Papers, 1804-1938.

ArchivalResource

Holladay family. Papers, 1804-1938.

Papers, 1804-1938.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/33953071

Mainly correspondence and accounts of the Holladay family of "Prospect Hill," Spotsylvania County, Va., beginning with Waller Holladay, his wife, Huldah Fontaine (Lewis) Holladay, and many of their thirteen children, especially James Minor Holladay, his wife, Lucy Daniel (Lewis) Holladay, and his sister, Virginia Watson Holladay. Much of the correspondence concerns domestic life and family matters in Virginia. Other correspondence from relatives in Mississippi, Texas, and Kentucky illustrate the migration of family members. Many letters and receipts relate to real estate and securities investments of the siblings, Eliza Lewis Holladay, James Minor Holladay, Huldah Lewis Holladay, Mary Waller Holladay, Frances Ann Holladay, and Virginia Watson Holladay. Include occasional references to the slavery question, holdings of slaves, sale of slaves, migration to Liberia, and, after the Civil War, feelings of discomfort at dealing with freedmen pepper the collection. Latter 19th-century and 20th-century materials are represented in the papers of John Waller Holladay, son of James Minor Holladay, John's wife, Mary Caroline (Harris) Holladay, and their children. John's papers concern his life as a farmer, a salesman of farm equipment, a surveyor, a manager of a local phone line, and payroll manager of the Villa Rica, Ga., facility of the Sulphur Mining and Railroad Company. He had a constant battle to stay solvent. Correspondence covers the long-distance relationships of husband, wife, and children who often are away at schools as the State Normal School at Fredericksburg, Va., [now Mary Washington College]. Correspondence between Mary Caroline (Harris) Holladay and her daughter, Virginia Waller Holladay, discuss her life as an American Presbyterian missionary in the Belgian Congo, now Zaire.

1, 786 items.

Virginia Historical Society Library