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Note: The Maryville Daily Forum of November 3, 1941, carried the following: REV. ALEXANDER HOLT DIES AT NOON TODAY AT AGE OF 91 YEARS
Rev. Alexander Holt, 91 years of age, a former Christian Church minister, died at 12:35 o'clock this afternoon at the home of his son, Randolph Holt, 315 West 12th Street, following an illness of several months.
He was born March 29, 1850, at Normandy, Tennessee, and moved that year with his parents, the late Mr. and Mrs. Jackson M. Holt, to Liberty, Missouri. He was 6 years old when the family moved to Nodaway County, settling one and a half miles east of Quitman. He attended school at Maryville and after teaching about four years, he enrolled at Bethany College in West Virginia, from which he graduated. During the next few years he preached and was a professor of Latin and Greek at Ad-Ran College in Texas. He remained there several years and returned to Nodaway County and to Maryville in 1900. He was married August 30, 1877, at Graham, Missouri, to Miss Sarah Elizabeth Hagey. Mr. Holt resided at the home on West 12th Street for more than 40 years. He had held pastorates in Tennessee, West Virginia, Wyoming, Missouri and Texas.
Funeral services have not been completed.
DEMOCRAT FORUM 4 NOV 1941 (MARYVILLE, MO.)
Funeral services will be held at 3:00 o'clock Thursday afternoon at The First Christian Church for Rev. Alexander Holt, who died at 12:25 o'clock yesterday afternoon at the home of his son, Randolph Holt, 315 W. 12th St. Rev. Sherman B. Moore will officiate. Burial will be in Oak Hill Cemetery. The body will lie in state at his home until 2:30 o'clock Thursday afternoon. Curtis Holt of Seattle, Washington, will arrive Thursday and Mrs. J. R. Miller of Freeman, MO is also expected.
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From "BEVERLY GARDNER’S MANUSCRIPT"
" This is to certify that on the morning of Aug. 30, 1877, at Graham, Nodaway County, Mo. Mr. Alexander Holt and Miss Sarah Elizabeth Hagey were by me united in marriage according to the laws of the state of Mo. Filed for Record, Sept. 18, 1877, at 2:25 PM.
J. R. Shuff Min. Gospel"
From a letter in my possession: The letter was written by a niece of Alexander Holt, a grand-daughter of Jackson Madison Holt.
"A little history as told by Uncle Alex, Sunday, June 13, 1937..
Edith was visiting us from California and Uncle Alex and Aunt Betty took dinner with us.
Jackson M. Holt was born 1819---died 1904. Harriet Ayers was born 1823---died 1912.
The ancestors of Jackson Madison Holt were thought to have come from England to Carolina and then to Bedford County, Tennessee.
To them was born ten children in the following order, Mary, William Jordon, Moses Henry, Elijah Alexander, Pharaba Jane, John, Elgivai, George Newton, Louallen and Andrew Jackson. Mary and Phaaba Jane died in infancy. Pharaba Jane was two or three years old.
Jackson Madison was a soldier in the Indian wars (Seminole) in Florida shortly before he was married. He was given a land warrant for eighty acres for his war services. This he afterward claimed in Missouri.
Uncle Alex carried the name of Elijah Alexander until he had spent a few years in school and was associated with a very tough character named Lij Tanner. He was so disgusted at having the same name as this fellow that he discarded the name Elijah.
About the year 1850, when uncle Alex was about six months old they left Tennessee, coming to Missouri to claim the eighty acres on the land warrant.
Grandmother (Harriet) came against the wishes of her parents. They told her that being the youngest child they thought she would never leave them that way. She answered that she had a family to raise and therefore she would have to go. They crossed the Mississippi river at St. Louis, crossing on a ferry. Going from there to St. Charles where they stopped for a while, and then on to Clay County Missouri near Independence and Liberty where grandfather had a friend named Thomas J. McQuidy. Mr. McQuidy afterwards settled in Russellville and later in Quitman near the Nodaway river near a mill site. Russleville was named after the owner of the mill. Mr. Russel's son afterwards married Aunt Elgivai. (Note by
AJH: Russeleville was renamed Quitman after the Civil War)
In the summer of 1856 grandpa came to this land east of Quitman, built a log cabin and moved his family from Clay County that fall. They came to Nodaway County in a covered wagon pulled by oxen. The roads were very bad and grandmother would get out at all bad places. The crossing at Sand Creek was very steep and she got out leaving the children in the wagon. She told of this afterwards,laughing at her fear in getting out herself and leaving the children in the wagon.
