The Hollimans of Alabama

By Glenn N. Holliman

Back to the 19th Century...A Series of Articles on the Hollimans and Related Families of Fayette County, Alabama

April 9, 2011 distant cousins from six states gathered in Fayette County, Alabama to discover and rediscover ancestral grave sites.  The picture below was taken at Caine's Ridge Baptist Church cemetery where lie John Thomas and Martha Jane Walker Holliman and members of the associated family of Caine.

Left to right, Bishop Holliman (Indiana), Glenn Holliman (Pennsylvania), Bill Holliman (Mississippi), Robert Holliman (Tennessee), Joey Holliman (Alabama), Norman Holliman (Tennessee), Wally Allen, Jean Holliman, Tommie Holliman Allen, Faye Gardner, Lenwood Holliman, James Franklin (Frank) Holliman, Vonceil Duckworth, Tyler Duckworth (all from Alabama) and Jeanette Holiman Stewart (Texas). The photograph was taken by Glenda Norris, organizer of the excursion.

The earthly remains of John Thomas and Martha Jane Walker Holliman lie side by side at Caine's Ridge, a few miles south of their former home in Fayette.  The story of John Thomas Holliman is told in its sad glory by one of his great grandson's Rhodes Holliman in this blog, February and March 2010.  Please go to the Archives function and to seek the articles.


More next posting on the Holliman and their associated families in Fayette County, Alabama.


Plan now to attend the Holliman and Associated Families Genealogical Round Table at the Fayette County, Alabama Civic Center, 10 am to 3 pm, Saturday, October 15, 2011. For information and reservations for lunch, contact Glenda Norris at gnorris@bcbsal.org or Glenn Holliman at Glennhistory@gmail.com.  Sessions to include Tracing the Holymans from England to Alabama, Holliman Farm Sites in Fayette County and sharing of information on Associated Families.  All invited!

The Hollimans of Alabama

by Glenn N. Holliman

Back to the 19th Century...A Series of Articles on the Hollimans and Related Families of Fayette County, Alabama

Below, H. Bishop Holliman, great grandson of Samuel T. Walker, and Glenda Norris, 3 great grand daughter of Samuel, stand at his grave at Pilgrim's Rest Church in Fayette County, Alabama.  Glenda led a tour on April 9, 2011 of Holliman and associated family cemetery sites.  Glenda and two cousins, Norman and Robert Holliman, are attempting to have installed a Confederate tombstone marking the incredible military service of this family ancestor. Samuel (1820 - 1900) was one of the 7,000 or so troops left in Lee's army when he surrendered at Appomattox!

The late Cecil Rhodes Holliman (1901 - 1980) has written extensively on the Walker family and in later postings the history of the Walkers and especially Samuel will be explored.  One of Samuel Walker's daughter's, Martha Jane, married John Thomas Holliman (1844 - 1930), a grandson of Cornelius Holliman and son of Uriah Holliman (1820 - 1862).  John Thomas and Martha Janes Holliman had five children, one being Glenda's great grandfather, James Monroe Holliman.  Another child was Ulyss Holliman (1884 - 1965), the father of Bishop Holliman, above.

Located near Samuel's resting place at Pilgrim's Rest is his wife, Elizabeth Walker (1821 - 1879), mother of Martha Jane Walker Holliman.

More next week on the Hollimans and associated families....




Plan now to attend the Holliman and Associated Families Genealogical Round Table at the Fayette County, Alabama Civic Center, 10 am to 3 pm, Saturday, October 15, 2011.  Sessions on the Holymans from England to Alabama, Holliman sites in Fayette County, Alabama, and general sharing of Associated Families material.  All invited!   For information and reservations for lunch, contact Glenda Norris at gnorris@bcbsal.org or Glenn Holliman at Glennhistory@gmail.com.

The Hollimans of Alabama

 by Glenn N.  Holliman

Alabamians Crossing Paths 

During my recent sojourns to my native state of Alabama, I have been staying with my first cousin Mary and her husband Elliott Clayton (E.C.) Herrin.  I have known E.C. since his marriage to Mary Daly in 1951. As am I, Mary is a 3 great grand child of Cornelius Holliman (1792 - 1862) who immigrated to Fayette County, Alabama as a pioneer family from South Carolina in 1836.  Mary and E.C. have raised a family of four and now have six grandchildren.  After service in the U.S. Navy and graduating from Howard College (now Samford University), E.C. in the 1950s worked as an accountant in the Birmingham steel industry.  However, he had an ambition to be an attorney.


