown, Mass., which had been
burned by the British during the war, and as a
carpenter helped to rebuild it. His extensive pur-
chases of land in the town began in 1787 and the
number of his tradings exceeds that of any other
resident of the town in his day. He also owned
land in Hillsboro, N. H. When Washington
visited Boston in 1789, he was greeted at the
old State House by a chorus of men who sang
under the leadership of Holden the "Ode to Co-
lumbia's Favorite Son," and on the last day of
the year 1799, when services were held in the
church in Charlestown in memory of the re-
cently deceased George Washington, the music
was directed by this same leader. Holden was
married to Nancy Rand on May 12, 1791, and
had six children. His mansion, built about 1800,
stood at the head of Salem Street, and later came
to be used by the city of Boston as a kindergarten
known as the Oliver Holden School. Holden
was a justice of the peace, was one of the in-
corporators of the Andover turnpike in 1805, zxi&
in 1836 urged the annexation of Charlestown to
the city of Boston, an event which did not take
place, however, until 1875. He was admitted as
a Freemason to King Solomon's Lodge in 1795
and served as an active member for ten years,
after which he took an honorary status. Many
stories are told in the records of the Lodge of the
entertainments which he contributed. He kept
a music store and taught music for many years.
He connected himself first with the Congrega-
tional Church, then later with one known as the
Puritan Church, which worshipped in a building
erected by himself on land which he had given,
and in which he officiated as preacher throughout

Holden

its entire existence. The services of this body
were simple, the communion was administered
every Sunday, and the Bible was taken as the
only necessary rule for religious or civil life. He
represented Charlestown in the state House of
Representatives in 1818, 1825, 1826, and from
1828 to 1833. He was both a writer of hymns
and a composer of music and is known to have
written at least twenty-one hymns which ap-
peared over the initial "H" in a small book pub-
lished in Boston before 1808. The one in most
common use begins, "All those who seek a throne
of grace," although it is more frequently changed
to begin, "They who seek a throne of grace/'
The tune "Coronation," by far his best-known
hymn, was first published in Volume I of his
Union Harmony (1793) which contains in its
two volumes forty of his tunes. In addition to
this work he contributed the following books—
though not all bore his name—to the literature
of music: The American Harmony (1792); The
Massachusetts Compiler (1795), with Hans
Gram and Samuel Holyoke; The Worcester Col-
lection (1797); Sacred Dirges, Hymns and An-
thems (1800); Modern Collection of Sacred
Music (1800); PlainPsalmody (1800); Charles-
town Collection of Sacred Songs (1803); Vo-
cal Companion (1807) ; and Occasional Pieces
(n.d.).

[Seth Chandler, Hist, of Shirley, Mass. (1883) ; Vi-
tal Records of Shirley, Mass. (1918); T. T. Sawyer,
Old Charlestown (1902) ; T. B. Wyman, Charlestown
Geneals. and Estates (1879) ; Mass. Soldiers and Sail-
ors of the Revolutionary War, vol. VIII (1901); Eben
Putnam, Holden Geneal. (1923); F. 0. Rand, A Geneal.
of the Rand Family in the U. S. (1898); J. T. Howard,
Our Am. Music (1930) ; O. G. T. Sonneck, Early Con-
cert Life in America (1906); Frank J. Metcalf, Am.
Psalmody (1917), and Am. Writers and Compilers of
Sacred Music (1925) ; A Diet, of Hymnology (1891),
ed. by John Julian; The Diary of Wm. Bentley, D.D.,
vol. II (1907); Boston Transcript, Sept 4, 1844.]

F.J.M.

HOLDEN, WILLIAM WOODS (Nov. 24,
i8i8-Mar. i, 1892), political journalist, gov-
ernor of North Carolina, was born in Orange
County, N. C. Ambitious from childhood, he
made good use of his limited educational oppor-
tunities, and when he was ten became printer's
devil to Dennis Heartt, editor of the Hillsboro
Recorder, with whom he stayed for six years.
After a year of newspaper work in Milton, N. C.,
and Danville, Va., he returned to Hillsboro as a
clerk. In 1837 he went to Raleigh where he
worked on the Star, the leading Whig paper,
studying law during his scanty leisure. His po-
litical writing attracted attention, and in 1843
he was offered the North Carolina Standard, the
leading Democratic paper, on condition that he
become a Democrat. He accepted and began en-
thusiastically the work of inspiring a minority

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