Retired Spencerport HS English teacher, Steve Clarke, has spent much of his retirement working on the family history and genealogy for his own family and for his wife Mary’s, also a Spencerport retiree. Clarke just published his fifth volume of family lore, The Reverend Sylvanus Holly: His Ancestors and Descendants. This work is a study of the first ten generations of Mary’s family in North America starting in England in 1593 and continuing through to the middle of the 20th century to conclude with her parents’ generation. Subsequent generations are not included as too many of them are still living and problems with identity theft are a concern.
The work considers the lives of 261 ancestors and descendants of the Rev. Sylvanus Holly (1760-1820) and fills 300 pages that include extensive documentation, 96 illustrations of various types and an every name index of 1151 people.
Two of the Rev. Holly’s sons were asked by their father to change the surname to Hawley – Mary’s line – which they did. Their siblings continued to use Holly except for one who liked Holley better. The village of Holley is named for Myron Holley of Erie Canal fame who is one of Mary’s cousins. Another cousin is Birdsall Holly whose huge manufacturing plant in Lockport produced, amongst many other things, all the equipment necessary for a pressurized fire-fighting systems including pumps and hydrants. The basic ideas Holly invented are still in use. Mary’s own line involved three generations who worked for the Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh Railway in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Mary’s great-grandfather, John S. Hawley, started the “Peapicker Excursions” to transport people to Rochester by train from all along the Genesee Valley. The name “Peapicker Excusions” refers to Hawley’s method for rewarding the men, women and children who worked for him to harvest the many acres of green peas he planted annually. The excursions ran for about 40 years until WWI and the advent of inexpensive automobiles ended them.
Clarke’s other works of genealogy include two monographs recounting the military service exploits of two uncles. One, Michael O’Brien, served in the Spanish American War, the Philippines Insurrection, the Boxer Rebellion and World War I on the Western Front. O’Brien was wounded on the way into Beijing where, curiously enough, he was going to help rescue some American missionaries who included cousins of Mary’s who were trapped there. The other monograph deals with his uncle Paul Grieb’s service in WWII after he went ashore at Normandy and fought his way across Europe to Prague, Czechoslovakia. There are also two books, one about his ancestors’ service in the Revolutionary War, War of 1812 and Civil War, and a study of his mother’s German, Swiss and Irish immigrant families. All of them are fully illustrated and documented. Clarke shares his work with his family and donates copies to major genealogical research libraries and societies.
The Clarkes have a daughter who is a librarian for the Rochester City Library System.
Provided information