Below, the lovely Mary Daly Herrin, the year before her marriage to E.C. Herrin in Irondale, Alabama.  Her parents are the late Robert W. Daly, Sr. and  Vena Holliman Daly.  Mary is the grand daughter of Ulyss and Pearl Caine Holliman, Irondale, Alabama and great grand daughter of John Thomas and Martha Walker Holliman, Fayette, Alabama.  Her 7th great grandfather is Christopher Holyman, Sr. (1618 - 1691), the founder of the Holliman families of Virginia and America.  On the Daly side of her family are Irish ancestors who engineered railroads in 19th Century Alabama.

In a punishing schedule, strongly supported by Mary and the family, E.C. Herrin went to law school for years, sometimes three to five nights a week.  In 1964, he passed the Alabama Bar and in 1967 became the municipal judge for the city of Helena, Alabama.  In 2011, now 81 years old, he continues to hold court for the city twice a month.  He is the longest serving municipal judge currently on the bench in Alabama, a distinguished record of service.  He may be the longest serving municipal judge in Alabama history!

E.C. Herrin has loved sports all his life and played sandlot ball many afternoons as a youngster.  Above he is in his high school baseball uniform in the 1940s.  A favorite childhood companion was John Thomas Vaughan, another youngster growing up in the Depression in a small town in east central Alabama. Born in 1932, Dr. Tom Vaughan became a outstanding veterinarian and served for 18 years as the 6th Dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine at Auburn.  Today, the large animal hospital at the University of Auburn is named after the well-respected and well-known Dr. Vaughan. (photo above)


These Alabamians Crossed Paths!
While these two children played their sandlot games prior to World War II, an old dignified Black man used to stop and watch.  After a time, he came to know the boys by name.  "Hello, Mr. E.C.,  Hello, Mr. Tom", he would say in the parlance of the pre-Civil Rights era.  And in the societal manner of a different age, the two boys, eight or nine years of age, would respond to the ancient figure, "Hello, George, how are you today?"  This happened on numerous occasions.

E.C. has never forgotten the kind, older African-American gentleman who died in 1943.   Who was the man who befriended these two children?  He was the distinguished Alabamian, a former slave who did his scientific work at Tuskegee Institute - none other than the legendary George Washington Carver, who revolutionized agriculture in the South!  The above photo of Dr. Carver was taken in 1906.

More in the next post on the Hollimans and Associated families of Alabama....and paths that crossed....


Plan now to attend the Holliman and Associated Families Genealogical Round Table at the Fayette County, Alabama Civic Center, 10 am to 3 pm, Saturday, October 15, 2011. For information and reservations for lunch, contact Glenda Norris at gnorris@bcbsal.org or Glenn Holliman at Glennhistory@gmail.com.  Sessions to include Tracing the Holymans from England to Alabama, Holliman Farm Sites in Fayette County and sharing of information on Associated Families.  All invited!

The Hollimans of Alabama

by Glenn N. Holliman

Back to the 19th Century...A Series of Articles on the Hollimans and Related Families of Fayette County, Alabama


    Warren Holliman (1833 - 1908), A Civil War Veteran of the 41st Alabama Infantry Regiment

Above Warren Holliman (1833 - 1908) took a .58 mini-ball to the arm on August 17, 1864 during the siege of Petersburg, Virginia, knocking him out of the Civil War.  At age 29, he signed up for the conflict with his relatives and neighbors with the 41st Confederate Alabama Infantry.  This storied regiment was at Stones River, Chattanooga, Knoxville, Richmond and Petersburg before surrendering with General Robert E. Lee at Appomattox, Virginia in April 1865.  After three months in a Richmond hospital, Warren was sent home in November 1864, his war effectively over.  Photo and information from the extensive files of  Dr. Rhodes Holliman, family historian, and Vonceil Duckworth, descendant of Cornelius Holliman.  More on Warren and his military adventures in later posts.

