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Family History
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John M. Holland is the son of Lewis Files Holland, born in Searcy, White County, Arkansas on April 20, 1885 and Ruby Cecile Bland born in Columbus, Mississippi.
Lewis F. Holland left home at the age of 17 and went to Ft. Smith, Arkansas to work in the Palace Drug Store. He left there after becoming a manager with the R. G. Dun company and headed for Texas. After a brief career in the plumbing and later the oil business, Lewis got an offer from the Cleveland Metal Products Co. Part of his responsibilities there were to look after their automatic fire protection system. This began his life’s work.
Lewis took over the Texas sprinkler inspection service of the Grinnell Co., Inc. of Providence, Rhode Island in 1921. He began to travel to their operations in other states in that capacity. Lewis writes “I became fascinated …in the Fire Prevention work with its great potentials in life safety and protection of property so I accepted an offer to join the Instructor’s Staff of Texas A&M College in 1940 and 1941 for the Texas State Firemen’s Training School Short Courses.”
Lewis got involved in the national and international Fire Chief’s Conventions, and in 1952, 53, & 54 accepted a request to be a part of the first three “Arson and Fire Prevention Conferences.”
He was made the Staff Historian of the Fire Department Instructor’s Conference and kept scrapbooks of each conference which later became the property of the FDIC in Chicago, Illinois. He was active in the Dallas Fire Prevention council for over 15 years. In 1950 through 1954, Lewis was the Parade Marshall for the Oak Cliff Chamber of Commerce sponsored Annual Fire Prevention Parade and worked with the Miss Flame of Oak Cliff program. Lewis was know among his fire prevention friends as “Doctor Kilfire.”
Lewis played amateur and semi-pro baseball in Arkansas and Oklahoma before coming to Texas. He also umpired some in Dallas City Leagues in the early 1900’s.
Lewis F. Holland is the son of John Greeleaf Holland, born December 10, 1845 in Wake County, North Carolina. John G. Holland moved to Tennessee then Arkansas as a child and later became a Private in the Confederate Army. Arkansas’s entrance into the conflict was late in the Civil Car, John G.’s military career was a short one. His older brother, W.H. Holland served in the Arkansas Infantry Regiment.
Also in 1866, twenty-one year old John G. Holland began to read Law under Judge Jesse Cypert. John G. passed the Bar in 1867 and worked as an Attorney and Notary public in Searcy throughout the 1870’s, and became a Judge in White County sometime later. He married Ella M. Henley on January 14, 1879 and they had five children together before her death in 1889: Lillie C. Holland, Della Holland, Percy Holland, Bessie Holland, and Lewis Files Holland (1885-1969). (Ella M. Henley was the daughter of B. F. and Mary J. Henley.)
John G. Holland was one of the founding members of the Missionary Baptist Church in Searcy and also served as Superintendent of Sunday School for the First Baptist Church. On June 12, 1901 The Arkansas Baptist newsletter stated that he served as church clerk from 1882 to 1885 at the Shiloh Baptist Church of Christ (later known as the Searcy Baptist Church) and that he was re-elected and served in that capacity from 1886 to 1896.
John G. was elected Mayor of Searcy in 1877 as well as assistant clerk of the lower house of the General Assembly; chief clerk of same in 1879. He served as Secretary of the Arkansas Senate from 1879-1891. He was Justice of the Peace in White County from 1885 to 1886. In 1890, he was made president of the School Board of Searcy.
John G. Holland became the owner of the Searcy Eagle Newspaper in 1878 (and worked in the State Auditor’s Office.) The White County Record was sold to John G. Holland in 1878 and he sold it in 1884. He became a partner of the Arkansas Beacon in 1883 and then brought John R. Jobe aboard in December of 1884. Holland & Jobe were still listed as the proprietors of the Arkansas Beacon in 1889. (Judge Cypert had quite an influence on John G.’s life and probably encouraged him to enter the newspaper/publishing business as the Judge himself had done a decade or two earlier.)
John G. was a Council Mason and a member of the Knights & Ladies of Honor. His political views were affiliated with the Democratic party.
After Ella M. Henley Holland died in April of 1889, John G. Holland remarried and had a son whom he named John Critz Holland.
John Greeleaf Holland was the son of Willis B. Holland (1818-1869) who was born in North Carolina and married Lucinda Barbee (1814-1888) in Wake County, NorthCarolina in 1838. Willis was a planter by occupation in North Carolina and in February of 1851 emmigrated to Henderson County, Tennessee. Once there he continued this pursuit and taught school.
In 1852, Willis B. brought his family to White County, Arkansas where he resided in Gray Township for three years. In 1854 they moved to Des Arc Township, settling where Center Hill is now located. He sent in the petition for and established the first post office at Center Hill and was made its first Postmaster. In 1860 he moved to Van Buren County then back to White County.
Willis B. Holland was a Civil Engineer and a farmer. He was Deputy County Surveyor for White County. Records in White County list “W.B. Holland, (as) Surveyor 1856-1860, and 1864-1866 of White County.” He was a royal Arch Mason, and of the Council degrees, and was affiliated with the Democratic political party. He helped organize the Centre Lodge No. 114 where he became Worshipful Master. There is another lodge in Van Buren County that is named for him: Holland Lodge No. 158.
