Leon Holland, a noted civil engineer and surveyor, was born, raised, and lived most of his adult life in Washington (South) County. He was born in South Kingstown on February 27, 1870, the son of Franklin and Julia Armstrong Holland. Educated in local schools, Holland may have been a self taught surveyor and engineer, as there is no indication from the admittedly scant available evidence that he received professional training or attended college.
After a short sojourn as a teamster in Wellesley, Massachusetts in early 1900, Holland returned to South Kingstown to work as a surveyor and engineer, first for Thomas G. Hazard, then independently. He remained a resident of the community for the rest of his life. On December 26, 1900 he married Mary Elizabeth Rose, a local school teacher and a native of South Kingstown. The Rose Hill area of the town takes its name from that of her family. Once married, the Hollands settled in the Tower Hill area of the community to raise a family and to pursue his career. They had three children, daughters Marion (born July 21, 1902) and Lucile (born October 5, 1907), and son Brandon (born March 31, 1916), the latter of whom died in infancy in early 1917.
Holland quickly established a reputation as a dependable and reputable surveyor and his business continued apace. He rapidly became known as the man "who knew more about South County boundaries than any [other] man alive." Land title companies came to depend upon him as a resource to use in verifying particularly complex land titles in South County. During his long career, he was appointed the official town engineer for the town of Narragansett and similarly served the town of South Kingstown in an unofficial capacity. By the time of his death in 1951, Holland had probably surveyed and mapped most of South Kingstown, Narragansett, and Charlestown. About 500 of his meticulous drawings and maps are preserved in the Leon Holland Papers housed in the Special Collections Department of the University of Rhode Island Library.
Leon Holland died at South County Hospital on February 5, 1951, three weeks short of his eighty first birthday.
Open for research.
Terms governing use and reproduction: Photocopying and scanning of materials is a fee based service available in the repository and is allowed at the discretion of the Archivist when in compliance to the Unit's policy on copyright and publication.
Leon Holland Papers, 1877-1963, Mss. Gr. 51, University of Rhode Island Library.
The Leon Holland Papers, including 440 civil engineering drawings and surveys, were removed in 1981 from the attic of what presumably had been the Holland family home in South Kingstown by University of Rhode Island Archivist David C. Maslyn. The new owners of the home, upon discovering the material in the attic, had contacted the Special Collections Department to determine its interest in the papers. Beyond that, the provenance of the papers is unknown and they were in no particular order when they were obtained by the Special Collections Department.
Holland's career as a civil engineer and land surveyor in Washington (South) County, Rhode Island spanned over half a century, during which time he surveyed much of the land area of South Kingstown, Narragansett, and Charlestown. The records in this group represent at best a small fragment of the personal and professional papers compiled by Holland during his long career. Included are about 500 surveys, engineering drawings, and architectural renderings, land evidence records, copies of deeds, plat sketches, copies of wills, ledgers, correspondence, postcards, photographs, period greeting cards, and a wide assortment of family memorabilia.
The Leon Holland Papers have been divided into six series as follows:
Series I, Civil Engineering Drawings and Surveys, represent the finished product and the heart of Leon Holland's professional career. Included are some 500 drawings, maps, and sketches which were organized into the following six sub-series: Land Surveys, Town Surveys, Coastal Surveys, Architectural Drawings, Tube Boring and Grade Profiles, and Miscellaneous. Subsequently a database was created for ease of access. Search database.
Series II, Business Records, contains the research tools Holland used in his surveying business and the financial records to document it. Included are land evidence records, copies of deeds and wills, survey notes, ledgers, income tax returns, and correspondence. The records found in this series reveal the depth and breadth of Holland's clientele, as well as the financial condition of his business over a number of years.
Series III Family Correspondence, consists of correspondence between members of the Holland family, as well as letters to family members from friends and acquaintances. The bulk of the series contains the correspondence of the Hollands' daughter Marion, though all members of the immediate family are represented.
Series IV, Family Memorabilia, can be found all of the odds and ends of everyday life that a family might collect over the years. Represented in the series are such items as college notes and examinations of one of the children, postcards, period greeting cards, calling cards, wedding invitations, the Hollands' wedding guest book, performance programs, and the "baby booties" of a son who died in infancy.
Series V, European Trips: Marion Holland, contains some of the souvenirs and memorabilia collected by daughter Marion Holland during her trips to Europe in the 1930's. Included are postcards from a host of European cities, guidebooks, dinner menus and passenger lists from cruise ships and copies of her itineraries.
