YUBA COUNTY Biographies
& Family Ties
- - Edmund Wesley Holloman - -
Edmund Wesley (E. W.) Holloman was
the youngest of Mary Barrett and Edmund B. Holloman's seven children who survive
to adulthood. His parents were both born in North Carolina in the later 1700s
and they married in Raleigh, NC in 1804. Around 1806 or 1807 his parents moved
to Tennessee, probably the part of Hawkins County that later became Hancock
County in northeastern TN where some of Mary Barrett's family most likely lived.
The Holloman couple did not stay in
TN long for they migrated to Missouri in the winter of 1810 with a wagon train
that was led by a "Bent" Counts of Grainger County. Their wagon train probably
left from Bean Station, TN, in Grainger County and headed north toward the
Cumberland Cap passing through Hawkins County where the Hollomans and Mary's
brother John S. Barrett most likely joined it. The wagon train would have
followed the Wilderness Road blazed in 1775 by Daniel Boone through the
Cumberland Gap on to Louisville, KY, and then west to the Mississippi River
where they waited until the river froze solid and made an ice bridge for them to
cross at Ste. Genevieve, MO. Then, the wagon train headed south to the Cape
Girardeau region where the settlers chose land to homestead. They immediately
began to build homes and barns and to prepare for spring planting.
Unfortunately, within a year after
these settlers arrived, the first of the great New Madrid earthquakes struck
that region of the country. This major series of earthquakes began in December
of 1811 and continued off and on until the largest one struck in February of
1812, leaving the region devastated. The Hollomans and most of their neighbors
who had traveled from TN with their wagon train were so traumatized by the
quakes that most of them packed up their belongings in late 1812 and moved north
to the New Tennessee settlement in Ste. Genevieve Co. where they once again
established homesteads.
Edmund B. Holloman selected land for
his homestead along the Saline Creek near the present day community of Avon.
There he and his wife Mary settled down to farm and raise their children. Their
first two children, Allen W. and Abner S. Holloman, had been born in NC and TN,
respectively. The next five children (John Barrett, Elizabeth, Thomas Right,
Mary Ann and Edmund Wesley Holloman) were born after the family moved to Ste.
Genevieve Co. Around 1832, Edmund established a new homestead near his
brother-in-law John S. Barrett just south of the present day town of Coffman
where he built a two story house for his family. E. W.'s father Edmund died in
Ste. Genevieve Co. in 1843 and is thought to be buried in an unmarked grave in
the Old Stone Methodist Cemetery just outside Coffman, MO.
Edmund Wesley Holloman was born in
1825, making him five years younger than his youngest sibling Mary Ann and
twenty years younger than his oldest sibling Allan W. Holloman. During Edmund
Wesley's early years, his two oldest brothers (Allen W. and Abner S.) were
taking on the responsibilities of adults, becoming involved in community affairs
and working hard at farming. Allan married just a year after E. W. was born and
Allen's oldest daughter Rachel was only three years younger than E. W. Their
brother Thomas Right Holloman was seven years old when E. W. was born, but Tom
was somewhat wild in his youth and undoubtedly did not want to get saddled with
having to look out for a baby brother. It is more likely that his brother John
Barrett Holloman gave E. W. the most attention. John B., a serious and
responsible young man, was twelve when E. W. was born and he probably enjoyed
having a new baby brother to carry around and guide.
As E. W. grew up, he received a good
education, learning to read and write. He was most likely sent to school at
Farmington, MO, in an
adjacent county just as his brother Tom had been. E. W.'s hand writing was so
good that when he was about twenty he took a job working as
a clerk in the Ste. Genevieve County Records department, and thus began his
interest in law. He transcribed records such as wills and probate records into
the County Record Books. The probate records for the estate of a John Patterson
that were recorded in late 1847 were written by E. W. Holloman, clerk. His
brother John Barrett Holloman was also mentioned in those estate papers as a
purchaser of some of the estate inventory. That John Patterson is thought to
have been the brother of E. W.'s aunt Margaret Patterson Barrett, wife of his
mother's brother John S. Barrett.
According to family stories, Edmund
Wesley Holloman joined the Gold Rush to California around 1849-1850, about the
same time as his older siblings and mother left Ste. Genevieve County to move to
Madison Co. MO or to Yazoo Co. MS. It is possible that E. W. checked out life in
Madison Co. MO and/or Yazoo Co. MS before he headed out to CA but no
documentation has been found to indicate exactly what E. W. did in the 1850s. He
has not yet been found in census data for 1850 or 1860 nor in 1850s city
directories for Yuba County posted on-line.
Possibly, Edmund's life in CA paralleled that of his friend Charles Cauthron.
According to documentation posted on
the YubaRoots website, Charles Cauthron, born around 1827 in Arkansas, migrated
to California in 1854 and then to Yuba County in 1861. In 1863, C. Cauthron and
E. W. Holloman bought the southeast quarter of section twelve of a Spanish land
grant originally made to Don Pablo Guteirrez in 1844. This original grant was
composed of five Spanish leagues of land on the north bank of Bear river in Yuba
Co. CA. In 1865, Cauthron and Holloman sold that land to George S. Wright who
soon had the town of Wheatland, CA, laid out on that quarter section. Within a
year, Wheatland's first building (a saloon) had been erected, a post office had
been opened and the Oregon division of the C.P.R.R. had been terminated there.
