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In 1716, Edward Holyoke was ordained as the first minister of the newly formed Second Congregational Church. The following year, on August 8, he married Elizabeth Browne of Marblehead. On June 22, 1718, their first child was born. Named Elizabeth, she lived only nine days and four hours.
On May 31, 1719, Mrs. Holyoke gave birth to another child, who also was named Elizabeth. Just eleven weeks later, on August 15, the mother died. The child died sixteen and a half months later, on January 2, 1720/1721.
In 1725, Reverend Edward Holyoke married Margaret Appleton of Ipswich. They had eight children, including six children, between 1726 and 1735, whose names were recorded in the records of Marblehead. Their second child, born on August 1, 1728, was given the name Edward Augustus. He graduated Harvard College in 1746, moved to Salem, and went on to a very distinguished career in medicine, becoming the first president of the Massachusetts Medical Society and also president of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He died in Salem on March 31, 1829, at the age of 100 years and seven months.
The Reverend Edward Holyoke remained minister of the Second Congregational Church for twenty-one years. In 1737, he resigned his pastorate in order to become the ninth president of Harvard College, a position he held for thirty-two years, from September 28, 1737 until his death on June 1, 1769. |
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| Old Burial Hill has three headstones and two footstones bearing the name Elizabeth Holyoke. One headstone is for the mother and the other two are for her daughters. |
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This photo shows four headstones in the front row. The larger stone on the right is the one for John Legg (1718). After a small gap is the stone for Capn. John Browne (1707), the one for Mrs. Elizabeth Holyoke (1719), and the headstone for the boy John Browne (1702/1703).
Two stones, easily missed, are partly embedded in the tree located a couple feet behind the front of the row. On the right is a small footstone for Capn. John Browne. On the left is the headstone for the second Holyoke daughter, Elizabeth Holyoke (1720/1721). Part of its inscription is below ground.
A few feet further back, just before the tall white marble stones of the next row, are four small stones. The gray stone on the right is a footstone for John Browne. Next is a footstone bearing the name Elizabeth Holyoke, and then a footstone for Mrs. Elizabeth Holyoke. The last stone, on the left, faces east. It's the headstone for the first Holyoke daughter, Elizabeth Holyoke (1718). |
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