Taylor County, West Virginia Biography of HOWARD HARWOOD HOLT This biography was submitted by Valerie Crook, E-mail address: ********************************************** ***The submitter does not have a connection*** ********to the subject of this sketch.******** ********************************************** This file may be freely copied by individuals and non-profit organizations for their private use. All other rights reserved. Any other use, including publication, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission by electronic, mechanical, or other means requires the written approval of the file's author. This file is part of the WVGenWeb Archives. If you arrived here inside a frame or from a link from somewhere else, our front door is at http://www.usgwarchives.net/wv/wvfiles.htm The History of West Virginia, Old and New Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, Volume II, pg. 585-586 Taylor HOWARD HARWOOD HOLT is editor, owner and publisher of the Grafton Sentinel, one of the oldest and most influential newspapers in the state. Practically from the beginning and through its early destiny the chief figure in its management and editorial policy was the late James W. Holt, father of the present owner. The Holt family has been in Virginia, Pennsylvania and West Virginia for a number of generations. John W. Holt, a native of Virginia, was an early shoemaker in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, later a farmer there. His son, James W. Holt, moved to Lewis County, West Virginia, and followed farming. His son, Alfred T. Holt, was born in Pennsylvania and after his marriage settled at Kingwood in Preston County. He was a farmer and one of the highly respected citizens of his locality. He died at Grafton in 1902. His wife, Maria A. Stone, was born in Virginia, in Culpeper County, but from early childhood was reared at Kingwood. She died in 1877, the mother of tour children: James W.; Keturah, who mar- ried Joseph N. Brown; Katherine, who married Scott Garner; and the late Judge John Homer Holt of Grafton, whose career ia briefly sketched elsewhere. James W. Holt, who died in January, 1918, when in his sixty-ninth year, was for more than forty years connected with the Grafton Sentinel and retained an interest in the paper until his death. He was born at Kingwood February 14, 1849, was educated in the old Kingwood Academy and he and former Governor William M. Dawson as boys together learned the printing trade in the office of the Preston County Journal at Kingwood. He was not twenty years of age when he was called to Grafton at the request of John W. Mason, Ambrose Snively, Samuel McCormick and others, who owned and were attempting to publish a newspaper in Taylor County, then strongly democratic, and thus the young printer took charge of this enterprise as editor and publisher and within a year purchased the plant. In a sense the Grafton Sentinel is the result of the merging of several old weekly papers of Taylor County. The publication for several years was known as the Eagle-Sentinel, but for half a century it has been the Grafton Sentinel. It was James W. Holt's connection with the struggling effort that made it a final success and incidentally had something to do with changing the politics of the county. James W. Holt held a position in the revenue service in the early '80s, was elected mayor of West Grafton in 1885, and under Harrison's administra- tion he was postmaster of Grafton until 1894. For several terms he was a member of the School Board and for one term its president. He was an active Lutheran, interested in Sunday School work, was a Mason and a member of the Uniform Bank, Knights of Pythias, and for one year colonel of the Rank in the state. In May, 1873, in Taylor County James W. Holt married Anna Jordan, daughter of John Jordan, who was a pioneer of Grafton, in the service of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company. Mrs. Anna Holt died in 1896. For his second wife James W. Holt married Florence Stemple, member of a prominent old family near Aurora in Preston County. She is still living. By his first marriage James W. Holt had the following children: John A., of Gage, Oklahoma; Alfred A., a Grafton druggist; William A., of Elsworth, Kansas; Howard H.; Lillian, wife of W. E. Rightmire, of Grafton; and Cather- ine, who was married to Frank W. Shrewsbury, of Mont- gomery, West Virginia, but died the same week as her father, leaving a son, David Thompson Shrewsbury. Howard Harwood Holt was born at West Grafton Sep- tember 13, 1883, and he practically grew up in the atmosphere of a printing office. He attended the Grafton High School three years and took freshman work in the University of West Virginia. During 1903 he engaged in a subscription canvass for the Grafton Daily Sentinel, and then entered the Iron City Business College at Pittsburgh, finishing a short- hand course. On returning home he was appointed official court stenographer by his uncle, the late Judge John H. Holt, who presided over the old Third Judicial Circuit, then the largest circuit in the state, comprising the counties of Tucker, Randolph, Barbour, Taylor and Preston. He continued his service with Judge Holt until 1907, when he resigned and entered the law department of the State University. He completed his course in 1909. While engaged in his work as a law student he served as court stenographer in Monon- galia County for Judge John W. Mason and also did similar work in the Federal Court. After his admission to the bar for a few months only he practiced in the office with A. W. Burdett. In the spring of 1910 he was offered and accepted a place as assistant secretary to Stephen B. Elkins, then United States senator from West Virginia, and he remained a member of the Senator's official staff until his death. Soon after returning to Grafton Mr. Holt took up some matters in connection with the Sentinel office, although at that time he had no particular aspirations for a career as a newspaper man, but as a result of circumstances he became manager of the business, and later he bought the Sentinel, acquiring the controlling interest in the plant in 1911. Since then he has become owner of all the stock. The Grafton Sentinel Publishing Company was incorporated in 1907, and while the corporation has since been dissolved the plant continues under the old name. The Grafton Sentinel has for a number of years been both a daily and weekly paper. The weekly Sentinel has been published continuously since 1869 by the Holts, father and son. A newspaper man is almost ex-officio a public servant and leader in church affairs. During the period of the World war Mr. Holt was one of the "four-minute men," and devoted much of his time and a large amount of the space in the columns of the Sentinel to promoting war sentiments and the measures of the Government. He has been very active in politics, and the Sentinel is generally recognized as the mouthpiece of the republican party in Taylor County. The Sentinel office is one of the modern newspaper plants of the state. Its job plant is hardly to be surpassed, and the general equipment comprises three linotype machines, a Duplex web press, cylinder job press, automatic self feeding press. The machinery is electrically equipped, current being generated in the plant. Mr. Holt is a member of the Associated Press and has been active in editorial meetings in the state and district. As a youth be joined the Lutheran Church at Grafton, and has been active both in church and Sunday School, serving on the church council for some years. Mr. Holt is affiliated with the Knights of Pythias, the Elks and the Moose, is a member of the Pi Kappa Alpha college fraternity and is a Rotarian. October 18, 1911, at Grafton, he married Alice Barber. She was born at Alliance, Ohio, daughter of Findlay and Ella (Crandon) Barber. Her maternal grandfather, James Crandon, was one of the prominent citizens of Niles, Ohio. Mrs. Holt was reared in Taylor County, West Virginia. The only child of Mr, and Mrs. Holt is James Findlay, born in 1912.