Rev. Lovering has prepared the history of Holland, Massachusetts, covering the founding and settlement of the town, and examining several other topics. Many biographical sketches are scattered throughout, and the second half of the book presents compiled genealogies of dozens of Holland families.
The territory that became the town of Holland was originally part of Brimfield, which was established as early as 1714. Holland was set off as a separate district in 1783 and received its charter as a town in 1835. Thus, there had been European settlers in Holland for more than a century before the town charter was granted.
Rev. Lovering arranged most of the historical half of the book by topics, such as schools, churches and the like. In several of these sections, the author included biographical sketches of ministers, soldiers (including all those identified as serving in the Civil War), and physicians. After the historical section and before the genealogical section, there are biographical sketches of many more prominent residents.
A separate chapter transcribes marriages, births and deaths from the 1790s until about 1850. There are also baptisms from one of the churches. The births are arranged by families, with the result that births that occurred before the establishment of the district are included for some families.
The second half of the book, about four hundred pages, comprises compiled genealogies of more than fifty Holland families. Some of these genealogies were compiled by family members rather than by the author. Thousands of inhabitants of Holland are treated in these genealogies.
High quality scanned images of the whole of the original book. This CD has been bookmarked for easy
navigation, and pages can be searched, browsed, enlarged and printed out if required.
