Experience Holmes II (1716 - 1793)

Born 29 May 1716 in Rochester, Plymouth, Province of Massachusetts Bay

Ancestors

Husband of Hannah (Samson) Holmes — married 13 Dec 1737 in Duxbury, Plymouth Co., Massachusetts

Descendants

Died 14 Mar 1793 at age 76 in Rochester, Plymouth, Massachusetts, United States

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Biography

Experience Holmes was born on May 29, 1716 in Rochester, Plymouth, Province of Massachusetts Bay. His parents were Experience Holmes and Patience Nichols. He married Hannah Samson on December 13, 1737 Together they had 6 children:

1. Abraham Holmes
2. James Holmes
3. Susannah Holmes
4. Elizabeth Holmes
5. Experience Holmes
6. Bathsheba Holmes

He died on March 14, 1793 in Rochester, Plymouth, Massachusetts, United States

Note:The precise dates are arguable.

Death

In the Rochester Town Records, an original handwritten register (possibly a compilation of prior records) states that "Mr. Experience Holmes died March 13, 1793, aged 76 years 8[?] months 28[?] days." ^[1]

In their 1914 transcription of town records, the New England Historical Genealogical Society apparently found additional, differing, records of death. Their entry (square brackets are theirs) reads as: "Holmes...Experience, Mar. 13 [second dup. Mar. 9], 1793, a. 76 y. 8 m. 28 d. [third dup. 1794, a. 77]" ^[2]

Birth

Calculating from the death date and age at death, one would derive a birth date of 13 June 1716, but that's not the date found in secondary sources. Instead Susan Roser ^[3] and others use the date 29 May 1716. She also states that Experience was the twin of an unnamed child who died young. The source of her information is not known to this writer.

Marriage

Reliable sources provide two records for the marriage to Hannah Samson. The Rochester records give a date of 26 August 1737 ^[4] and the Duxbury records date the marriage as 13 December 1737. ^[5] One possible way to rationalize the discrepancy is to assume that Experience registered his intent in his home town of Rochester and later traveled to Duxbury, Hannah's home, for the actual ceremony.

The Mayflower "Silver Book" for John Alden does not take a stand and simply states that the two were married. ^[6]

Source Notes

1. ↑ "Massachusetts, Town and Vital Records, 1620-1988," >Rochester>"Town Records, Oaths of Office, with Births, Marriages, and Deaths", image 271 of 576, "Mr. Experence[sic] Holmes died March 13, 1793, aged 76 years 8[?] months 28[?] days"; citing p. 557 of imaged book with an illegible title (shown in image 1).
2. ↑ "Massachusetts, Town and Vital Records, 1620-1988," >Rochester>Vital Record Transcripts, image 713 of 764, "Holmes...Experience, Mar. 13 [second dup. Mar. 9], 1793, a. 76 y. 8 m. 28 d. [third dup. 1794, a. 77]", square brackets appear in imaged record; citing p. 399 of imaged book, identified in image 319 as Vital Records of Rochester Massachusetts to the Year 1850, Volume II--Marriages and Deaths (Boston: NEHGS, 1914).
3. ↑ Roser: Vol. 2, Page 156
4. ↑ "Massachusetts, Marriages, 1633-1850," Ancestry.com, search term: "Experiance Holmes", m. Hannah Samson 26 Aug 1737, Rochester.
5. ↑ "Massachusetts, Marriages, 1633-1850," Ancestry.com, search term: "Experience Holms", m. Hannah Samson 13 Dec 1737, Duxbury.
6. ↑ Woodworth-Barnes and Williams, Family of John Alden, p 393.

Sources

• Roser, Susan. Mayflower Births & Deaths (Genealogical Pub. Co., Inc., Baltimore, MD, 1992).
• Woodworth-Barnes, Esther Littleford and Alicia Crane Williams, compiler and editor, respectively. Family of John Alden. Mayflower Families through Five Generations: Descendants of the Pilgrims who Landed at Plymouth, Mass. December 1620, Vol 16, Part 1. Plymouth, MA: General Society of Mayflower Descendants, 1998.
• "Massachusetts, Marriages, 1633-1850." Database of transcription. Ancestry.com Operations, Inc, Provo, UT, 2005. Ancestry.com. https://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=7853: 2020.
• "Massachusetts, Town and Vital Records, 1620-1988." Database index with images. Ancestry.com. https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/2495/: 2020.

Additional Sources

• Marriage: The Genealogical Advertiser: A Quarterly Magazine of Family History, Volumes 1-3, p.108

Acknowledgments

Biography rewritten by James W. Moore, 17 Aug 2020, following merge with Holmes-13706.