HOLLOWAY FAMILY

The following bio was taken from page 240 of the book entitled "Rusk County History" compiled and edited and used with permission of the Rusk County Historical Commission.

Transcribed by Shirley Koym

Submitted by Gloria Briley Mayfield, Cemeteries of Texas

The Holloway family came from England, where they had lived in Middlesex, Warwick, Oxford, and Burk. They were of the landed gentry of Great Britain. Tradition tells of three brothers who came to America. We pick up our story with David Holloway, who was born in Georgia in 1783. He was married to Mary Hardigee, whose mother was a Miss Burton. They moved to Texas in 1848 from Clark County, Georgia. They came with a large group in covered wagons.

This caravan of travelers brought with them their slaves, some stock, and a few household furnishings. They were on the road three months. It was a long and tedious trip, but they had jolly times, and many interesting stories have become historical facts to be told through the years. One was how Mary, the mother, started with a barrel of homemade, soft soap looking forward to keeping things scrubbed and clean in Texas. The soap had to be declared excess baggage and was abandoned along the way when the road became rough and the teams tired out.

The group arrived in the Camden Community, in East Texas, Rusk County December 24, 1848. These families were soon living on their own farms and taking part in the social and religious life around them.

This little town of Camden was located on a bluff on the south side of the Sabine River, and as early as 1843 a license was granted John Walling to operate a ferryboat across the Sabine River at this point. Camden was made official post office and was on what was called the old "North" Road going through Crockett, Palestine, Henderson, and on through Camden across this ferry to Shreveport and Jefferson. The stagecoach traveled this route and the horses were changed here. An old list has been found quoting prices charged by the ferry: road wagons, three yokes, fifty cents; pleasure coaches, fifty cents; horse wagons, fifty cents; loose horses, three cents; cattle, sheep, and hogs, two cents each.

Mary Holloway died the following year, 1849, and David died in 1856, and they are buried in the Christian Union Cemetery in the Camden Community. There are many others buried there, but many did not have markers and the graves are lost. Also most of the markers are broken. The cemetery has not been cared for and has gone to ruin.

David and Mary Holloway had the following children: Melinda, who married D. W. Elder; Mary, who married Anderson Fambrough; Elizabeth, who married Big Anderson Fambrough; Burton, who married Marinda Tignor; Martha, who married John Blakely; John T., who married Mary Gartrell; Ellen, who married James Prothro; and James, who married Sarah Elder in Georgia and came to Texas in 1859 and settled in the Camden Community, near his parents.

James and Sarah were the parents of Ann Elder, William Carol, Robert, Mary Elizabeth, Ellen Cathering, Sarah Burton, Julia Barclay, James Howard, Judson, and Lula.

Ellen Catherthy married Robert Harrison McHaney and became the parents of Minnie, who married John W. Watson. They are the parents of Lillian Watson, who wrote this history.

Submitted by Lillian Watson