Myron Holley: Canal Builder / Abolitionist / Unsung Hero

228 pp. Holley, Myron (29 April 1779 - 04 March 1841), abolitionist, was born in Salisbury, Connecticut, the son of Luther Holley and Sarah Dakin, farmers. Holley graduated from Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, in 1799 and then studied for the bar under Chancellor James Kent, in Cooperstown, New York. He began the practice of law in Salisbury, Connecticut, in 1802. The following year, having discovered that he disliked the legal profession, Holley became a bookseller in Canandaigua, New York. In 1804 he married Sally House in Canandaigua; they had twelve children. His daughter Sallie Holley later won fame as an abolitionist and then as an educator of freed slaves. After serving as county clerk (1810 - 1814), Holley was elected to the New York General Assembly in 1816. He became a strong proponent of the construction of the Erie Canal and served on the board of commissioners overseeing the project (1816 - 1824). As treasurer of the board, Holley administered over $2.5 million in expenditures but resigned in 1824 after disclosure of a $30,000 deficiency in his accounts. Although later exonerated of any criminal misappropriation, Holley reimbursed the state from his personal finances. After his resignation, he retired from politics to operate a farm near Lyons, New York. In the late 1820s, Holley became a leader of the state's anti-Masonic movement, authoring the address of the party's only national convention in Philadelphia in 1830. He edited two newspapers opposing Freemasonry: the Lyons Countryman (1831 - 1834) and the Hartford, Connecticut, Free Elector (1834 - 1835). After resettling on a farm in Carthage, near Rochester, New York, Holley publicly entered the abolitionist movement in 1838 as a traveling lecturer. The following year, he sold his farm to finance the founding of the Rochester Freeman, in which he attacked both the Whig and the Democratic parties for their toleration of slavery. Holley led the movement championing the formation of an antislavery third party. His first proposal that abolitionists nominate their own slate of candidates was rejected at a special convention called by the American Anti-Slavery Society at Cleveland in 1839. Despite the opposition of many abolitionists, including the followers of William Lloyd Garrison, Holley became the foremost promoter of abolitionist political action. In the winter of 1840 he argued that "in our judgment, the anti-slavery electors of the United States are bound, by all their regard to civil and religious rights of the great American people, forthwith to form themselves into an independent political party." In April 1840 Holley helped convene at Albany, New York, a national abolitionist gathering, which ratified his motion to found the Liberty party and nominated James G. Birney for president. Holley continued to edit the Freeman and make speeches on behalf of the Liberty party until his death at Rochester. When Garrison learned of the passing of his abolitionist adversary, he praised Holley: "As a writer, he had few superiors in any country; and he always conducted his controversies with dignity and candor." - American National Biography