Holder

Bassett, was a woman of unusual mental endow-
ment, a minister of the Society of Friends, poet
and author of parts, though she destroyed most
of her writings for conscience's sake. His father,
Aaron Lummus Holder, a birthright Friend, by
profession a wholesale and retail druggist, des-
tined his son for a career in medicine. As a boy
Joseph spent much time with his Bassett grand-
parents in Uxbridge, where, in Linset Woodland,
which, he says, became to him "a little Paradise,"
he studied the great variety of natural objects
in botany and zoology present there and laid the
foundation of the knowledge which enabled him
later to prepare the first list of the birds and
plants of Essex County. His early friendship
with Agassiz, whose summer laboratory at Na-
hant lay within sight of the Lynn shore, and
with whom he made dredging expeditions in the
bay, strongly influenced his later career.

After completing the course at the Friends'
School in Providence, R. I., he entered the Har-
vard Medical School, where he served Dr. Oliver
Wendell Holmes as demonstrator in anatomy.
He practised in Swampscott and afterward in
Lynn, where he was early made city physician
and achieved reputation as a surgeon. Here he
married Emily Augusta Gove, of distinguished
Quaker ancestry. In 1859, at the instance of
Agassiz and Prof. Spencer F. Baird [q.v.] of the
Smithsonian Institution, he accepted a post as
surgeon-in-chief to the government engineers on
the Florida reef, in order to prosecute an ex-
haustive study of its formation and of the plant
and animal life of the reef. When the Civil War
broke out, Holder, in other respects a consistent
"Free Quaker," entered the army, becoming
health officer and surgeon of the military prison
at Fort Jefferson on the Dry Tortugas. Here he
remained for seven years, fighting yellow fever
and scurvy among the prisoners and pursuing
his scientific researches upon the reef. As a re-
sult of these studies he was able to send to Agassiz
and to the Smithsonian valuable collections and
data. His investigations upset current beliefs
about the development of coral formations, es-
tablishing for the first time the fact of their rela-
tively rapid growth. In 1869 he was transferred
to Fortress Monroe. Two years later he resigned
to accept the position of assistant to Agassiz's
pupil, Alfred S. Bickmore [#.z/.], who was then
inaugurating the new American Museum of Nat*
ural History in New York. He devoted himself
to the zoology collection, of which in 1881 he be-
came curator. From 1885 until his death he spe-
cialized in marine zoology. Holder was a high-
minded man of wide culture, a bit of an artist,
and a writer of considerable charm. Besides

Holladay

many scientific and popular papers, he wrote
History of the American Fauna (1877) > "The
Atlantic Right Whales" (Bulletin of the Ameri-
can Museum of Natural History, May I, 1883);
and in 1885 published a revised edition of J. G.
Wood's Our Living World. He interested him-
self in local history and genealogy, and his re-
searches into the story of the Holder family in
America furnished the nucleus of The Holders
of Holderness, published by his son, Charles
Frederick [q.v."\.

[C. F. Holder, The Holders of Holderness (n.d) ;
Vital Records of Lynn, Mass. (2 vols., 1905-06); N. Y>
Tribune, Mar. i, 1888.] M.B.H.

HOLLADAY, BEN (October iSip-July 8,
1887), organizer, financier, the son of William
Holladay, of Virginian ancestry, was born in
Carlisle County, Ky. In early boyhood he re-
moved with his parents to western Missouri,
where the years of his young manhood were
passed. He had little schooling. At Weston, Mo.,
he met and became engaged to Notley Ann Cal-
vert The girl's parents objected to the match,
so the young couple eloped and were married at
the log-cabin home of the bride's uncle, Capt.
Andrew Johnson. Holladay operated a store and
a hotel in Weston, and engaged in trade with the
Indians in Kansas. At the outbreak of the Mexi-
can War he furnished supplies for Kearny's
Army of the West. When the war ended he pur-
chased at bargain prices oxen and wagons from
the government. With T. F. Warner as partner
he launched a trade venture to Salt Lake City
with fifty wagon-loads of merchandise. A letter
of recommendation from Col. A. W. Doniphan,
who had befriended the Mormons during their
troubles in Missouri, gave Holladay a favorable
introduction to Brigham Young which insured
success for his business undertaking in Utah.
The following year he bought cattle, drove them
to California, and sold them at a handsome profit.
Successful business ventures throughout the fif-
ties increased his resources. He advanced mon-
ey to Russell, Majors, and Waddell; and when
this great overland freighting firm went to the
wall, he bought their Central Overland Cali-
fornia and Pike's Peak Express Company for
$100,000. He set to work reorganizing, extend-
ing, and improving the overland stagecoach serv-
ice until under him it reached its greatest ex-
tent. For a time the mail contract paid more
than one million dollars annually and the pas-
senger traffic from the Missouri River to the
Golden Gate was correspondingly large, but dur-
ing the Indian uprising on the Plains in 1864-65,
when stage stations, equipment, and supplies
were destroyed, Holladay suffered heavy losses.

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