The Brentwood City Commissioners voted on October 26, 2017 to accept $4.2 million from the O’Delle K. Holt will and officially renamed the Brentwood Library to honor Mrs. Holt’s husband, John P. Holt.   Over the past few months, most of the signage and other visual displays at the library have been updated to add the new name.   The large signs out front will be refaced in the coming months.

Brentwood Library Board members are currently working with city finance staff to develop a recommendation to the City Commission about a plan for spending money and investing it for future library amenities.  There will be two public meetings where this plan will be discussed.  Sometime this spring the board will present its preliminary plan to city commissioners at a regularly scheduled informational briefing usually held on Thursdays.  The board will gather city commissioner’s recommendations from that briefing and return to a second one with a policy recommendation.  Once the board of city commissioners agree on an acceptable proposal, it will then be placed on the agenda for final approval.

Coincidentally, the Brentwood Historic Commission is researching the history of the Holt Family, which started in the early 1800s when the great-grandfather of John Page Holt built a log house on the family’s property.  It later became known as Holtland or Wildwood.  During its March meeting, the Historic Commission also made a recommendation to recognize those once enslaved on the family’s plantation.  They are recommending that City Commissioners consider the request to prominently place the recognition item at the John P. Holt Brentwood Library.

So who were the Holts?  The John P. Holt Brentwood Library will be hosting a series of Facebook LIVE interviews and podcast recordings with some of those who knew the Holt family.    The first interview is with Angie Jones who lived down the road from John and O’Delle Holt back when she was a child.    Future interviews will include others who have memories of the Holt family including those who also have knowledge of the history of the enslaved people who worked on the plantation.

O’Delle Holt died in 1993; read her will

O’Delle Holt wrote in her will that “I devise and bequeath to the City of Brentwood, for the sole purpose of establishing and or maintaining a public library to be given the name of John P. Holt Library.  The City of Brentwood may use these funds on an already established public library but it said library funds are used for this purpose, the name of said library must be changed to the name stated above.”

Holt Family History

During the bi-weekly informational City Commission meeting on Thursday October 5, 2017, City Commissioners and staff discussed the renaming of the Brentwood Library and the proposed donation of $4.2 million from the John P. Holt estate.

Discussion centered around the acceptance of the bequest from the will of O’Delle K. Holt and renaming the Brentwood Library to honor Mrs. Holt’s husband, John P. Holt.  At its September 13, 2017 meeting, the Library Board recommended that an investigation be conducted into the life of Mr. Holt before a decision is made to rename the Library for him.  Comments were given by Inetta Gaines and Wanda Bruce Graham.  Based on research conducted by individual members of the Board of Commissioners and conversations with persons who knew Mr. Holt, the Board directed staff to forego a formal investigation and place a resolution on the October 26, 2017 meeting agenda to accept the bequest and rename the Library as “The John P. Holt Brentwood Library.” 

View the  VIDEO of the meeting at 59:44 to hear the entire conversation. 

Holt Family Background

According to previous research conducted by historians with the city, The Holt family lived on ancestral land on Crockett Road in Brentwood since the 1700s.  

