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Josiah
Gilbert Holland: (24 July, 1819 - October 12, 1881) was the son of John and
Judith Holland, He was born in Belchertown, Massachusetts. His father had
difficulty finding work so Josiah’s early life was nomadic with little
schooling. Some of Josiah’s early occupations include; teaching
penmanship, copyist, district school teaching, and daguerreotypy.
Researchers into Emily Dickinson’s life mention a close relationship between her and Josiah and suggest if might have started when Josiah was an itinerant daguerreotype operator.
However, by 1844, Josiah Holland’s fortunes had improved and he graduated from the Berkshire Medical College with honors and set up practice in Springfield with Charles Robinson (1818-1894), who later became the first governor of the state of Kansas.
In 1845, Doctor Holland married Miss Elizabeth Luna Chapin (1823- ), of Springfield. There were three children Annie (1845), Kate (1853), and Theodore (1859)
Disenchanted with medicine Holland founded the Bay State Weekly Courier which failed after 6 months so he moved to Richmond, Virginia, became a teacher and later a superintendent of public schools.
In 1849 Holland returned to Springfield as assistant editor of the Republican. He later became one of its owners. In 1870 he moved to New York and cofounded Scribner’s Monthly
His books fall into four categories
History and biography:
- History of Western Massachusetts (1855)
- Life of Abraham Lincoln (1865)
Fiction
- Miss Gilbert’s Career (1860)
- The Story of Sevenoaks (1875)
Poetry
- Bitter Sweet, a Poem in Dramatic Form (1858)
- Kathrina, Her Life and Mine (1876)
Homely essays on the art of living
- Timothy Titcomb’s Letters to Young People, Married and Single (1858)
- Gold Foil, hammered from Popular Proverbs (1859)
- Letters to the Jonses (1863)
- Every-Day Topics
Holland’s poems include: