“Step” is the theme for Week 16 of the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge.
In 1874 when my great-great grandfather Eugene Jenness Ladd was nine years old, his father died. His mother, Hannah Margaret (Rand) Ladd, remarried sometime before 1880, though she knew her second husband long before that. When Hannah applied to the courts to be guardian over young Eugene’s estate two months after her husband’s death, Joshua Holland offered $2,000 in sureties should she fail to carry out her guardianship duties. Typically, only family or close friends signed legal documents in that capacity.
Joshua Holland was born in Leeds, England around 1812. He and his family arrived in Boston in 1825, and Joshua eventually settled in Limerick, York County, Maine, where he opened a prosperous woolen mill in 1857 that employed much of the small town. The lower part of Limerick where factory housing was established for the workers was even called “Hollandville” at one time. Holland blankets became famous throughout the country when the Army purchased them for thousands of soldiers during the Civil War.
He had seven children with his first wife, Mary Dorre, before she passed away in 1872. It’s unclear how he and Hannah Margaret met. Joshua was an active member of the town’s Congregational Church, while Hannah Margaret moved to Limerick so her first husband, Enoch Place Ladd, could take the job of minister at the Freewill Baptist Church. Some newspaper articles from that time mention the two churches gathering together socially. Perhaps they met at one such event.
We have no way of knowing what type of a relationship Eugene had with his stepfamily, but there are indications he was on good terms with them. Joshua was old enough to be his grandfather, and many of his step-siblings were closer to his mother’s age than to his (the eldest son, Henry Holland, was actually the same age as Hannah Margaret). The step-sibling closest to his age was Mary, who was 11 years older than Eugene. After Eugene moved to Westbrook, the newspaper’s social column mentioned a few visits from Mary. Joshua left him $200 in his will, which was the same amount he left to the only grandchild mentioned in it, as well as one of his sons.
Joshua Holland passed away at home from endocarditis on May 22, 1896, at the age of 83. He is buried at Highland Cemetery in Limerick, York County, Maine.
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