Grandpa afterwards bought forty acres of timbered land adjoining the town of Quitman, selling twenty acres of it afterwards and building a house on the twenty remaining. He spent the last years of his life there,dying there in 1904. He left the farm and moved to town sometime in the 80's. At that time uncle Alex was in Texas. Grandpas mother came to Missouri and Lived with them till she died following the death of her second husband in Tennessee. She was buried in the cemetery at Quitman.
The log hut in which they lived after coming to Nodaway County had but one room with a garret. This garret had a shutter in the south end and a chimney in the north end. The older children slept in the garret, climbing on a ladder made of logs with wooden pins through it. There was a bed downstairs fastened to the wall on one side with rope stretched across to support the mattress. A trundle bed for the smaller children was kept under this bed during the daytime and pulled out at night.The beds upstairs were laid on the rough board floor. The cracks between thelogs were chinked with yellow clay. This was considered one of the best houses in the county at that time. Hazel brush taller than your head grew against the house. There was an Indian path near the cabin and Indians were seen marching single file but they never stopped or gave any trouble. It seemed to be the object of everyone to build in a grove or timber instead of out on the prairie. They farmed the prairie land with oxen and what was called a bull tongue. They grubbed out a patch near the house and afterwards got a prairie plow and broke-up the sod and raised crops. They gradually accumulated hogs, chickens and other livestock, sheep and cattle being added later. Grandma made clothes out of flax and sheeps wool. Preparation of the wool was done by the children, picking the dirt and burrs out of the wool by hand. Grandma spun the wool into spools, afterwards getting a loom and made cloth from which she made into clothes for the children.
After the boys were old enough to help Grandpa with the farming they made money and bought more land at $10.00 per acre. The boys were promised by their father that if they would never drink liquor till they were twenty-one years old he would give them forty acres of land apiece. A promise which was kept and fulfilled with all the children. Grandfather was raised near a still in Tennessee and acquired the habit of using whiskey whenever he wanted it. Grandma was much opposed to its use and discouraged her children in using it. Uncle Moses was given forty acres of the original eighty, as was Uncle John who was given the other forty of the home place. Uncle Alex sold his forty acres back to Grandpa for $800.00 which money he used to attend college. He had attended school in Maryville in a five room building which stood where the present school now stands. He was one of the big boys then attending school. John Schenck was principal. He became politically inclined and ran for Justice of Peace. On Election Day he wanted to be near the polls so he paid Uncle Alex$2.00 to take care of his room for the day. Uncle Alex was real good at stacking wheat and not everyone was considered good enough to do that work. He was paid $2.00 per day. In those days’ thrasher men always charged $5.00 for a set regardless of how much grain was to be threshed before they left and they would charge by the bushel.When the hogs were ready for market they were driven to Savannah, and loaded on a train for that was the end of the railroad at that time. A wagon always went along to haul any hog which might become weary and not be able to make the long walk to Savannah.
As time went on more rooms were added to the log cabin and stockmen coming through from Iowa would often stop at the Holt's to feed their stock and rest. Corn sold for $1.00 per bushel. Grandpa would sell a barrel of ear corn and shell it off which would make about half a bushel shelled by measure.
One time a man wanted to buy a load and Grandpa offered to shell a barrel showing just how much it would make but the man said just go ahead, it would be all right with him. When he had taken about as much as he wanted he decided to shell the last barrel full and see how it turned out. He shelled this barrel and it didn’t holdout. Grandpa always felt the he had been tricked by the fellow in filling the last barrel as full as it should have been or in a way that it did not hold as much ear corn causing it to run short of what they had hoped.
After a while a law was passed prohibiting anyone without a license to keep lodgers. Grandpa with no license would get around this by answering his customers when they asked for the charges, by telling them the law prohibited making a charge but informed them that people usually paid him about so much and thy would pay about so much. Grandpa joined the Southern Army but was discharged after about a years’service. The Southern Army was stationed at Franklin under General Hood while the Union Army was at Nashville under General Rosencrantz. The Union Army was victorious cutting the Southern Army almost to pieces. Uncle Jordan was killed in this battle and buried on the battlefield by his friends in a place they marked. They afterwards told Grandpa and he had his friends in Tennessee remove the body to a private cemetery.
While Grandpa's sympathies were all with the South, he often said it was a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight. The poor men who never had slaves had to fight for the rich men so they could keep the slaves."
From Sue Holt 10 Jan 2004
I am not surprised that Elijah wouldn't sell to his brother (The land JM Holt gave to his sons for not drinking was bought by AJ Holt, except for Elijah's land). I think Elijah was very hard to get along with. He seemed to alienate others with his brusque manner. Steve said he was afraid of him when he was little because he was so strict. No children could speak during a meal, etc. Also the fact that he was a minister with 13 children and none of them went to his church says something, too, doesn’t it? Steve’s father, Addison was very anti church and we always thought it was because his father was so domineering.
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