Holbrook

Located in the southern part of the beautiful Eagle Creek Valley at the junction of present day Kentucky 22, then known as the Williamstown-Owen Line Turnpike and Kentucky 1993 to Mason, then known as Gouges. This community was probably named for Isaac Holbrook, who owned several tracts of land in the area. The name was confirmed when a U. S. Post Office was established in 1876, with Allen Brooks as the first postmaster. He was succeeded in 1876 by William H. Roberts who owned and operated a general store.

Other postmasters were:

The Holbrook Post Office was discontinued in 1906. In early 1900's Holbrook had two country stores. There was also a blacksmith shop operated by Louis Roland, a buggy shop, a steam powered mill for grinding wheat and corn for flour an meal. This mill was operated by Kalfus Hensley. In 1921-23 one of the country stores was jointly operated by Leslie and Amanda Poe Souder and Perry and Ethel Poe Scroggin. Later, O. N. and Pauline Roland owned one of these stores for several years. Doctor A. L. Abbott had an office here in the early years of 1915-1920's, attending to needs of families and delivering babies. Dr. Allie Agee also practiced medicine here at this time.

Some early known land owners were Nelson Poe and Steve Poe who bought land in 1879 from A. G. Gross and lived there and raised their families. Steve Poe and wife, Anna Poe, reared a family of eight in a large two-room log house until they built a new house in 1908. Nelson Poe and wife, Millie Poe, reared their family of five in a log house until they built a new house around 1908. Other land owners associated with Holbrook include Jesse Sebastian, Walter Sebastian, Sanford Rose, W. B. Rose, Kalfus Hensley, J. W. Poe, John Cook, Sonny Hutton, J. F. Higgason, Bartley Ballard, I. N. Roland, Perry McComas, and John and Lucretia McCoy.

The Holbrook School, listed in 1894 school census as District #50, was opened in 1887. The chairman of the School Trustees was R. B. Turner. The first teacher was J. F. Loomis. B. N. Roland was trustee in 1895. In later years the community was large enough for a two-room school built next to Bethany Baptist Church. This building is now used as a residence. When the school population decreased and only one room was used for school, the ladies of the area held quilting parties and pie suppers to make money for the church and school. Some names of teachers over the years after Mr. Loomis in 1887; Miss Westover 1899, Nellie Martin, Agnes Scroggin, Ella Browning, Louise Jones, Ruby Ammerman, Martha Davenport Poe, and Cariana Webster, who was teaching here when Holbrook was consolidated with Mason High School in 1933-34.

There was another school about a mile north of Holbrook on Route 22. This school, later called Green School for the family said to have given this land, was also known as the Bickers School, and was perhaps the school listed in 1894 as District #27. This building is still standing and used as a residence. A teacher in the 1930's was Georgia Henage Conrad.

Although in 1847, an attempt was made to establish a Methodist Episcopal Church South site on Rattlesnake Road, as shown by deed of an acre of land, on Nathan Stewart's line, from Thomas B. Baird and Mary Catherine Baird, to church trustees, Jesse Edward, Brazilla Edwards, Lewis Ford and David Johnson, tradition states that this site was abandoned in favor of the site on Bicker's land where a building was built. By 1850 White Chapel Methodist Episcopal Church South seemed well established, although not shown as part of the Southern Methodist's 1848-50 Crittenden Circuit of "the Whole of Grant County" but shown on the following deed from Book G, Page 336.

Uriah Bickers and Debroah (Henry) Bickers his wife, "for and in consideration of the love they have to God and his cause, do give and convey to William Chapman, James B. Rogers, Brazilla Edwards, Lewis Ford and Morgan Bickers, Trustees in Trust, and their successors in office, the Place or House of Worship -- already erected on said Bickers Land", and the acre of land on which it stands, for the use of the members of the White Chapel Methodist Episcopal Church South.

The first church building was destroyed by fire in the early 1900s and was replaced by the present structure on land provided by Nelson P. Poe. The only surviving record of members received into the church is as follows:

1904-1905

1922-1924

In 1940 the Uriah Bickers Memorial Association acquired, for as long as they Association exists, a site adjoining church property on Holbrook and and Stewartsville Turnpike (Deed Book 62-19). It is used as a meeting place for reunions of descendants of the Bickers who had arrived here in 1826. The White Chapel Church, or Bickers Cemetery, inventoried in 1979 for Virgil Chandler Sr.'s Volume III, contained 40 marked burials, spanning 112 years (1848-1960).

Bethany Baptist Church was organized in 1880 by Baptists in the area, who up till then were members of Mt. Hebron Church in Owen County. The Bethany Church was located in southwestern Grant County, 1/4 mile east of Holbrook on the Lawrenceville Road. A one-room frame building with rough wooden benches and a pot-bellied stove, was built with lumber from the lands of these members:

This church was replaced in 1922 when a new larger one was built, it also was used for 42 years and was struck by lightning and burned in 1964. A new modern brick building was completed in 1965.

Bethany Church, or Holbrook Cemetery as inventoried in 1987 by Virgil Chandler Sr., contained 333 marked burials spanning 111 years (1876-1987) with most of these in the twentieth century. The cemetery is in excellent condition, and has a perpetual care association.

In 1907, the Holbrook Christian Church, which was once located across the road from Bethany Church, called the Reverend Dudley Starns of the Lexington Bible College to preach at the church. No other record had been found for the church.

Starns Bridge, two miles east of Holbrook on Lawrenceville Road, was named for Starns (or Starnes) family. John C. Starns owned land around the Eagle Creek Crossing. John C. Starns was a brother to Reverend Dudley Starns. The Starns Bridge was called the "Rattley" Bridge by youngsters of the area because of the loose boards in the floor. As horses and later, cars crossed it, the rattle gave it this name. Many horses had to be led across by their owners. Many Bethany Baptists were baptized in Eagle Creek under the bridge. It had been built about 1891, and was replaced in 1983 by a concrete bridge.

History of Grant County, John B. Conrad, Editor
Published by The Grant County Historical Society, Williamstown, Ky.
Article by D. S. Cahill and J. W. Poe Jr.