Holmes

export of craftsmen, machines, and trade secrets
was prohibited, Holmes brought a company of
workers to Waterbury. In 1830, with seven
partners and a capital of $8,000, he established
the firm of Holmes & Hotchkiss, for the manu-
facture of sheet brass and wire for the market,
the first venture of the kind in the United States.
He again went to England (1831) for men and
equipment, and brought back the first wire-
drawing and tube-making machinery seen in this
country. In 1833 when the success of this in-
fant industry was threatened by tariff legislation
admitting unmanufactured goods free, Holmes
and Israel Coe [g.^.] went to Washington and
succeeded in having special legislation enacted
classifying sheet brass and wire as manufac-
tured goods. At this time the loss of two of his
children in the burning of Captain Judd's home
led Holmes to sell his interest in the business
and move to Wolcottville (Torrington), Conn.,
where he became one of the founders of the Wol-
cottville Brass Company. This firm was the first
to employ the battery process in the manufacture
of brass kettles. In 1834 Holmes again went
to England for experienced workers. After
eleven years at Torrington he returned to Wa-
terbury as president of the newly formed Water-
bury Brass Company. In 1853 he resigned and
with J. C. Booth and H. W. Hayden [g.v.]
formed the firm of Holmes, Booth & Haydens.
This company was the first organized both to roll
brass and then to manufacture it on a large scale.
After sixteen years as president of this firm he
resigned and with Booth and L. J. Atwood
[#•#*]» purchased the Thomas Brass Company of
Thomaston, Conn., which they renamed Holmes,
Booth & Atwood (later Plume & Atwood) and
enlarged with a branch at Waterbury. With
this firm he remained until his death. Holmes
stands out as one of the most prominent figures
in the history of the American brass industry,
and it is said that after his death no new venture
of importance was organized until 1900. He
was a leader in the construction of the Nauga-
tuck Railroad, which had much to do with the
success of the industry. He represented Tor-
rington in the Connecticut legislature in 1839,
and Waterbury in 1870. His wife was Ardelia
Hayden of Waterbury, by whom he had six chil-
dren.

[Joseph Anderson, The Town and City of Waterbwy,
Conn. (1896); Henry Bronson, The Hist, of Water-
bury, Conn. (1858) ; Samuel Orcutt, Hist, of Torring-
ton, Conn. (1878) ; W. G. Lathrop, The Brass Industry
in Conn. (1909) ; J, L. Bishop, Hist, of Am. Manufac-
tures from 1608 to 1860 (1864), vol. II; J. D. Van
Slyck, Representatives of New England: Manufacturers
(1879); Hartford Daily Courantf July 17, 1874.]

F.A.T.

Holmes

HOLMES, JOHN (Mar. 28, 1773-July 7,
I843), lawyer, senator from Maine, was born
at Kingston, Mass., the son of Melatiah and
Elizabeth (Bradford) Holmes, and a descendant
of William Holmes who was in Scituate, in
Massachusetts, as early as 1641. Withdrawing
from his father's iron works at nineteen, John
studied at the town school and with Rev, Zeph-
aniah Willis so successfully that he was able to
enter Rhode Island College (now Brown Uni-
versity), in 1793. After graduating in 1796, he
studied law under Benjamin Whitman of Han-
over and was admitted to the bar in 1799. This
same year he removed to Maine and settled in
that part of Sanford later incorporated (1808) as
Alfred. In this new country, he built up a lucra-
tive practice in land titles. Keen of wit, cool in
the face of his opponents' wrath, using satire,
ridicule, epithet, and anecdote, often in prefer-
ence to logic, he gained a wide reputation as a
lawyer more because of his success than because
of his knowledge of the law. When the Dart-
mouth College case came before the Supreme
Court, he with Attorney-General Wirt was op-
posing counsel to Webster and Hopkinson (Tim-
othy Farrar, Report of the Case of Dartmouth
College against William H. Woodward, Ports-
mouth, 1819). Of Holmes's speech, Webster
wrote, ''Upon the whole, he gave us three hours
of the merest stuff that was ever uttered in a
county court" (Fletcher Webster, The Private
Correspondence of Daniel Webster, 1857, I,

275)-

Holmes's natural taste for politics had been
whetted by his election by the Federalists of San-
ford as representative to the Massachusetts Gen-
eral Court in 1802 and 1803. Suddenly in 1811
the vigorous Federalist became an ardent Demo-
crat, possibly through conviction but possibly
also because of the increasing popularity of the
Democratic party in Maine. In 1812 he was
returned as a representative to the General Court
where he was the defeated Democratic candi-
date for the speakership. Active in the lower
house as well as in the Senate, to which he was
elected in 1813, he upheld the national govern-
ment and opposed the anti-war measures of Fed-
eralist Massachusetts. His political conversion
won for him much ridicule, including the title
"Duke of Summersetts." In January 1816 Pres-
ident Madison appointed him a commissioner
under the fourth article of the Treaty of Ghent
to make division between the United States and
Great Britain of the islands in Passamaquoddy
Bay. In the same year Holmes was elected to
Congress and was reflected in 1818.

A foremost advocate of the separation of

166