Myron Holley (April 29, 1779

Salisbury Salisbury ( ) is a cathedral city in Wiltshire, England with a population of 41,820, at the confluence of the rivers Avon, Nadder and Bourne. The city is approximately from Southampton and from Bath. Salisbury is in the southeast of Wil ...

Litchfield County, Connecticut Litchfield County is in northwestern Connecticut. As of the 2020 census, the population was 185,186. The county was named after Lichfield, in England. Litchfield County has the lowest population density of any county in Connecticut and is the ...

– March 4, 1841

Rochester Rochester may refer to: Places Australia * Rochester, Victoria Canada * Rochester, Alberta United Kingdom *Rochester, Kent ** City of Rochester-upon-Medway (1982–1998), district council area ** History of Rochester, Kent ** HM Prison ...

Monroe County, New York Monroe County is a county in the Finger Lakes region of the State of New York. The county is along Lake Ontario's southern shore. At the 2020 census, Monroe County's population was 759,443, an increase since the 2010 census. Its county seat an ...

) was an American politician who had a large part in the construction of the

Erie Canal The Erie Canal is a historic canal in upstate New York that runs east-west between the Hudson River and Lake Erie. Completed in 1825, the canal was the first navigable waterway connecting the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes, vastly reducing t ...

Life

Holley was the son of Luther Holley (1752–1824) and Sarah Dakin Holley (1755–1830). He graduated in 1799 from

Williams College Williams College is a Private college, private liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Williamstown, Massachusetts. It was established as a men's college in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim Williams, a col ...

. He was a member from Ontario County of the

New York State Assembly The New York State Assembly is the lower house of the New York State Legislature, with the New York State Senate being the upper house. There are 150 seats in the Assembly. Assembly members serve two-year terms without term limits. The Assem ...

in 1816 and 1820-21. He worked with

DeWitt Clinton DeWitt Clinton (March 2, 1769February 11, 1828) was an American politician and naturalist. He served as a United States senator, as the mayor of New York City, and as the seventh governor of New York. In this last capacity, he was largely res ...

to convince the State Legislature to finance the construction of the

. He was among the

Erie Canal Commission The Commission to Explore a Route for a Canal to Lake Erie and Report, known as the Erie Canal Commission, was a body created by the New York State Legislature in 1810 to plan the Erie Canal. In 1817 a ''Canal Fund'' led by ''Commissioners of the C ...

ers appointed in 1816 to supervise the construction and was chosen Treasurer of the Canal Commission. He oversaw the construction of the canal in-person living with the workers for eight years. In 1822, he built the Old Stone Warehouse at

on speculation. In 1824, an audit revealed a shortage of about $30,000 in the canal funds, and Holley resigned on March 30, giving his personal property to make good for part of the shortage. Holley died a pauper in

Rochester, New York Rochester () is a City (New York), city in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, the county seat, seat of Monroe County, New York, Monroe County, and the fourth-most populous in the state after New York City, Buffalo, New York, Buffalo, ...

and was buried in Mount Hope Cemetery. His monument there was paid for by members of the Liberty Party which he likely conceived and had co-founded with John Greenleaf Whittier and others. Holley was a descendant of astronomer

Edmund Halley Edmond (or Edmund) Halley (; – ) was an English astronomer, mathematician and physicist. He was the second Astronomer Royal in Britain, succeeding John Flamsteed in 1720. From an observatory he constructed on Saint Helena in 1676–77, Ha ...

. Orville L. Holley, Horace Holley, and John Milton Holley were his brothers. The village of

Holley, New York Holley is a village in the town of Murray in Orleans County, New York, United States. The population was 1,811 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Rochester Metropolitan Statistical Area. History The village of Holley was incorporated in 1850 ...

is named after him.HOLLEY COMMUNITY PROFILE
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Notes

Sources

* (gives birthdate April 20, but on the stone is written April 29)
''The New York Civil List''
compiled by Franklin Benjamin Hough (pages 40 and 281; Weed, Parsons and Co., 1858)
''Laws of the State of New York, in Relation to the Erie and Champlain Canals: Together with the Annual Reports of the Canal Commission Ers, and Other Documents Requisite for a Complete Official History of Those Works etc.''
published by the Secretary of State's Office, New York (State) (E. and E. Hosford, printers, 1825) with the Attorney General's Report on the question if Holley's sureties had liability to refund the State for the remainder of the shortage, with an outline of Holley's chaotic financial proceedings {{DEFAULTSORT:Holley, Myron 1779 births 1841 deaths Burials at Mount Hope Cemetery (Rochester) People from Salisbury, Connecticut People from Ontario County, New York Politicians from Rochester, New York Members of the New York State Assembly Williams College alumni Erie Canal Commissioners New York (state) Libertyites Activists from Rochester, New York