Rebecca (Hunter) Holmes (1751 - 1806)

Ancestors

Descendants

Died Sep 1806 at about age 55 in Winchester, Virginia

Biography

She was the daughter of David Hunter, who settled in Berkeley County, Virginia, at a place called "Red House" Mrs. Holmes was a most beautiful exemplification of the effect of the training of our old colonial ancestors. She lived and died an exemplary member of the Presbyterian Church, a venerated mother of a large family, all of whom to this day, when her descendants are numerous, revere her memory. She died in September, 1806, five days before my father, her attendant physician and son-in-law, departed this life.

1. Hugh Holmes — an eminent barrister. Appointed Judge of the General Court of Virginia, in December, 1805, which he held for near twenty years, dying in Winchester in 1825. Judge Holmes, before he went on the bench, was speaker of the House of Delegates of Virginia.
2. Mrs. Margaret Legrand, wife of the Rev. Nash Legrand of the Presbyterian Church in Virginia who was an eminent divine, and who survived his wife many years, and was married to a second wife, in Charlotte, Virginia. Judge Hunter Marshall of the Charlotte district was her grandson.
3. David Holmes, elected as the first governor of the State of Mississippi. He served a term as Senator of Mississippi, and returned to serve part of a term as governor before ill health forced him to resign.
4. Mrs. Elizabeth McGuire, married to Edward McGuire, Esq., of Winchester who left a numerous progeny. Hugh Holmes McGuire, an eminent physician and surgeon, is her oldest son. She was a model wife and mother.
5. Mrs. Rebecca Conrad, married to Dr. Daniel Conrad, of Winchester, who died in 1806,the favored and favorite sister of the Governor (see his will), died at the close of the same year that he died, 1832.
6. Mrs. Nancy Boyd, married to General Boyd of Martinsburg, Berkeley County, Virginia. She was married in 1805, died in 181 7, at Boydville near Martinsburg, and her descendants are now numerous. She was a generous, noble hearted woman, of great piety, but of very delicate constitution.
7. Joseph Holmes, a member of the bar, who died at an early age, in Kenawha County, Virginia, where he had migrated; he also died unmarried and childless.
8. Mrs. Gertrude E. Moss, wife of William Moss, Esq., of Fairfax County, Virginia, who was for many years and to the end of his life, clerk of both courts of Fairfax County. She died about the year 1825, leaving a very large family — numerously connected and highly respectable.
9. Andrew Hunter Holmes (called after Rev. Andrew Hunter, his mother's brother, Chaplain at the Navy Yard, and before that, resident at Princeton, New Jersey), the youngest child, a man of rare talents. A member of the bar in New Orleans when the War of 181 2 broke out. Went into the army; distinguished himself in various engagements; especially in one on theThames, Canada West, where he defeated part of a Highland regiment in a regular tight (see histories of the war) and fell leading on his wing of Colonel Croghan's force, against Machinaw at the unsuccessful attack on that place in 1814.

Major Hunter Holmes died unmarried and thus the name — so far as Joseph's family is concerned — became extinct on the 20th of August, 1832, when Governor Holmes died. Descendants of Colonel Holmes to the fourth generation are numerous, but they all are descendants of his daughters and bear other patronymics, the names of ' families into which they married. .^[1]

They had children from whom are descended the Boyds, McGuires, Conrads, Mosses, and Le Grands; one son, Lieut. Hunter Holmes, U. S. Army, was killed at the battle of Ft. Mackinaw, in the War of 1812.

Sources

1. ↑ Publications of the Mississippi Historical Society: Centenary series, Volume 4 edited by Dunbar Rowland page 235

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