Series VI, Photographs, consists of approximately 200 photographs of people and places which presumably relate in some way to the Holland family. None, however, are identified, which make any informed use of them difficult.
The Leon Holland papers are divided into six series.
The Leon Holland Papers, including 440 civil engineering drawings and surveys, were removed in 1981 from the attic of what presumably had been the Holland family home in South Kingstown by University of Rhode Island Archivist David C. Maslyn. The new owners of the home, upon discovering the material in the attic, had contacted the Special Collections Department to determine its interest in the papers. Beyond that, the provenance of the papers is unknown and they were in no particular order when they were obtained by the Special Collections Department.
The civil engineering drawings, surveys, and related architectural renderings that represent Holland's life's work have been divided into six sub-series as follows: Land Surveys, Town Surveys, Coastal Surveys, Architectural Records, Tube Borings and Grade Profiles, and Miscellany.
Information Key
Each individual entry in the data base contains a brief synopsis of the relevant information found on the legend of each blueprint, drawing, ammonia process print and profile chart. Included is the original number assigned to the item by Holland, legend title or a brief description of contents, scale, date, and the name of the civil engineer/architect responsible for the rendering. The media of the particular drawing is indicated within parenthesis. (linen, sepia, tracing).
Name and location codes:
L.H.: Leon Holland
W.H.: William Hazard
J.R.: James Rose
C.E.G.: Cassius E. Gillette
S.S.: Sibley Smith
T.G.H.: Thomas G. Hazard
G.T.L.: G.T. Lamphear
E.T.: Edward Taylor
W.K. Willard Kent
C & H: Clark and Howe
MC: Map Case
OC: Oversize Cabinet
Sub-Series I, Land Surveys, consists of contour maps and boundary plats plotted throughout the southern Rhode Island area by Leon Holland and other civil engineers associated with his firm. The drawings are grouped by town and, when feasible, arranged in alphabetical order within these geographical groupings. The alphabetical arrangement is based on local place name and/or statement of ownership. These surveys were completed between 1896 and 1946.
Town Surveys, Sub-Series II, is comprised of street plans and profiles, as well as public works projects renderings, executed by Leon Holland and his associates for various towns and villages in Washington County, Rhode Island. The drawings are grouped by township jurisdiction and alphabetically thereunder by place name, project designation, and/or street location. They cover the years 1889 to 1933.
In Sub-Series III, Coastal Surveys, can be found a variety of drawings relating to Holland's work on hydrographic and geodetic surveys. Included are wharf and break way drawings, as well as pond and coastline charts. The major portion of this sub series consists of an incomplete set of Rhode Island Intra-Coastal Waterways, surveys drawn up in collaboration with the United States Coast Guard. These drawings are arranged alphabetically by location and were completed between 1903 and 1934.
Architectural Drawings, Sub-Series IV, consists of blueprints and design detail drawings from various architectural projects undertaken by Holland's firm. Included are some complete construction record sets for a number of cottages and homes constructed in southern Rhode Island. Various mockups, fragmented renderings, specifications, and other details from construction projects are also contained in this sub-series. The plans are arranged alphabetically by the name of the individual or firm which contracted Holland and were done between 1903 and 1935.
Tube Borings and Grade Profiles, sub-series V, is comprised of oversize sketches and drawings executed during soil exploration for foundation work. They are arranged numerically by Holland's original coding system for possible cross reference to related projects.
Sub-series VI, Miscellany, consists of partially identified fragments and preliminary plat sketches executed on tracing paper, as well as a number of blueprint copies of historical maps. These items are arranged numerically by Holland's coding system and were done between 1890 and 1926.
Series II, Business Records, contains many of the documents Leon Holland used in his business as a surveyor and civil engineer in South County in the first half of the twentieth century. Included in the series are land evidence records, copies of deeds, plat sketches, surveyor's notes, copies of wills, ledgers, income tax returns, and business correspondence relating to Holland's work in South County.
Among items of interest are land evidence records and copies of deeds relating to the property of many prominent families in South Kingstown and Narragansett. Such family names as Hazard, Wells, Tefft, Steadman, and Robinson, as well as the Catholic Diocese of Rhode Island, appear regularly in Holland's business papers. The deeds and land evidence records served as the raw materials from which Holland produced the carefully detailed maps and survey plats which appear in Series I. His ledgers of accounts receivable also reflect those same names and institutions and indicate the extent of Holland's business in the late 1920's and early 1930's.
