Richard Blackmer Holbrook
Plymouth seaman who reached California in 1851 and Puget Sound in 1852, settling on a donation land claim on Whidbey Island; he is said to have given up command of a ship and sailed round Cape Horn. Born at Manomet, Plymouth, son of Gideon Holbrook, he farmed and later lived at Coupeville; with his wife, Harriet Phillips Lowe, he was the father of Horace, Mollie and Richard Blackmer Holbrook.
Life
- 1821Born7 Aug 1821, Manomet, Plymouth, Massachusetts
His census ages (27 in 1850, 48 in 1870, 58 in 1880) fit. The "1830" on the Sunnyside memorial marker is wrong.
documentedprovenSources
- "Pioneers Gone," The Seattle Post-Intelligencer
- 1850 U.S. census, Plymouth, Massachusetts: household of Nancy Holbrook
- 1870 U.S. census, Whidbey Island, Island County, Washington Territory: Richard Holbrook household
- 1880 U.S. census, Whidby and Camano Islands, Island County, Washington: R. B. Holebrook household
- 1850Lived
- 1852Lived5 May 1852, Whidbey Island, Washington
On his Whidbey Island claim from this day, by his donation land claim affidavit of 20 Mar 1855 (Olympia donation certificate no. 365).
documentedprobableSources
- Reasoning:
research/holbrook/Holbrook-Master-Family-Tree.md
- Reasoning:
- 1860Married Harriet Phillips Lowe24 Dec 1860, Steilacoom, Washington Territory
The family account (Mollie pp. 82-84) has the wedding at Mrs. Ford's near Fort Steilacoom, "that Sunday evening, Christmas Eve, 1860"; 24 Dec 1860 was a Monday. The Pierce County record is still to find.
compiledprobable - 1880LivedWhidby and Camano Islands, Island County, Washington
Head of household, as "R. B. Holebrook".
documentedprobable - 1890Lived29 Jan 1890, Coupeville, Island County, Washington
"Residing at Coupeville," with Harriet, as witnesses to the will of their neighbor Ella A. Tenney.
documentedprobableSources
- Reasoning:
research/holbrook/Holbrook-Master-Family-Tree.md
- Reasoning:
- 1894DiedMay 1894, Coupeville, Island County, Washington
The "1898" on the later memorial marker is wrong, as is Find a Grave 11548347, which follows it.
documentedproven - —
Family
- Father
- Mother
- Nancy Ellis
Nancy's own will (1860) names "my children ... Richard B. Holbrook."
- Spouse
Pedigree
Notes
Named for Richard Blackmer, his mother’s first husband.
In his widowed mother’s household at Plymouth on 27 Aug 1850: “Richard Holbrook, 27, Seaman.” The pioneers’ necrology of 1894 says he “arrived in California March 4, 1851, and came to Puget sound in April, 1852, soon thereafter locating on Whidby island.” His donation land claim affidavit (20 Mar 1855) says he reached Oregon on 10 Apr 1852 and had lived on his Whidbey Island claim since 5 May 1852.
In January 1854 his brother “E. Holbrook” wrote from Penn Cove to their mother that he and his brother “have a good comfortable log cabin to live in” (see Eliphalet Holbrook). On 28 May 1854 Richard wrote to the acting governor: “On the morning of May 28, while from home, my house was broken open and robbed, by a party of Indians, of my goods, tools, provisions, and clothing. I came to this bay a few weeks previous … to engage with Capt. Eli Hathaway in the salmon business.” He claimed $1,378.20; the claim went to Congress unpaid in 1885 (Indian Depredation Claims, 48th Cong., 2d Sess.; record).
In 1855 he sold to “my brother Elisha Holbrook” his share “of my late father Gideon Holbrook.” On 24 Dec 1860, at Steilacoom, he married Harriet Phillips Low of Deer Isle, Maine; they had four children, among them Mollie, who later compiled the family typescript. He was named “of Coveland, Washington Territory” among the heirs in a Plymouth probate file of 1869, probably his mother’s estate. Farmer in 1880. The family remembers that as county treasurer he kept the county’s money in an old blue sugar bowl in the china closet (family account, as retold in the Collins-Reed family history).
