Georgia clergyman.

Taught school in South Carolina (1783-84). Pastor of the Congregational Church in Midway, Georgia (1784-86, 1787-91). Tutor at Yale College (1786-87). Pastor of the First Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts (1792- 1829). Published poetry, sermons, and two historical works, Life of Ezra Stiles (1798) and American Annals (2 vols., 1805).

Son of Dr. David and Temperance (Bishop) Holmes of Woodstock, Connecticut. Educated at Yale (B.A., 1783). Married (1) Mary Stiles, daughter of Ezra Stiles (1790); no issue. Married (2) Sarah Wendell (1801); five children, including the poet Oliver Wendell Holmes.