Ella Ellis Holway
- Kaethe Maguire
- Jul 12, 2024
- 3 min read
Updated: Jul 10
I bet most Sandwich residents have never heard of Ella Ellis Holway. Well, she was an important character during her lifetime as she sought to preserve important historical aspects of our town.
Ella was born in 1861 in Bournedale to George Wanton Ellery Ellis and Sarah Priscilla Story Battles. She attended school in Bournedale. She then graduated in 1881 from what is now known as Lasell University, which prepared her for a teaching career. I found she had a deep love of German poetry. She first taught at the Scorton School in East Sandwich. This school building dates to 1835. (It was moved many years ago to Old County Road and has been the home of Dan Cullity.)
She married Jerome Holway on September 30, 1886. They had three surviving children: Alvah, William and Amy. Her son George died at a young age of pneumonia. Her daughter, Amy, attended Mt. Holyoke College and her two sons were educated at Dartmouth College, all achieving graduate degrees as well.
In 1904 she wrote extensively about the historic homes in Sandwich. She next invested time and effort in preserving the historical data on the gravestones in the 1663 Old Town Burial Ground on Grove Street. Way back in 2010, when Jon Shaw and I began a grant request to rehabilitate this important burial ground, we were thrilled to discover that a woman, namely Ella, had charted out the whole burial ground. She not only noted every grave and where it was, but also copied all the epitaphs on the stones, which now, over 100 years later, are less readable.
(We were blessed with Barbara Luksanen Gill as our archivist, as she also did research on our other burial grounds. All these materials are in the Town Archives.)
Ella Holway was also instrumental in establishing the Sandwich Historical Society in 1907, which became the holding company for the Sandwich Glass Museum. She served as the first curator and donated many items to the collection. It is a treasure trove of Sandwich historical items and records.
Ella’s husband, Jerome Holway, was also active in town affairs. He was one of the founders of the Sandwich Cooperative Bank, located in the former Town Hall Annex on Main Street (the 1927 building). He descends from one of Sandwich’s earliest residents, Joseph Holway, who arrived in 1637. Ella and Jerome lived right next door to the current Sandwich Glass Museum. They owned both houses just to the north of the Glass Museum on what is now Tupper Road—called Franklin Street at that time.
Ella’s mother lived in one house, and Ella and Jerome, and their children lived in the other. Later after Ella’s death, and I presume her mother’s, Jerome and his second wife, Estella Howland, lived in one house and his mother in the other. These houses are next door to what was known as the Green School and in more recent years, “Swan Cottage.”
Ella was a firm believer in education. This commitment to education has been carried on for generations by members of the Holway family. They have served as supporters and trustees of Lasell University, Ella’s alma mater. In fact, Ella’s grandson, Richard Holway, who died at age 91 in 2018 and made his home in Sagamore Beach, was pivotal in the creation of the Ella Ellis Holway Child Study Center in what is called The Holway House on the campus of Lasell.
Sadly, Ella died at age 56 in 1915 after some years of precarious health.
Kaethe Maguire is a member of the Friends of the Sandwich Town Archives, a dedicated, all-volunteer, 501(c)(3) nonprofit committed to supporting and promoting the archives’ collections and the rich, diverse history of the town of Sandwich.
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