Martha (Jackson) Holwell was born in Honduras in 1789. According to a family history, she was the daughter of William Jackson, a merchant and mahogany plantation owner. On January 14, 1805, she married Major John Zephaniah Holwell of Southbridge, England. In 1812, she moved to Portland, where she lived with her two daughters after her husband’s sudden death in 1813. Her daughter Anna Margaret Holwell married Nathaniel Deering of Portland. Martha died of old age at the Deering family mansion on June 5, 1882.