Charles Cauthron and E. W. Holloman
both settled in Yuba Co. and became involved in politics. Charles Cauthron was
elected Justice of
the Peace in Yuba Co. for the 1866-1867 term. E. W. Holloman was elected
District Attorney for the County for the 1876-1877 term. Both men farmed and E.
W. reportedly also practiced law. The two men were listed living on adjacent
farms in 1870 Yuba county census records for Linda, CA. E. W. lived with his
wife and two small daughters while the unmarried Charles Cauthron's household
included a number of his farm workers. In 1871, E. W. obtained title to 160
acres of land in Yuba County granted to him by the US government, most likely
the farm he was living on in 1870.
It was back in 1864 that forty-one
year old E. W. Holloman had married twenty-two year old Matilda Ann Hooper. The
newly-weds
settled down near her family planning to raise a large family like Matilda's
parents had. Matilda's parents, Matilda Diaden Headen Murdock and Obediah Carter
Hooper, were both born in GA where they married and where most of their children
were born. Around 1840, the Hoopers had moved to Arkansas where Matilda was
born. Then, in 1852 the Hoopers brought most of their family to California where
they homesteaded in Yuba County. A number of their grown children settled either
in Yuba County or nearby counties.
E. W. and Matilda had five daughters
and a son between 1864 and 1872 when Matilda died. One daughter and their son
died as infants. Matilda died in 1872, possibly from complications of
childbirth. E. W. did not remarry but attempted to raise his young daughters
himself. Unfortunately, E. W. died in early 1879 when his daughters ranged in
age from 8-13 years old.
E. W.'s orphaned daughters were
divided up among family and friends. In the 1880 Census, oldest daughter Mary M.
may have been the mother's helper listed in the household of David M. Reavis of
Chico, CA in Butte Co., adjacent county to Yuba. Next born Caroline "Carrie" has
not yet been found in the 1880 census. Third daughter Emma was listed living
with her mother's brother Venable Clayton Wales Hopper and his family in Merced
Co. CA. The youngest daughter Rose was listed in the household of James Berry in
Empire, CA, of Stanislaus Co. According to descendents of the sisters, some of
them spent time in the Sacred Heart Convent and Holy Angels Orphanage in Nevada
Co., CA (a county that is adjacent to Yuba Co.) and they always after had a fond
place in their hearts for this orphanage. Possibly that is where Carrie was in
1880.
In 1882 the barely seventeen-year-old
Mary M. Holloman married Edward Hill, a young farmer who had been listed with
his mother
and siblings on the farm next door to that of Mary's uncle Clayton Hopper in the
1880 Census for Merced Co. They raised a family of three children: Elmer Edward,
Alfred Lockard, and Marian Abbie Hill. (Note - A Holloman infant died in 1882
and was buried in the same family plot as Mary's parents. Possibly that child
was Mary's born shortly before she and Edward Hill married.)
Caroline "Carrie" Holliman married
Daniel Webster in 1886 and their first child Frank Holloman Webster was born
nine months later
in Wheatland, CA (Yuba Co.). They had three more children (Caroline Alvord,
Alberta Daniel and Anna Holloman Webster) before Daniel fell
off a wagon in Wheatland and was killed when he was run over by the wagon wheel.
Carrie had difficulties supporting her children after her husband died and
received some help from her sisters. Eventually, she married William J. Wood,
who died in the 1920s.
Sisters Emma Josephine and Rosa Lee
Holloman never married. In 1900, Rosa ran a boarding house in Merced Co. CA,
while Emma
worked as a live-in housekeeper in Palo Alto, CA, for the families of teacher
John A. Squire (1910 Census) and Dr. Thomas M. Williams
(1920 Census). By 1922 both women lived in Palo Alto, CA, in Santa Clara Co. and
were listed in WHO’S WHO Among the Women of
California for that year. Eventually, they moved in together and spent their
last decades supporting themselves by taking in boarders.
Edward Wesley Holloman, his wife and
at least five of their children are buried in the Wheatland Cemetery in Yuba Co.
where many of
his in-laws are also buried.
- - Sources - -
1 Biographical sketch for Lea Miller (husband of Mary Ann Holloman), found at
USGenWeb site for Phelps Co. MO, http://ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/usgenweb/mo/phelps/bios/m4600007.txt.
The article was transcribed from the Lea Miller biosketch that
appeared in "History of Laclede, Camden, Dallas, Webster, Wright, Texas,
Pulaski, Phelps and Dent Counties, Missouri," The Goodspeed Publishing Company,
1889.
2 Bureau of Land Management, General Land Office Records, website http://www.glorecords.blm.gov,
where land patients can be searched by state for the name of a patentee or
warrantee.
3 California Census data for 1850, 1860, 1870, 1880, 1900, 1910, 1920
4 Cumberland Gap Map, Tennessee History for Kids website, http://www.tnhistoryforkids.org/places/cumberland_gap
5 "History Of Southeast Missouri", biographical sketch for Allan W. Holloman
published by Goodspeed Bros., of Chicago, 1888, p. 1102.
6 WHO’S WHO AMONG THE WOMEN OF CALIFORNIA 1922, p. 577.
7 YubaRoots website containing Yuba County history, tax records, voting records
and Wheatland Cemetery listings, http://www.yubaroots.com/
© Lynn Holloman Fusinato