Above on a warm, sunny April day, 2011, Bill and his daughter, Joey Holliman, look for Holliman grave stones at Chapel Hill Cemetery in Fayette County, Alabama.  Warren Holliman and his two wives are buried at Chapel Hill (see previous article).   Bill Holliman, a multi-great nephew of Warren, is a 3rd great grandson of Cornelius Holliman (1792 - 1862). 


 Now living in Mississippi, Bill grew up in Irondale, Alabama, a grandson of Ulyss (1884 - 1965) and Pearl Caine Holliman (1887 - 1955), who migrated from Fayette County to Jefferson County in 1917 to take advantage of employment opportunities in the Birmingham area.  This migration from rural Alabama communities to metropolitan areas accelerated during the World War I era.  Today, descendants such as Joey and Bill return to Fayette, Lamar and Tuscaloosa Counties to discover family roots and stories.


More soon on the Fayette County family tour led by Glenda Norris, a 4th great grand daughter of Cornelius Holliman.


Plan now to attend the Holliman and Associated Families Genealogical Round Table at the Fayette County, Alabama Civic Center, 10 am to 3 pm, Saturday, October 15, 2011.  For information and reservations for lunch, contact Glenda Norris at gnorris@bcbsal.org or Glenn Holliman at Glennhistory@gmail.com.

The 'Holliman' Name

by Glenn N. Holliman

The Name Holyman and its Spelling Varieties

Recently I was perusing Archives.com, a subscription service, and clicked on Family History.  Lo and behold, the site revealed the numbers of Holliman (and other various spellings) households in the U.S. and the states in which persons of this spelling reside.  Here is what I found.

Holliman

This is the 4,999 (not 5,000 mind you) most popular name in America, and there are all of 1,350 households in the country with this name.  Frankly, that is a tiny portion of perhaps 75 to 100 million or so residences in these United States.  This confirmed my 'feeling' that there were not many of us out there.

Where do Hollimans live?  As those of us who follow these things are generally from the southeast, and as Holymans entered North American in Jamestown, Virginia, the vast majority of us still live in the south and southwest.  Here is a partial ranking of those of us who in Colonial times adopted an 'i' and dropped the 'y'.

Georgia - 15.3%
Mississippi - 14.4%
Alabama - 11% (my state of origin)
Arkansas - 9.1%
Texas - 8.4%
Tennessee - 5.4%
Oklahoma - 4.4%
Illinois - 2.7%
North Carolina - 2.4%
Virginia - 2.4%
South Carolina - only 1%

Hmmm....So the Hollimans left Virginia, settled for a while in North Carolina in the 1700s,and generally kept moving southwest to the states of the Old Confederacy.  We did not go much further west than Texas and Oklahoma (California has all of 2% of the Hollimans).  One group did go north to Illinois, perhaps African-American Hollimans who live in the Chicago area, part of the migration between the world wars?
No one of this spelling live in Maine, the Dakotas, Idaho, Wyoming, Nevada or Arizona.

Holloman


Let's try a variation on the name, Holloman.  A bit more common - this spelling is 3,350 on the list or about 2,240 households in the entire country.  What a difference a vowel  makes!  Again a very predominant Southern name.

North Carolina - 23.5%
Virginia - 11.6%
Texas - 7.1%
Georgia - 6.7%
South Carolina - 5.8%
Florida - 4.6%
Mississippi - 3.3%
Alabama - 3.1%
Tennessee 2.1%

Whoo...those descendants of Christopher Holyman, Sr (d 1691) who stayed in Virginia and migrated to North Carolina (and put down roots) tended to spell their name with an 'o' not an 'i'.


Holleman 


This spelling, fairly common in Isle of Wight County, Virginia a ranks 10,490 as the most common in America; pretty low.  There are about 1,350 families in America with this spelling.

Texas - 21%
North Carolina - 18%
Illinois - 5.1%
Tennessee - 4.8%
California - 4.6%
Michigan - 4.3%
Georgia - 4%
Mississippi and Okolahoma - 3.5% each
Virginia 3.3% or only 43 residences

Were a number of these Hollemans African-Americans who moved to Chicago and Detroit between the world wars?  Perhaps the descendants of slaves from the deep south?  Perhaps?