On 29 Jan 1890 he and Harriet, “residing at Coupeville,” witnessed the will of their neighbor Ella A. Tenney. When it was proved after her death in December 1898, Harriet testified, but his handwriting had to be proved, as he had died (will).
The family account (Mollie’s typescript) is that he gave up command of a ship, sailed round Cape Horn to California in 1850, traded produce by sloop out of San Francisco, lost his savings while ill with typhoid, and went north to Puget Sound. The 1850 date doesn’t fit the census: he was at home in Plymouth on 27 Aug 1850 and reached California on 4 Mar 1851 (the 1894 necrology).
The FamilySearch tree adds daughters Nancy (c. 1871) and Mary (c. 1872), with no sources. They are probably not his: the 1880 census lists only Horace, Mollie and Richard, and there is no room for two births between Mollie (Dec 1870) and Richard Jr. (Sept 1872). It also omits Josephine (1865-1870), buried at Sunnyside.
His portrait, and Harriet’s from the family’s photograph album, are at the Island County Historical Society (picture). The Ebey’s Landing reserve’s inventory says he settled on 160 acres in the centre of San de Fuca in 1852, living in a tent through the summer and building a small log cabin in the fall, and built a two-storey frame house there in 1874; it was moved a little east about 1930 and still stands at 683 N. Power Road (picture).
Open questions
- The marriage at Steilacoom on 24 Dec 1860: the colonial tree marks it documented; the page keeps it compiled until the marriage record is attached.
- The Plymouth probate file of 1869 that names him “of Coveland”: whose estate was it?
Mollie's typescript
Mollie tells how her father went to sea at thirteen, visited China, rounded both capes, nearly starved off Kamchatka, was entertained by the King and Queen at Honolulu, and as first mate stood at the wheel while cannibals looked him over in the South Seas.
In the South Sea Islands his ship was boarded by cannibles, and being first mate, he stood at the wheel while the crew went below to arm. ... he was young and tender and not befouled by tobacco.
p. I →After a fever cost him his savings he came to Puget Sound in 1852 and took up land on Penn's Cove, where Mollie remembers him as a contented if not very practical farmer, a great gardener, and a sociable man who liked company but not parties.
became a farmer -- maybe not a very practical farmer, but a contented one, and a great gardener. He loved flowers and planted them through his vegetable gardens. ... My father was a sociable man
scan 8 →Mollie says he followed the sea for fifteen years and gave up command of a large ship for the gold rush, reaching California in 1850 after a perilous voyage round the Horn with other Plymouth and Plympton men (the records put his arrival in March 1851).
CAPTAIN RICHARD BLACKMER HOLBROOK, son of Gideon followed the sea for fifteen years, and gave up the captaincy of a large ship to go to California in the gold rush of '49, reaching there in '50.
p. 7 →Mollie recounts how typhoid cost him his savings in California, how his trading post on Puget Sound was burned in an Indian war, and how he took up a donation claim on Whidbey Island, and sketches him as a genial host, a good neighbour and a rather severe father.
He was a genial host, a man of easy manners in any company ... He was a good neighbor. He was rather a severe father, being so few generations from Pilgrim ancestry.
p. 8 →As county treasurer in pioneer days he kept the county's money in a blue sugar bowl in the china closet, and Mollie remembers him refusing the territorial treasurership; he served in the territorial legislature, where at Olympia he met Harriet Low.
He had served in early pioneer days as treasurer of the county, keeping the county money in an old blue sugar-bowl up in the china-closet ... he refused not wishing such responsibility again!
p. 9 →When William Ashmead Bartlett married the Baroness Burdett-Coutts in 1881, he said the young man was a relative, whose father he had known in his youth at Manomet.
was born in Manomet 1821, and at the time of this famous marriage of Baroness Burdette-Coutts, said that the young man,-- married to the old lady -- was a relative, whose father he had known in his youth.
p. 38-9 →Mollie tells how, refused twice by Harriet Low in one week, he followed her to Fort Steilacoom and married her there on Christmas Eve 1860.
