Introduction

Biography

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.

From around 1800 he was liv­ing in Sa­lem, Mas­sa­chu­setts, where he led an In­stru­ment­al Club in 1805, and gave cho­ral con­certs 1808–09.

Works

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