Degree Recipient

Life Experience

Richard Henry Holman was one of nine children; his oldest sister and youngest brother were born twenty years apart. His family came to Indiana for the sole purpose of liberating their slaves. Educated at Aurora Seminary and Rising Sun Seminary, he studied law under his father, Jesse Lynch Holman (famous lawyer, minister, judge, surveyor, and novelist). While Holman was a student at IU, his father received a court appointment by President Andrew Jackson, which he held for the rest of his life.

Six years after graduating from IU, Holman’s college diary was published in 1843. In it, he expressed his desire to serve God, be married, have several children, leave them an inheritance, enter politics, and be a famous writer. Held in high regard across the state, he rose to the topin the law profession in Dearborn County.

Sadly, as Theophilus Wylie (Presbyterian minister, college professor, and cousin of IU’s first president, Andrew Wylie) wrote, “by his incessant labor he brought on the disease of which he died, in the 24th year of his age.” The disease, “pulmonary consumption,” is what now is known as tuberculosis; he died two days after Christmas in 1841. Holman’s father had gone home from his own work the previous month, but never returned to the bench, dying three months later. Israel Blake wrote, “it was probably grief over the loss of this son which hastened his death.”

Interesting Anecdote

Holman’s grandfather, Henry, was killed by Native Americans in Kentucky when his father, Jesse, was a child.

Interesting Anecdote

Holman was the son of one of the founders of Franklin (Indiana) College.

References

1. Wylie

2. Findagrave.com

3. Wikipedia

4. Blake, Israel George (1943) “Jesse Lynch Holman Pioneer Hoosier,” Indiana Magazine of History March 1943 pp. 25-51

5. Hamilton, Holman (1953) An Indiana College Boy in 1836: The Diary of Richard Henry Holman (scholarworks.iu.edu)

6. Browning (1997)