I like to remember his persistance, although he was past his first youth and had left a girl behind in Massachusetts that he had intended to return for.
p. 83 →When an epidemic swept Whidbey Island and took his four-year-old daughter, the idol of his heart, he was never the same again.
the idol of her father's heart. A terrible scourge swept over the Island, every family lost one or more children, and this girl was taken. Her father was never the same again.
p. 85 →
Checked against the records
- ProvenRichard was born 7 Aug 1821 and died in May 1894
Right, though the family's later memorial marker at Sunnyside Cemetery, Coupeville, reads "Captain Richard B. 1830-1898". The pioneers' necrology of 1894 gives his birth at Plymouth on 7 Aug 1821 and his death at Coupeville in May 1894, and his census ages fit. The day, 14 May, is Mollie's alone.
Read it in the book, p. 3 → - UnlikelyAt Honolulu Richard was entertained by the King and Queen Emma
The voyage is family tradition. If he met a queen in his years at sea, from about 1834 to 1850, it was not Emma: she became queen only in 1856, when she married Kamehameha IV, and by then he had been farming on Whidbey Island for four years.
Read it in the book, p. I → - ProvenRichard and Capt. Hathaway sailed a sloop into Penn's Cove
Confirmed in outline. He reached Puget Sound in April 1852 and was on his Whidbey Island claim from 5 May 1852 (his donation claim, 1855). In 1854 he wrote that he had come "to engage with Capt. Eli Hathaway in the salmon business" (his claim for Indian losses).
Read it in the book, scan 8 → - ProvenNancy Holbrook's will left nothing to Richard B., Eliphalet and Nancy Morey
Her will of 6 Sept 1860 in the Plymouth probate records reads almost word for word as Mollie copied it: no bequest to them, because she felt bound to the children "who have chiefly borne the expense of my support", not for want of affection. Nancy Morey was her daughter by her first husband, Richard Blackmer.
Read it in the book, scan 10 → - DisprovenRichard gave up a ship's command for the gold rush, arriving in 1850
On 27 Aug 1850 he was still at Plymouth, "Richard Holbrook, 27, Seaman", in his widowed mother's household (census). The pioneers' necrology of 1894 says he "arrived in California March 4, 1851". The command he gave up, the voyage round the Horn and the produce trade are family tradition.
Read it in the book, p. 7 → - ProvenIndians destroyed his trading post, and he was never repaid
Confirmed in substance by his claim to the territorial governor: on 28 May 1854, "while from home, my house was broken open and robbed, by a party of Indians". He asked $1,378.20, and the claim was still unpaid when it went to Congress in 1885. The record says robbed, not burned.
Read it in the book, p. 8 → - ProvenBaroness Burdett-Coutts's husband was son of Ellis Bartlett of Manomet
Confirmed. Ellis Bartlett was born at Plymouth on 15 June 1817, grandson of Mercy Ellis; Davis (1899) has his son William "m. Baroness Burdett Coutts". Mercy and George Ellis both descended from John Ellis and Elizabeth Freeman of Sandwich, so the young man was probably a distant cousin, as Mollie's father said. The Baroness was Thomas Coutts's granddaughter, not his widow.
Read it in the book, p. 38 → - PossibleHarriet married Capt. Holbrook on Sunday evening, Christmas Eve 1860
No record of the marriage has been found yet (Pierce County), so the date rests on Mollie. Christmas Eve 1860 fell on a Monday, so either the day or the date is a little off.
Read it in the book, p. 83 →
Pictures
Connections
- Notable ancestor
- Plymouth seaman, gold-rush emigrant and Whidbey Island pioneer
Richard Blackmer Holbrook is the great-grandfather of the centre of this tree. Shipmasters, builders and pioneers.
- In his ancestry
- 49 notable connections →
Every notable ancestor and famous relative that Richard's own ancestors lead to, with the lines drawn down to him.