Holmes, David

In 1844, Dr. David Holmes moved his wife and three daughters from Lebanon, Connecticut, to Providence, Rhode Island, to set up his medical practice. Upon settling in Providence, his family decided to join Richmond Street Church and wrote to Pastor John C. Nichols of the First Ecclesiastical Church for a letter of recommendation to the new church. Holmes wrote "[w]e have felt some hesitancy about removing our connection from the church in Lebanon, and not till recently have we thought it best to do so." Nichols replied that Holmes was not eligible for a letter, but his wife was. Nichols assured Holmes that "[n]o charges have been brought against you -- The reasons were not given by the women, so that I am not able to state them."

In March 1845, John Manning of Lebanon, Conn., asked Holmes for satisfaction regarding his behavior toward Manning's son David. Manning accused Holmes of attempting to exhort money from David, slandering David's reputation as a new doctor in Lebanon, and raising the price of his estate after an agreement had been made. Manning brought the case before the First Ecclesiastical Church of Lebanon, the Congregational church that Holmes attended while living in Lebanon. The church repeatedly asked Holmes to return to Lebanon to answer the charges of "double dealing and unchristian conduct" but he refused, not wanting to return in disgrace. "I have endeavored to review my short but eventful life in Lebanon," he wrote, "but fail in finding any crime so heinous to require public censure from the church."

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