The Holt House

    “The Holt House” is fast becoming a well-known phrase among Gilmer Countians. The house, on the corner of Main and Morris streets, had for the past twenty years been the site of the Gilmer County Senior Center.  After the Seniors moved into their new building, the vacated property was leased by the Gilmer County Commission to the Gilmer County Historical Society for $1 a year.

    The new History Center moved from a dream in the mind of Hunter Armentrout, long-term Historical Society president, to a developing reality through the work of U.S. Senator Alan B. Mollohan, whose mother had been a Holt, living in the house built by her grandfather in 1903.  Helen Holt Mollohan’s family is traced back to an ancestor who left England for Virginia in 1620.

    Randall Holt was born about 1606 and arrived in this country on the ship George in 1621. He was apprenticed to Dr. John Pott, the only physician in the Virginia colony and who later became governor.  There is a likelihood that Holt and Pott were related.

    Records then skip to John William Holt, born in Surry, Virginia in 1769. John was a shoemaker by trade and a strict Methodist. He married Susanna Coburn in Springfield, Pennsylvania on March 6, 1797 and died there September 17, 1822.  John W. and Susanna had ten children.

    John Fletcher Wesley Holt, the seventh child, was born in Harrison County, Virginia, February 18, 1809. His first marriage was to Rebecca Bennett, also of Harrison County.  In the early 1830’s John and his four brothers settled in Weston, Virginia (now West Virginia). Rebecca died shortly after the birth of their seventh child in 1849. John Fletcher, known henceforth as Fletcher, married Elizabeth McKisic of Lewis County about 1853.

    Fletcher moved from Weston to Gilmer County about 1845 and was a member of the first County Court when Gilmer County was formed from Lewis County.  He settled at what is now Holt’s Run and moved his family to Glenville when the Court was moved there.  He built the home we now know as the Holt House.  He and his brother Matthew had stores along the Little Kanawha River.  His political activity is further documented in the Gilmer County History book. He died December 4, 1882.

    Abraham Lincoln Holt was the youngest child of Fletcher and Elizabeth, born in Gilmer County June 1, 1861. “Link,” as he was known, was a lawyer, Methodist, Mason, and involved in Republican politics.  He married Cora Edna Shock December 5, 1900.  They had four children; he died March 14, 1924.

    Helen Marguerite Holt, the youngest child of “Link” and Cora Holt, was born June 27, 1913, in Gilmer County. She married Robert H. Mollohan April 28, 1931.  They had three children, the youngest of whom is Senator Alan B. Mollohan, benefactor of the Historical Societies of Gilmer and Calhoun counties.  Senator Mollohan married Barbara Whiting of Glenville August 15, 1976, and they have five children.

    Public service of the West Virginia Holts reaches into the history books studied in school and enriches the counties with which they are connected.

            For more information about local history, call 462-4295.