Holmes 1880, p. 352). After the adoption of the consti- tution he was elected first governor of the state and served until January 1820, when, having de- clined to be a candidate for reelection (Inde- pendent Press, Natchez, Apr. 14, 1819), he was succeeded by George Poindexter [q.vJ]. For a time during his governorship he was president of the board of trustees of Jefferson College (Mis- sissippi State Gazette, Natchez, Jan. 23, 1819). Appointed to the United States Senate in August 1820 (Mississippi Republican, Natchez, Aug. 22, 1820) in the place of Walter Leake, resigned, he was subsequently elected and served until his resignation, Sept. 25, 1825 (Biographical Di- rectory of the American Congress, 1928). He had meanwhile defeated Cowles Mead for the gov- ernorship by an overwhelming majority (South- ern Luminary, Jackson, Miss., Sept 13, 1825), and in January 1826 he was inaugurated, but in July, by the failure of his health, was forced to relinquish the office to Lieut.-Gov. Gerard C. Brandon [q.v.]. He returned to his home in Winchester, Va., but was shortly stricken by paralysis, and after five years of helplessness cheerfully endured, he died near Winchester, at the age of sixty-two. He was never married. [In addition to references above, see character sketch by Holmes's nephew, D. H. Conrad, in Miss. Hist. Soc. Pubs., Centenary Ser.t vol. IV (1921) ; Dunbar Row- land, Mississippi (1907), vol. I; Daily National Intelli- gencer (Washington, D. C.)» Aug. 27, 1832. Holmes's Executive Journals and other documents are deposited with the Miss. Dept. of Archives and Hist., at Jackson (Ann. Report Am. Hist. Asso.f 1903,1, 477). His cor- respondence with the U. S. Dept. of State is in the Miss. Terr. MSS., Bureau of Rolls and Library, Dept. of State, Washington (Am. Hist. Rev., Jan. 1912, p. 594).] E.R.D. HOLMES, EZEKIEL (Aug. 24, i8oi-Feb. 9,1865), editor, legislator, educator, agricultur- ist, was born to Nathaniel and Asenath (Chan- dler) Holmes at Kingston, Mass. He was de- scended in the sixth generation from William Holmes who was born in England about 1592 and migrated to America prior to 1641, with his son, John Holmes, the latter ultimately becoming the second minister of Duxbury, Mass. Ezekiel prepared for college under Rev. Samuel Parris of Kingston, graduating from Brown Univer- sity in the class of 1821. In college he manifested a particular interest in botany and mineralogy, both at the time quite undeveloped sciences. He studied medicine with his uncle, Dr. Benjamin Chandler, in Paris, Me., teaching at the same time in the local high school. At Paris he con- tinued to develop as a naturalist and on one of his expeditions discovered the great tourmaline deposit on Mount Mica. Entering the medical school at Bowdoin, he received the degree of MIX in 1824. Though he continued to practise Holmes his profession in a small way throughout most of his life, his main interests were those of a naturalist and an agriculturist In 1825 he was appointed instructor in agriculture at the Gardi- ner Lyceum, founded four years before by Rob- ert Hallowell Gardiner [q.v.']. Here he con- tinued his scientific studies and made an excellent collection of minerals. In 1829 he was elected principal after the resignation of Dr. Benjamin Hale [g.z/.], and served until the failure of the Lyceum from lack of adequate support in 1832. During 1828 he edited the New England Farm- er's and Mechanics' Journal^ a publication which lasted about a year. For two years, beginning in 1831, he edited an anti-slavery paper known as the American Standard. In 1832 he established his permanent home in Winthrop, Me. From 1833 to 1837 he held the post of lecturer on chem- istry, mineralogy, geology, and botany in Water- ville (now Colby) College. On Jan. 21, 1833, as editor, he issued the first number of the Kennebec Farmer and Journal of the Useful Arts, soon re- named the Maine Fanner and Journal of the Useful Arts. When he began this enterprise there was no other agricultural paper in Maine and there were only a few in the nation. He succeeded in overcoming to a large extent the conservatism of the Maine farmers, whose preju- dices against "book farming" were exceedingly strong, and accomplished "the banishment of superstitious notions in agriculture ... [setting] forth in their stead rational and even scientific truths which could be comprehended by the readers of his paper" (True, post, p. 212). He was a frequent lecturer before agricultural so- cieties, many of his addresses being published in the Farmer and others in the Agricultural Re- ports of the state. He also contributed articles to the United States Patent Office Reports. He was influential in bringing about the establish- ment of a state Board of Agriculture in 1852 and was its secretary, 1852-55. He helped to found the Maine State Agricultural Society (1855), of which he was secretary until his death. From 1833 to 1839 inclusive and again in 1850 he served as a member of the state legislature, and in 1840-41 he was a state senator. In 1839 he published at Augusta the Report of an Explora- tion and Survey of the Territory on the Aroos- took River during the Spring and Autumn of 1838. This survey which he conducted for the state attracted considerable attention and was an important factor in stimulating American immi- gration into a region the possession of which was at the time in dispute between Great Britain and the United States. In 1861 and 1862, in asso- ciation with Charles Henry Hitchcock [g.tf.], a '63