Other items worthy of perusal include Holland's individual and business income tax returns for the 1940's. Studied in conjunction with the aforementioned ledgers, the income tax returns provide a detailed view of Holland's income over a thirty year period.
The series is arranged alphabetically by subject or type of record and chronologically by date within folders. Deeds and land evidence records and surveys are grouped together under their respective categories and then filed alphabetically by name of property owner.
The Family Correspondence Series, Series III, contains correspondence among family members, as well as letters to family members from friends and acquaintances. The bulk of the series consists of the correspondence of Holland's daughter, Marion, though all members of the immediate family are represented.
Marion Holland, a nurse by profession, was a frequent overseas traveler by avocation and an inveterate letter writer. Her letters to her mother and father from Asia in the 1930's convey a wealth of colorful detail about the lifestyle of a part of European society seemingly untouched by the ravages of the Great Depression. Her comments and observations about those with whom she came in contact also reveal her to be somewhat the "ugly American" abroad. In many instances, she made derogatory and even racist comments about fellow passengers on cruise ships, fellow tourists and natives in Europe and even about the crews on board the ships on which she sailed.
As a frequent correspondent, Marion Holland also received a large number from of letters friends in the United States and abroad. Again, as with the letters she wrote, the letters she received reveal a great deal about the attitudes and lifestyles of the 1930's both here and abroad.
Correspondence between Leon Holland and his then fiancée Mary Mae between 1895 and 1900 by their daughter Lucile from her then fiancé, Anthony Ruo, in 1944 and 1945. The Holland-Rose correspondence reflects the genteel nature of a late Victorian era courtship, while the letters from Ruo to Lucile Holland are more ardent and certainly more graphic in their passion. Despite the apparent passion, however, the evidence indicates that Ruo and Lucile Holland never married.
The letters are arranged alphabetically by the name of the recipient and chronologically by date within folders.
The Family Memorabilia Series consists of the odds and ends of everyday life that a family might collect over the years. Much it could be found in the dresser drawers of practically any contemporary family in the United States . Some of it may be valuable, but most of it is not. All of it, however, contributes to an understanding of the family who accumulated it and the era in which it lived.
Perhaps the most interesting item in the series is the large number of period postcards and souvenir folder postcards depicting scenes in the United States and Canada. The souvenir folder postcards of the depression era South reveal the racism that pervaded the region and the era. Blacks in these postcards are depicted performing servile labor, eating watermelon, and black children are referred to as "chocolate drops" in one postcard.
Other important items in the series include period greeting cards, Marion Holland's class notes and examinations from her days as a student at Brown University in the early 1920s, Mary Rose [Holland's] diary for 1898, Leon and Mary Rose Holland's wedding guest book from 1900, and the "baby book" and baby "booties" of the Hollands' son Brandon, who died in infancy in 1917.
The series is arranged alphabetically by the name of the person or the type of record/artifact represented.
Leon and Mary Rose Holland's daughter Marion was a single woman of independent means who liked to travel. Her job as a registered nurse at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York City provided her with a steady income dur ing the depression and the financial wherewithal to indulge her desire to see the world. Marion Holland visited Europe three times during the 1930's.
This series represents what is probably a small fraction of the souvenirs and memorabilia that Holland collected during her sojourns to Europe . In combination with the letters which she wrote to her parents from Europe (See Series III, the Family Correspondence Series), the material found in this series series provides a glimpse of a Europe largely unaffected by the Great Depression.
Among the may items of import in this series are handwritten notes on the rates of exchange for various European currencies against the American dollar, guidebooks for major European cities, menus (with prices) from several cruise ships, cruise ship passenger lists, and samples of German and Russian paper currency from the 1920's and 1930's respectively. The most significant item in the series, however, is the large number of postcards which Marion Holland collected in Europe and sent to her mother, father, and sister, They depict scenes from the various European cities she visited and include her comments on many of the sites. They provide an interesting perspective on the major cities of Europe in the 1930's before the urban landscape was changed by the massive bombing of World War II.
The series is arranged alphabetically by the type of material (e.g. menus, postcards, etc.)
The Photograph Series consists of approximately 200 photographs of people and places, almost none of which are identified in any way. Presumably, all are pictures of members of the Holland/Rose families and the places which they frequented. Absent any identification or original order, the photographs are arranged according to the main subject depicted in each photograph.