Hollimon

Opps...this spelling is the 30,255 most popular, pretty low in the name 'market'.  There are only 260 residences of cousins who use an 'o', instead of the 'a' in the last syllable. And where do you live?  No surprise, again the deep South.

Mississippi - 19.8%
Texas 12.1%
Georgia - 11.3%
Alabama - 7.4%
and so on....

Granted in the Colonial times and in early censuses (dare I say this) our ancestors and those dealing with official records may have lacked certain 'spelling skills' which has led to our various spellings.  Whatever happened to Holyman and Hollyman, the names that show up in England and early Colonial records?

Hollyman

Strangely, the spellings of Holyman and Hollyman have disappeared (almost).  Only 75 residences in the entire U.S. are labeled 'Hollyman'.
Illinois - 15.6%
Missouri - 15.6%
California - 15.6%

Does this suggest a later migration to the Colonies from another family?  Virtually none by this name live in the Deep South as do the known descendants of Christopher Holyman, Sr. (or Hollyman).

Holyman


This is the spelling one will find in 16th and 17th wills in England, and yet in all the United States, only three residences have this spelling. One person each in Missouri, West Virginia and Pennsylvania.

Next post, back to the 19th Century....


So if you are descended from the three brothers, Charles, Warren and Cornelius Holliman, who immigrated to Alabama in 1836 from the Carolinas, you may wish to attend a Holliman Family Round Table at the Fayette County, Alabama Civic Center, October 15, 2011, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.  To reserve lunch, contact Glenda Norris at gnorris@bcbsal.org or Glenn Holliman at Glennhistory@gmail.com.

The Hollimans of Alabama

by Glenn N. Holliman

Back to the 19th Century...A Series of Articles on the Hollimans and Related Families of Fayette County, Alabama

We continue our series of the April 9, 2011 tour of Holliman sites in Fayette County, Alabama led by Glenda Norris, descendant of Christopher Holyman, Sr (1618 - 1691).

Above at the Chapel Hill Cemetery near Newtonville, Alabama are from left to right: Faye Gardner (Reform, Alabama), Jeanette Holiman Stewart (Austin, Texas) and Lenwood Holliman (Gordo, Alabama).  In this April 9, 2011 photograph, they stand behind the grave of Civil War veteran Warren Holliman (1833 - 1908), a son of Charles Holliman (1795 - 1852), of whom the three are descended.  Warren is misspelled Warron on his tombstone.

Warren Holliman's story...


In 1836, numerous children accompanied the three brothers, Cornelius, Charles and Warren Holliman, on their journey from the North Carolina/South Carolina border to Fayette County.  One of the children of Charles Holliman and wife, Barberry (sometimes Barbara) Walters, was their son, Warren, age 3 at the time.
According to U.S. Census records Fayette County had a population of over 3,000 in 1830, and would more than double in size to over 6,000 in 1840 as immigrates moved west to the yet untitled soil of Alabama.

Warren married Mary Polly Blakeney, the daughter of Thomas and Sarah Kemp (or Roberts?)  Blakeney.  Thomas (1800 - 1892)  was a son of William Blakeney and a grandson of Capt. John Blekeney (1732 - 1832).   The Blakeneys had migrated to Alabama from Chesterfield, South Carolina.  Warren and Polly would have 11 children, 3 girls and 8 boys which helped entrench the Holliman name in the area.

Warren's generation came of age as the American Union dissolved and Civil War engulfed our ancestors.  Warren and his two brothers, Cornelius and Elijah, and cousins (including my great grandfather, John Thomas Holliman) joined with other Fayette Countians in enlisting in the 41st Alabama Infantry Regiment.  Warren was known as the 'strong man' of the county.  He could pick up a bale of cotton (500 pounds) and walk with it!

 Glenda Norris uses a genealogical technique she learned from Rhodes Holliman, the application of shaving cream to faded tombstones, to reveal hidden names and dates.  This is Warren Holliman's grave site.


In the next post, Warren Holliman's historic war service with the 41st Alabama Infantry Regiment....