Thomas Holme

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Thomas Holme (1624-1695) was the first Surveyor General of Pennsylvania.

He was born in Lancashire, England on November 3, 1624, to a yeoman named George and his wife Alice. He married Sarah Croft in 1649, and soon enlisted in the army under the leadership of Oliver Cromwell, where he attained the rank of captain. It may have been in the army that he gained some experience in surveying. After retiring he was granted more than 4,000 acres (16 km²) in Wexford, Ireland, which was under the control and colonization of the English at the time.

At some point he joined the Quaker movement in Ireland. There he met William Penn, the founder and namesake of Pennsylvania, who was also a Quaker. In 1682, Penn wrote to Holme from America asking him to come be his surveyor, since his original surveyor, Captain William Crispin, had recently become ill and died on the voyage to America. Shortly after, Holme sailed to America.

Holme designed the plan of the city of Philadelphia and produced the first detailed map of Pennsylvania, entitled "A Mapp of Ye Improved Part of Pensilvania in America, Divided Into Countyes, Townships and Lotts...." (published circa 1687). On Penn's arrival in the colony, he appointed Holme as one of his councillors.

He held his office of Surveyor-General until his death at the age of 71 in the spring of 1695, in Dublin Township, Philadelphia County (now the Torresdale section of the city of Philadelphia). In 1863, a memorial was erected at his burial site, in the form of a six-foot-tall marble obelisk, near where his home is believed to have been located, now part of Pennypack Park.