The Norweb Collection - An American Legacy

The pioneering spirit that first brought the Holdens to America in 1634 lived on in their descendants a century and a half later. Liberty Holden's grandfather left the family settlement in Massachusetts and with his wife Hannah journeyed on horseback into the Maine wilderness to the newly founded hamlet of Sweden. They lived under canvas for six weeks while Peter and his son built their first house. Peter was one of the signers to the petition for the legal separation of Sweden from Massachusetts presented to the General Court in 1819. Peter's son Liberty, our Liberty's father, was born in Sweden, Maine in 1808. By trade a farmer, timber merchant, and later a cooper, he never enjoyed the financial success that seems to have characterized most Holden undertakings. With his wife Sally, however, who was a descendant through her mother from John and Priscilla Alden, he was a firm believer in the encouragement of his children's education, and in this he showed true Holden character. After much traveling about the state in search of fresh timber stands for his business, he finally settled on a farm in Raymond, Maine, a small town on the north side of Sebago Lake equidistant from Portland and Lewiston. There, on June 20, 1833, Sally gave birth to the couple's first son, whom they named Liberty Emery Holden.

Liberty Holden's Early Life

Liberty was a serious child, one who took to heart the lessons he learned from his books and the stories of his ancestors he heard from his family. He was an avid reader, soon exhausting his father's and mother's library. He moved on to the local church's and district school's libraries, which he also quickly ran through. One of the most influential books on his later development was Benjamin Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanack. Much later in life, Liberty underwrote the production of a specially printed limited edition of Franklin's Autobiography. In the introduction to the edition, published for the Rowfant Club in 1898, Liberty acknowledged the debt he owed to Franklin in these words: "In the days of my youth, when I was forming, thy spirit was over me and thy words of wisdom were with me. Thou didst say the best that man ever said on thrift, economy, integrity, and industry:' The "biblical" ring to the words he chose can only have been deliberate and served to underscore even more the debt he felt he owed to Franklin, the father of 19th-century American laissez faire capitalism.

Before all else Liberty was, and remained all his life, an ardent patriot. The stories he heard from his great-grandmother, about her husband's service during the Revolution, set Liberty's love for his country and its ideals. His own academic and business success confirmed his belief in the promise of America as a land where the values extolled by Franklin: thrift, industry, economy, and integrity, if faithfully practiced, would inevitably lead to success in any undertaking. His life story is a classic example of mid 19th-century business success, and its broad outlines could serve as the structure for any similar biography. It is, in effect, a typical Horatio Alger story of the young farm boy heeding the call and challenge of success, as we shall see, and making good as a result.

His studious nature and love of learning marked Liberty for a career as a teacher. His parents encouraged his schooling beyond what would have been usual for a farm boy. After completing the local district school's curriculum, Liberty was sent to a preparatory school 75 miles away from home, in Bethel, Maine. By the age of 16 he had qualified as a teacher in the local public schools; two years later he was teaching in "select schools" near Raymond.By the age of 20 Liberty had relocated southward and had become a teacher in several district schools in Massachusetts. He put off entering college until he was 21, preferring to wait until he had saved enough money from his teaching salary to pay for college himself. In 1855 he entered Waterville College (now Colby College), in Maine, where he began his study of English literature and rhetoric.