• Christopher Holt was granted property in what is now Brentwood for his service in the Revolutionary War. 
• Early 1800s – Christopher Holt’s son, John Holt (great-grandfather of John Page Holt) built a log house on the property, which became known as Holtland (a/k/a Wildwood).
• At one time, the Holt farm consisted on more than 1200 acres.
• John Holt’s son, Thomas Holt, was born in 1802.  He became a wealthy cotton planter in Louisiana.
• Around 1835 to 1840, Thomas Holt built the Greek Revival home that still stands on the property.  Initially, the family traveled back and forth from Louisiana to Tennessee by carriage, but in later years the home in Tennessee became their year-round residence. 
• The property was operated as a plantation, and according to one account, there were 100 slaves who lived on the property, although another account says records show Thomas Holt had 14 slaves in 1859. 
• After the Civil War, the farm continued to produce crops.  Many of the former slaves and their families stayed on as hired farmers and caretakers of the land. The Holts built homes, a school, and a church for the African-American community that worked and lived on the farm, which functioned into the 1980's.  Edmondson Chapel Church on Crockett Road grew out of the church that was originally on the Holt property.  In her will, O’Delle Holt left $1,000 to Edmonson Chapel.
• Thomas Holt’s son, Lewis Herbert Holt, was born on the property in 1844.  He ran a woolen mill just south of what is now Church Street in Brentwood. 
• Lewis Herbert Holt’s son, John Page Holt, was born in 1890, also on the Holtland property. 
• John Page Holt married O’Delle Kelly, of Waco, Texas.  They lived in the historic home for a while, then built and lived in another home on the property.  Mrs. Holt was a teacher at Lipscomb Elementary School.  Mr. and Mrs. Holt had no children, but Mr. Holt’s nephew, Charles Witherspoon, Jr., lived with them.  Mr. Witherspoon lived on the property from the time he was two years old.  He became a teacher and musician and served as the organist at Brentwood United Methodist Church for 43 years. 
• A niece of O’Delle Holt lived in the historic home with her husband (Edward and Cherry Kelly Hall) and five children for a while until Mr. Hall’s business drew them back to Norfolk, Virginia.  The historic home was shuttered in 1965 and has been uninhabited since then. 
• John Page Holt died in September, 1984.  He did not leave a will.  His wife, O’Delle, and nephew Charles Witherspoon continued to live on the property. 
• O’Delle Holt’s will was prepared in 1985.  It referred to the property on Crockett Road, estimated then at 275 acres.  At the time, she thought that her husband owned one-half of the property at his death and Charles Witherspoon owned the other half.  Her will leaves a life estate in her interest in the property (which she assumed to be one-half) to Charles Witherspoon, with full power to sell the land.  Mr. Witherspoon would not be required to account for the proceeds.  At his death, Mrs. Holt’s will leaves the property and/or any funds derived from the sale of the property to the City of Brentwood for the purpose of establishing and/or maintaining a public library to be named the “John P. Holt Library.”  The will allows the funds to be used for an already established library if the name of the library is changed.  Except for this property and a few other bequests in the will, everything else in Mrs. Holt’s estate is to go to Brentwood Methodist Church in memory of John P. Holt.  If the City does not comply with the request to name a library after her husband “within a reasonable period of time”, then the property (or remaining proceeds from the sale of the property) also goes to Brentwood Methodist Church.
• O’Delle Holt died in October, 1993. 
• In 2015, Mr. Witherspoon accepted an offer for the sale of the property, which consisted of nearly 264 acres, for a price of $10,500,000.  The terms of the offer would allow him to remain on two acres of the property for the rest of his life. 
• A surprising discovery was made at this point.  Title work determined that Mr. Holt owned all of the property when he died.  No part of it was ever passed down to Charles Witherspoon.  Unbeknownst to O’Delle Holt, she had inherited all of the property, rather than just one-half.  So Mr. Witherspoon was left only with a life estate in one-half of the property.  The other half passed to Brentwood United Methodist Church under the residuary clause of her will. 
• Brentwood UMC agreed to the sale of the property under the terms that had been negotiated with Charles Witherspoon.  The property sale was contingent on a zoning change to allow a proposed subdivision to be built on the property.  The property was rezoned and a preliminary plan was approved for a 154 lot subdivision (which includes an 8.45 acre lot for the historic homesite.)
• The sale of the property closed in January 2016.  The homesite was split off and sold to David and Jodie Smith, who are in the process of restoring the home.  The sale proceeds were reduced by the cost of settling a claim that had been asserted against the property, along with legal fees and closing costs.  The rest was divided between the Brentwood UMC Foundation and the Witherspoon-Holt Trust, with each receiving over $4,600,000. 
• Rather than setting up the Witherspoon-Holt Trust, Mr. Witherspoon could have done as he pleased with the sale proceeds.  However, under an agreement approved by Mr. Witherspoon and the City, the Witherspoon-Holt Trust was established.  The agreement provided that Mr. Witherspoon would receive 6% of the trust fund balance each year, plus any additional amounts needed to provide for his health care.  At his death, the remaining balance would be handled according to Mrs. Holt’s will, which provided for the City to be the contingent beneficiary.  
• Charles Witherspoon continued to live on the property until his death in August 2017.

• Sources:  City of Brentwood files; www.holthousetn.com; Jim Petersen (attorney for Charles Witherspoon)