Ezekiel Holmes Collection

Ezekiel Holmes was born in 1801 in Kingston, Massachusetts. He graduated from Brown University in the class of 1821 and received his M.D. at Bowdoin College in 1824. Though he continued to practice his profession in a small way throughout most of his life, his main interests were those of a naturalist and an agriculturalist. In 1825 he was appointed instructor in agriculture at the Gardiner Lyceum. In 1829 he was elected principal after the resignation of Dr. Benjamin Hale and served until the failure of the Lyceum from lack of adequate support in 1832. In 1832 he established his permanent home in Winthrop, Maine. From 1833 to 1837 he held the post of lecturer on chemistry, mineralogy, geology, and botany in Waterville (later Colby) College. On Jan. 21, 1833 as editor, he issued the first number of the Kennebec Farmer and Journal of the Useful Arts, soon renamed the Maine Farmer and Journal of the Useful Arts. He was influential in establishing a state Board of Agriculture and was its secretary from 1852 to 1855. He helped found the Maine State Agricultural Society in 1855 and was its secretary until his death. The last two years of his life were devoted to leading the struggle to persuade the Maine state legislature to use the funds which would accrue from the Morrill Act of 1862 for the creation of a separate college devoted to agriculture and the mechanic arts rather than turn the money over to any of the existing institutions. He died in 1865 just as his efforts were being crowned with success. He was, therefore, one of the founders of the University of Maine.