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The Life of WILLIAM WOODS HOLDEN

WILLIAM WOODS HOLDEN 1818-1892 NEWSPAPERMAN CONTROVERSIAL RECONSTRUCTION GOVERNOR BATTLE SECTION, LOT A-3 Born illegitimate near Hillsborough to Thomas Holden and Priscilla Woods on November 24, 1818, William Woods Holden’s uncertain status at birth may have been a precursor of the man’s politics: ambiguous and, to many, ungrounded. An apprenticeship prepared young William for a journalism career, and although his early political views were Whiggish, Holden adjusted his party affiliation in 1843 to obtain the editorship of the North Carolina Standard, the Democratic Party’s mouthpiece and a paper eventually owned by Holden; he used his substantial editorial skills to advance reformist causes and, in so doing, his own reputation as a champion of the “common man.” Although licensed to practice law in 1841, politics beckoned, and in 1858 Holden unsuccessfully pursued his party’s nomination for governor. As North Carolina leaders took varying positions on the increasingly critical issue of secession, Holden seemed to place himself alongside each at one time or another: secession was acceptable to him in the abstract before 1860; secession was impractical by 1860; southern secessionists were “suicidal” to pursue it in 1861. Yet the 1861 Ordinance of Secession was signed by Holden, after which he “held the pen he had used above his head and declared his intention to hand it down as an heirloom to his children” (Cheshire); but by 1864 secession was a mistake as Holden emerged the leader of the state’s incipient “peace movement,” losing that year’s race for governor to Zebulon Vance. This last stance as peace activist led to a so-called “military riot”: Georgia troops passing through the city in September of 1863, incensed at word of Holden’s pacifism, destroyed the office of the Standard, leading to retaliation by angry citizens. Growing violence caused Governor Vance to wire Jefferson Davis of possible “murder and conflagration”; the Confederate President finally ordered all troops out of town, and within days calm returned to city streets. With the close of hostilities in April of 1865, Holden proved to be the right man in the right place for President Andrew Johnson, a Raleigh native eager to see his home state returned to the Union who named Holden Provisional Governor. Regular elections that fall saw Holden first lose the governorship to Conservative Jonathan Worth but, as a Republican, win it back in 1868 with the help of “carpetbaggers” and newly enfranchised blacks. Resurgent Democrats finally had their way in March of 1871, when they impeached Holden on a variety of charges stemming from his use of the militia to reassert state control in violence-plagued Alamance and Caswell counties; he was the first American governor to be removed from office through impeachment -- the GOP-controlled State legislature in 2011 made a move to pardon him. Moving to Washington, DC, Holden again took up the newspaper business, returning to Raleigh in February of 1872 as Postmaster. In retirement after 1883, he enjoyed his beautiful home in downtown Raleigh with his second wife, Louisa V. Harrison (1830-1900), and continued to write for state newspapers. He died on March 1, 1892 and was buried out of Edenton Street Methodist Church with many notables, including Governor Holt, in attendance.

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