Holton Family Papers

The Holton family is of Puritan ancestry, descending from William Holton, who came from Ipswich, Suffolk County, England to Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1634 and who later helped found the town of Hartford, Connecticut. According to the genealogical data compiled by Edith Holton, her family (that of Timothy S. and Ann Joslyn Holton) can, through John Willcox, be traced some fifteen generations into English history before 1600. The Holtons were brought to Vermont through Thomas Holton (1705-1800), who came from Northfield, Massachusetts to settle in Dummerston around 1771. The generations covered in the collection are those of John Willcox (1764-1839), great-grandfater of Edith, through the children of Annie Holton Wilson (West Dummerston). Letters from Timothy Spaulding Holton (1882-1899), grandson of Thomas Holton and husband of Ann Joslyn Holton (1828-1913), to his daughters Nancy Maria Holton (1851-1872) and Edith Willcox Holton (1868-?) form a major part of the collection and are sent from the New York area, where he was living, often destitute. Having left his wife's Putney farm, Timothy maintained a steady correspondence with his daughters through most of his life, a correspondence filled with personal sentiment and didactic advice, yet with more the tone of a friend than parent.