Born: Oc­to­ber 15, 1762, Box­ford, Mass­a­chu­setts.

Died: Feb­ru­a­ry 7, 1820, Con­cord, New Hamp­shire.

Holyoke came from a fam­i­ly dis­ting­uished by serv­ice. His ma­ter­nal grand­fa­ther was Oliver Pea­bo­dy, min­is­ter to the Na­tick In­di­ans. His pa­ter­nal un­cle was Ed­ward Ho­ly­oke, pres­i­dent of Har­vard. His fa­ther served at the Con­gre­ga­tion­al Church in Box­ford for al­most 50 years.

Holyoke grad­u­at­ed from Har­vard, then taught sing­ing through­out New Eng­land. He par­ti­ci­pat­ed in con­certs of the Es­sex Mu­si­cal As­so­ci­a­tion, and wrote a number of re­li­gious and sec­u­lar tunes. For the fun­er­al of Amer­i­can pres­i­dent George Wash­ing­ton, Ho­ly­oke wrote tunes for two hymns by Isaac Watts. His other works in­clude:

• Harmonia Amer­i­ca­na (Bos­ton, Mass­a­chu­setts: 1791)
• The Mass­a­chu­setts Com­pil­er, with Hans Gram & Ol­iv­er Hold­en (Bos­ton, Mass­a­chu­setts: 1795)
• The Co­lum­b­ian Re­po­si­to­ry of Sac­red Har­mo­ny, 1802
• Christ­ian Har­mo­nist (Sa­lem, Mass­a­chu­setts: 1804)
• Vocal Com­pan­ion
• Instrumental As­sist­ant

Sources

Music

1. Arnheim
2. Hingham