Willis B. Holland was the son of David Henry Holland (1777-1849) and Mabel Bridges (1782-1867) of Wake County, North Carolina. His grandfa- ther was Richard Holland (1750-1798) who was a soldier in the American Revolution in the North Carolina Militia; his grandmother was Mary Edwards.
Josiah Barbee, Lucinda Barbee Holland’s father, is a direct descendant of William Barbee of Essex and Middlesex Counties, Virginia, born 1660 and died 1720.
The Bland, Yeates, Wilkinson, and Royall Family Lines
John M. Holland’s mother was Ruby Cecile Bland Holland, born in Columbus, Mississippi May 2, 1889; she died in Dallas, Texas on July 22, 1988.
Ruby was the daughter of Charles Morgan Bland (1857-1929) and Mary Frances Yeates (1861-1918). Charles M. Bland was born in Perry County Alabama. His mother moved the family to Webster Co. Mississippi after the Civil War. Charles was a piano distributor in Mississippi and at the turn of the century, moved his family from Jackson, Mississippi to Dallas, Texas.
The family settled on Rose Avenue next door to the Mayor Jim Thurmond. The Mayor’s son J.M.Jr married one of his daughters, Lena, not too long after. Charles and his family became members of the Grace Methodist Church in Dallas on Junius Street. While Mary Frances Yeates Bland was the Vice-President of the Dallas Women’s Club, the club was instrumental in getting the first filtration plant built in the city of Dallas for pure water.
Charles Morgan Bland was a “vivid brunette” with a very “chic” mustache. He was said to have dancing brown eyes that usually had a twinkle in them. He was an “immaculate” dresser and wore quite a collection of gorgeous Ascots. Charles was well educated and loved music.
Charles M. Bland bought a farm in Grand Prairie, Texas from S.A. Fishburn; Mary Frances named it “Sunnyside.” The farm had a sloping hill covered with bluebonnets and pecan trees. She wrote poems and sent them back to the Dallas Morning News to be published. In 1915 she wrote a poem which her daughter, Ella Mae, set to music which became the song entitled “Bluebon- net.” They won $500 for the best song about Texas and had the song published.
Charles sold “Sunnyside” after their young son Oliver K. died there, and they moved into a big two-story house in Grand Prairie at the Fishburn stop on the Interurban. Afterwards, Charles went back to selling pianos and organs at Busch and Gerts Music Company in Dallas on Elm Street.
Charles M. Bland was the son of Robert Galbreth Bland and Frances Morgan Wilkinson. Robert Bland’s father was the Rev. Joseph Henry Bland, a missionary to Alabama from North Carolina: Robert’s grandfather, Joseph Bland fought in the American Revolution for Virginia. Their forefathers were the Bland’s of Northern Virginia. Their ancestor James Bland was born in Penrith, St. Andrew’s Parish, Cumberland County, England in 1661. James sailed from England to the Province of East Jersey in 1684, settled in Virginia by 1687 and became a planter. He died in Stafford County Virginia in 1709. His great-grandfather was also named James Bland who was born in Cumberland County (now called Cumbria) England in 1575.
Frances Morgan Wilkinson was born in the Greenville District of South Carolina in 1824. She attended what is now Judson College in Marion, Alabama. She was the daughter of Dr. John Wilkinson, originally of Amelia County, Virginia and Lucy Penick of Prince Edward County VA. Her grandfather was Dr. Stephen Wilkinson who served as a surgeon in the Navy during the Revolutionary War. Her grandmother was Tabitha Morgan. The Virginia Genealogists Magazine traces this family back to John Wilkinson and Sarah Royall who settled in Charles City, Virginia in the mid-- 1600 ‘s. Sarah Royall was the daughter of Captain Joseph Royall, a ships master in Essex England who came to America in 1622 on the “Charity;” her mother was Catherine Banks of Canterbury, Kent, England, making the family cousins to US President Thomas Jefferson. Joseph’s father was Joseph Royall (1550-1615) who founded a leather factory in London to produce shoes for the armies of Queen Elizabeth I and King James I. His father was Roger Royall (1493-1562) who is shown on the Fairstead Parish Register, Essex as “brevart” in the service of Henry VIII from 1513 until 1538. He was a professional soldier and a “land owner in Essexshire.” He was also a member of the Palace Guard. Roger’s father was John Royall (1467-- c1519). John Royall held public office “in ye svc sfe” under Richard III and Henry VII.
Lucy Penick Wilkinson descends from Edward Penick (1686-1734) of New Kent County, Virginia and his wife Elizabeth.
Mary Frances Yeates was the daughter of Elijah Morgan Yeates born 1819 in Indiana and Eunice Harrell of Spartanburg, South Carolina. They moved to Mississippi before Mary Frances was born. Elijah’s father was George Yeates who was born in England and probably emmigrated to the Midwest- ern United States with his two brothers. Elijah’s mother was Cynthia Ann Elizabeth Porter.
George Yeates named his eldest son Lorenzo Dow Yeates, after the evangelist who founded the Primitive Methodist Church; Dow was called the “modern day Elijah.” George named his second son Elijah.
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