Loading Settings - Best Practices

I'm at the point in my first real application where I am adding in the user settings. I'm using Java and being very OO (and trying to keep it that way) so here are my ideas:

1. Load everything in the main() and pass it all 'down the line' to the required objects (array)
2. Same as above, but just pass the object that contains the data down the line
3. Load each individual setting as needed within the various classes.

I understand some of the basic pros and cons to each method (i.e. time vs. size) but I'm looking for some outside input as to what practices they've successfully used in the past.