Story - The Meade County Messenger


Vol. 119. No.24	JUNE 16 , 2010

Joseph Holt comes alive
before society members

It was on a quiet Sunday drive that a former Breckinridge County school teacher drove by the abandoned Holt House.

That teacher-turned-author, Susan Dyer, told members of the Meade County Archaeological Society June 7, she felt as if the house, the residence of judge advocate Joseph Holt was “speaking out to me, as if to say it wanted its life back.”

Those words are what began a whirlwind journey that has allowed Dyer to write letters to actor Robert Redford and President Barack Obama to press her case for funding and recognition for Holt.

She specifically mentioned three people who have helped her on the journey to get the book published.
They include legislator Dwight Butler, state historian Dr. James Klooster and Hardin County Clerk Kenny Tabb.

“It was Kenny Tabb who introduced the publisher to me,” Dyer said. “I was doing things that I didn’t know how to do. I had stepped back into the pages of history and the history was being reclaimed.”

Dyer said it took her seven years to find a picture of Judge Holt that she could use for the front cover, and related how she convinced a person at the Library of Congress to dig through a box of materials to locate the one she needed.

“He (Holt) was one of the most worldly men of his time, and he kept everything and collected everything,” she said.

Dyer found over 20,000 items about Holt and his life in the Library of Congress, but could find nothing locally.

“He had three homes – one in Louisville, one in Washington, D.C. and the third in Breckinridge County – but his favorite was the Holt House. It was the only place that he ever called home,” she said.

“The home was his birthplace and he always came back to it,” she continued. “He always visited the house in the spring and the fall. He loved it – his heart was in that home. He was in his late 80s when he died there.”

She said Holt was a dashing man and well-refined. He also stood 6 feet tall and was one of the taller men during that time period.

“The Southern belles wanted to know him and their daughters wanted to know him as well,” she said.
She said Holt was a well-established lawyer in Elizabethtown and married Elizabeth Hynes, for whom the community was named.

His second wife, Margaret Wickliffe – the daughter of a Kentucky governor – wrote many letters to Holt while he was traveling, several of which he was told to burn – but didn’t.

“He kept tabs on the spending that was going on at the house and he also wrote about traveling on the clipper ships to Cuba and Europe, while the locals had to travel around via horse and buggy,” Dyer said.

She said it took her an entire summer to transcribe his diary, having had to use a magnifying glass at times to interpret some of the fancy English script used during the time and make out some of the words, which had long since faded.

Holt was appointed to clean-up the United States Postal Service and managed to save the agency $1 million as postmaster general, Dyer said.

“After that, a few of the other men in the president’s cabinet left (due to the fact they were charged with crimes and conspiracies) and he continued to serve. He was one of the first strong leaders of the Civil War and Lincoln was so impressed with his previous work that he created a special position for him called the judge advocate.”

Dyer said Holt was the first judge advocate of the U.S. Army and later was the prosecuting judge for the Lincoln conspiracy trial.

She also claimed due to his speaking skills, Holt managed to keep two states – Kentucky and Missouri – in the win column for Lincoln.

The book, published by Acclaim Press, is now sold in bookstores locally and across the commonwealth, Dyer said, adding it is her dream that it will be in bookstores across the nation.

Visitors to the Holt House in a few years will be able to see a period bed, an 1840s astrolamp and a fainting couch original to the house, Dyer said.

She also has personally donated one of her favorite Victorian paintings to the house, giving visitors a glimpse into that era as they enter the structure.

The site is now a part of the Kentucky Lincoln National Heritage Area, and is one of the official Lincoln sites in the commonwealth.

Redford arrived on Dyer’s radar when she learned he was making a movie called “The Conspirators,” but it did not mention Holt’s role.

“I wrote and asked him how he could make a movie about the conspiracy when you did not mention the main man involved,” she said. “I wrote and told him the least he could do was put a picture of his grave at the end of the movie. I also sent five books – four of them were returned and one of them reached Robert Redford.”

Dyer recently visited the film’s post-production website and said Holt was listed as one of the main characters in the movie, so her efforts amounted to something.

She also has been selected to address a national Judge Advocate School later this year in Virginia, something of which she is extremely nervous about.

“I am going to speak before a room full of 100 lawyers seeking to be judge advocate generals,” she said.
“It’s the people’s house,” she concluded.

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