Printing company owner who died unexpectedly began work for old Ellijay Courier at age 11
Vernon Holt always wanted to get into the old tool chest that had been sitting in the barn on his grandfather’s farm. His uncle, Raymond Holt, had given him the chest in the early 1990s, not long after Vernon, 94, and his wife, Billie, moved onto the estate originally owned by Jasper Loprenzo Holt.
“He wanted the boys to bring the tool chest to the porch so he could clean it up and take a look at it,” Vernon’s daughter, Rebecca Holt Amerson, said of her brother, Richard, and her son, Ben. “I had never even known about the box. So here it comes, and we begin to clean it up and find the story of the chest itself. Inside the chest on the lid, there was Sylvester Holt’s signature. So who was Sylvester Holt?”
Rebecca shared that since the pandemic hit last year, she and Richard have been researching their genealogy.
“Family history is very important to our family,” she said. “Dad and mom were always trying to put the puzzle pieces together. Especially when I found out Sylvester had no children to keep his story alive, I felt compelled to tell somebody his story.”
The search was on.
A big fire
The Holt family property is located in Cartecay — formerly known as Pike — but the person of Sylvester Holt proved more of a mystery. It was known that Raymond Holt was the youngest child of Jasper Lorenzo Holt, the brother to Vernon’s father, Vernie. Jasper was born in 1845, according to The Annals of Upper Georgia Centered in Gilmer County. Jasper’s father, Ausborn (spelled Osborn in The Annals), was the son of Larkin Holt, one of Gilmer County’s first families.
“We began to figure out who he was,” Rebecca said of Sylvester. “Dad’s grandfather (Jasper) had three wives, so Dad’s father was by the third wife, his grandmother. But Sylvester’s father, Horace Holt, was by one of the other wives.”
Through research, Rebecca and Richard received a message from a Holt ancestor, a cousin named Janet Mulkey, in Texas, who is a relative of Sylvester’s mother, Norah Mulkey Holt.
“She has an old post card with Sylvester Holt’s picture on it,” Rebecca said. “I can’t remember if she posted it on a historical (Facebook) page or sent it to Richard, but that connected with the tool chest. We had never heard the name Sylvester Holt ever until we found it in the tool chest.
“When I saw The Courier (newspaper) mentioned on the post card, I thought, ‘Well, just let me do some more looking.’ That’s when I started doing the ancestry family search sort of thing on Sylvester, and realized he never had children.”
Armed with the subscription she already had to Newspapers.com, Rebecca found Sylvester’s obituary.
“It said he owned a printing company and started out in the printing business at age 11,” she noted of the obit. “I thought that was a cool story; he started as a child, I’m sure, at the newspaper in Ellijay. His family moved to Atlanta, and he was also in World War I. I just found out those little bits of information.”
Rebecca had already read about the history of the Ellijay newspapers, and how they consolidated in 1916 to become the Times-Courier.
“It was interesting, but I figured there were no old records from the paper that would have showed him working there,” she said. “(Sylvester) also mentioned a big fire in the post card (dated Nov. 13, 1912).”
Sylvester wrote in the post card to his cousin, Miss May Mulkey, in Paluxy, Texas: “I guess you have heard about the big fire that was in Ellijay. It burned 23 houses and barns. We are living in Blue Ridge, but I am staying here and in the Courier office; will send you all the paper so you can read about the fire.”
An entry in The Annals of Upper Georgia Centered in Gilmer County for 1912 notes, “On Nov. 8, a very destructive fire again visits Ellijay, consuming 23 houses with a loss of $50,000. A costly incident that aroused the people of Ellijay fully and finally to the need for waterworks. Rebuilding of the city began promptly. The new designs for the individual houses, as well as the whole city was to render such fires less likely.”
Times-Courier archived issues go back to 1968 in the office on River Street; past editions of the newspaper in the courthouse go back to 1942, according to Clerk of Court Amy Johnson.
“Could he have been a typesetter or even a paperboy?” Rebecca wonders.
She knows Jasper Holt was the postmaster for the old community of Pike, and has learned Sylvester’s cousin in Texas who received the postcard, May Mulkey, likely had Gilmer County roots.
“I believe the Mulkeys were another Gilmer County family,” Rebecca said. “It just began to all fall into place. Richard and I have been trying to make sure our family members in the past have Find A Grave pages (on findagrave.com).”
‘Knew what he wanted to do’
They’ve found their research rewarding, yet also tinged with sadness.
“It is evident that Herbert Sylvester Holt’s life work as a printer began at the Ellijay Courier at the turn of the century,” Rebecca said. “The Ellijay Courier and the Ellijay Times would have merged just as he was headed into the Navy and World War I. By the time he came home, his family was preparing to move to Atlanta. He was able to continue working as a printer and finally to own his own printing company until his death.”
She said the life of Sylvester “shows the impact the Ellijay Courier had on a little boy once upon a time. I don’t think he had children of his own to pass along this history, but maybe we could share it with the community where he grew up.”
She called Sylvester “a man who always knew what he wanted to do, and did it.”
“Then he died early with no children, so that was kind of a sad ending,” she said. “But it was fun (seeing) how the story started to piece itself together, starting with cleaning out this old tool chest.”
A Sylvester Holt career timeline
Sylvester Holt’s obituary in 1949, published in The Atlanta Constitution, says that as the founder and president of Holt Printing Company, “(he) began his printing career at only 11 years old.”
A cousin shared a photo post card dated 1912 that indicated Sylvester was working at the Courier when a big fire blazed through Ellijay that evidently burned down his own home. “He was so handsome and would have been about 20,” said Rebecca Holt Amerson.
His World War 1 service card states he served in the U.S. Navy in 1917-18 aboard the battleship USS Delaware. When America entered the war, the Delaware deployed to the North Sea late in 1917. The ship served with the British Grand Fleet in the U.S. Sixth Battle Squadron from then until late July 1918, when she left for home.
The 1920 Fulton County Census records his family had moved to Fulton County. Sylvester is single and listed as a printer.
The 1925 Atlanta City Directory lists his wife, Ruth, and his occupation as a printer.
His obituary also states he “died unexpectedly” at age 54 while living in the Grant Park community of Atlanta. He was the founder and president of Holt Printing Company.
Source: Rebecca Holt Amerson & Richard Holt research