U.S. Data Repository http://www.us-data.org/ -- USGenNet Inc. -- Please read the U.S. Data Repository Copyright Statement on the following page: ------------------------------------------------------------------- Holden, Floyd Triplett (1869-1956) ------------------------------------------------------------------- The History of Barbour County, West Virginia, From its Earliest Exploration and Settlement to the Present Time by Hu Maxwell The Acme Publishing Company, Morgantown, W.Va., 1899 Pages 401-402 Floyd Triplett Holden, born 1869, on Beech Lick of Elk Creek, son of John Benton and Columbus (Chenoweth) Holden, was married June 17, 1897, at Philippi, to Harriet Columbia, daughter of Nathan Harmon and Mary Ellen (Jarvis) Taft. He is a member of the Baptist Church, is a Mason, Knight of Pythias and a Democrat. He is a teacher, residing at Philippi, and was educated at the Fairmont Normal School and at the Conference Seminary at Buckhannon. The name in the Norse language was Olden, and the family came from Normandy to England about the time of William the Conqueror (1066.) They were possessed of property, and well to do for six hundred years, when they met financial reverses and came to America, where Benjamin settled in New Jersey and became the ancestor of the Holdens in West Virginia, and probably of those in the West also. He had three sons, Alexander, Benjamin and one whose name is lost. The two sons were American soldiers in the Revolutionary War, and subsequently moved to Ohio, where Alexander served in the legislature and in other offices. Later the brothers returned to West Virginia and bought and inherited land in Harrison and Barbour Counties. Benjamin's descendants live in Harrison County. Alexander had three sons and one daughter. The eldest was John Chamberlain Holden, born 1791, and a soldier under General Harrison in the War of 1812. In 1813 he married, and in 1815, settled on a farm of 730 acres on Beech Lick, Isaac's Run and Elk. He had two children by his first wife who died soon after, and in 1819 he married Prudence Kittle, of Randolph County, and to them were born fifteen children, one of whom was John Benton, born in 1841, who was in the Confederate army. On February 3, 1869, he married Columbia Chenoweth and they had three sons, the youngest dying in childhood. The second son, William L., born 1873, married Ella Findley, October 21, 1894, and two children were born to them, Otto F. and Stella E. The mother of these children died 1898. William L. afterwards married Ethel Schurman. The wife of John B. Holden was a daughter of Newton Chenoweth, and granddaughter of John Chenoweth, of Hampshire County, and a Revolutionary soldier. The Chenoweths are of a very ancient family of Welsh origin. The name was originally Trevelisich; but one of them having built Chenouth Castle, the family took the name of the castle. The family settled in Maryland very early, and one branch intermarried with the family of Lord Baltimore, and another with the Cromwells, thereby becoming related with the great Oliver. The Holdens, now wide-spread, have always been men of prominence and culture, filling chairs in educational institutions, seats in the legislative bodies, and pulpits in churches. They have usually been Baptists, and seven of Benjamin Holden's descendants have been preachers of that denomination, among them being Rev. L. W. Holden, Rev. Alexander Holden and Rev. Charles Horace Holden still living. ------------------------------------------------------------------- DEATH-CERTIFICATE, Barbour County WV #3 Full-name: Floyd Triplett Holden Birth: Dec 15, 1869 in Barbour County, WV Death: Jan 15, 1956 in Broaddus Hosp., Philippi, Barbour County, WV Marital-status: Married Occupation: Dr. English, School Father: John B. Holden Mother: Columbia Chenoweth Informant: Mrs. Gladys Porter Holden Cause-of-death: Arteriosclorotic Heart Disease Burial: Masonic ------------------------------------------------------------------- If you've reached this file through a SEARCH, you can access other biographies for Barbour County, WV by going to the following URL: http://www.us-data.org/wv/barbour/bios.html -------------------------------------------------------------------