The Surveyor General had no apparent business relationship or blood kinship to one John Holme, a Baptist minister and magistrate who immigrated to Philadelphia in the 1680s from New Jersey.

[1] John Holme's descendants were land speculators and became very prominent citizens in Holmesburg, who owned a portion of the Pennypack grist mill and a lumber business, establishing an estate called Box Grove.

In November 1682, Thomas Holme received a grant from Penn of 1,646 acres (666 ha) on either side of Pennypack Creek to establish Wellspring Plantation.

[3] Penn had the King's Highway Bridge erected over the Pennypack Creek in 1697 to connect his mansion with the new city of Philadelphia.

When Robert Lewis came into ownership, he added a cooperage for the production of barrels and hogsheads, and this required construction of a sawmill, and probably a cider mill.

A bit upstream from the sawmill, David Lewis built a textile mill which was burned during the War of 1812, but subsequently rebuilt.

[4] Holmesburg native George A. Castor became a successful merchant tailor with large establishments in New York City, Boston, and Philadelphia.

As of 2018, the site was occupied by the motherhouse of the sisters of the Missionary Servants of the Most Blessed Trinity, a Roman Catholic women's congregation, that relocated there in 1931.

Shakespearean actor Edwin Forrest purchased 100 acres (40 ha) of land along Frankford Avenue for a country estate.

In 2020, former New York City Mayor and Donald Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani held a press conference at the Four Seasons Total Landscaping parking lot, which is located in the area.

The lot was donated by the local Lower Dublin Academy through an endowment established by the Holme family for educational purposes.

While originally providing for a school, a library was considered by the trustees and the community to be a significant educational contribution, a concept shared by the Carnegie Corporation.

It was established in 1954 by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia and is run by the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales.

[18] Holmesburg contains one of the longest continuous African-American communities in the nation, having been founded by runaway slaves prior to and during the Civil War.

[citation needed] Holmesburg is the location of the historic Pennypack Theatre building, built in 1929 in the Art Deco style with a 1,364-seat capacity and designed by acclaimed 20th century theater architect William Harold Lee.

The Frankford Avenue Bridge and Joseph H. Brown School were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.