Holmes, Obadiah

Holmes, Obadiah a Baptist minister, was born at Preston, Lancashire, England, in 1606, and was educated at Oxford. He arrived in America in 1639, and continued a communicant with the Congregationalists, first at Salem, and then at Rehoboth eleven years, when he became a Baptist, and joined the Baptist Church in Newport, R.I. In 1652, when the minister, Mr. Clark, sailed for England, Mr. Holmes took charge of the church in Newport, and this relation he held till his death, October 15, 1682. Mr. Holmes underwent great persecution for his religious principles, being imprisoned for several months, and publicly whipped by the Puritan authorities in 1661. See Sprague, Annuals of the Amer. Pulpit, 6:23.