Return of a Native: Holmead Phillips Returns to Cumberland County

When the Cumberland County Historical Society purchased a painting and an oil sketch by Holmead Phillips in September 2003, the society became the first area organization to invest in an artist's work that will eventually be recognized as important both here and in the larger world of art.

Holmead, born and raised in Shippensburg at the turn of the 20th century, is a Cumberland County treasure-an artist who left here to gain recognition in Europe and who is now called "the original American Expressionist." His story will enrich our area's appreciation of its own history and of its artists.

The "Holmead Returns" exhibit, hosted at Shippensburg University's Kauffman Gallery in September and October of 2003, dramatized the depth of Holmead's family history in this region and the emergence of this significant body of work. Researchers into Holmead's family history since then have gotten a glimpse of Shippensburg at a time of remarkable vitality for the borough. As the only son of John Clifford Phillips (1847 - 1925) and Anna Margaretta Kelso Phillips (1860- 1933), Holmead was born Clifford Holmead Phillips there on October 2, 1889. He was not only heir-apparent to the family's furniture-making business, but also to their role in the town's social and religious life.

 He chose another way, however, as most artists do.

Phillips & Kelso-Stough Lineage

For all his cosmopolitan adulthood, Holmead was a product of this country and of his native area. His father's family had a proud heritage in the founding of the country, and his mother's side was deeply integrated in Cumberland County.

The father's family story goes deep into early American history, with the Phillipses claiming Pilgrim heritage, while the Holmead lineage issues from James Holmead, a settler who arrived here with a patent from King George II of England in 1745 for land on which Washington, D.C. now stands. Other relatives through marriage included American statesmen Daniel Webster and the Rev. Peter Parker, im portant for his diplomatic work in China. The Holmead and Phillips families became associated with Washington and New York, where John Harmon Phillips, Holmead's grandfather, practiced law for a time after graduating Dickinson College, Carlisle, in 1840.

One weak element in Holmead's paternal genealogy, at least at the present time, is this tie to Carlisle through the Phillips family. This important link is elusive since no dates or other data has been discovered for Holmead's great great grandparents, John and Mary Phillips of Carlisle, though their presence here is noted in borough census records.

With the help of Jim Gerencser of the Dickinson College Library, we know that John Phillips was affiliated with Dickinson College at some level, though it is not clear if he were trustee or simply a steward for the college. His son, John Harmon Phillips, was certainly a Dickinson College graduate, and after a successful legal practice in New York, lived for a time in Bellefonte, Centre Counry, where his son, John Clifford Phillips, was born.

John Harmon Phillips lived in Shippensburg for a short while in 1888, shortly before his death in the year before Holmead's birth. Family anecdotal history suggests that John Harmon was a talented amateur painter, but none of his canvases have been located to date.

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