John S. Holley & Family---------------------------------------------by Ardell Watkins Burress - Placed on a Scroll several years back and given to my mother by a cousin.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------In 1836 John, purchased 120 acres of land located about five miles northeast of his father's place on the east side of the Yellow River.  He apparently farmed at this location until the mid 1840's when he married and moved with his brothers, Hosea and William, to Coffee County.  When Hosea died, John Holley was made executor of his estate (1858-1861) and guardian for his five young children.  John Holley and his wife, Harriett M., who was born in Alabama in 1825, raised the following children;  William F., b1847;  Martha J., b1849;  John C, b1851;  Amanda C., b1853;  Hosea, b1855;  Alfred, b1855;  Harriett A., B1857, and Oliver, b1859.  John Holley died on April 27, 1861 about two weeks after the start of the Civil War and was buried in the Holley Cemetery located on the Holley Plantation which is near Kinston, Alabama on the west side of the Pea River Bridge.  After the Civil War Harriett Holley and some of her children moved to the southern part of Covington County next door to William Floyd Alpin, and worked as a domestic.    Many of their descendants still reside in that area.John S. Holley (born Feb 2, 1813 & died April 27, 1861).  He fought in the Spanish American war and as a result was given a Land Grant in what is now La Salle County, Cotulla, Texas.  Official records at Austin, Texas show:John S. Holley told his son, Bud, he could have all the money in a saddle bag if he could lift it.  He tried and could not move it at all.Mattie Danley Holley, wife of John S., lost her husband at 48 years old in 1861, leaving her a widow with children.  During the Civil War she was a Union sympathizer.  The Union forces came in a wagon from Pensacola and took her & her children and kept them safe till the war was over.  After the war she came back.  Neighbors did not like this and would not speak to them.  Son Bud got on a horse & rode around over the community shooting into the air to make folks afraid.  A Negro named Aunt Chloe was Mattie's house servant.  When she was freed, she cried & cried--she got on a boat going down the river--was waving and crying.  At the close of the war, Mattie Danley Holley had a whole trunk full of Confederate money (bills).  She later burned it as it was no good.Mattie had a houseboy who always came into the bedroom early in the morning to build the fire in the fireplace.  He always took his hat off and laid it in the hall before he came in.  The day after her husband, John S. Holley, died, the boy came walking into the room with his hat on.  Mattie reached under the cover and pulled out a 38 revolver and said, "Put that hat in the hall".  He did and she never had any more insolence from him.During the war, Bud Holley went out and killed two cats, skinned them and brought them in to the Negro cooks saying that they were squirrels.  After the meal, he went around "meowing".  The Negro cooks said he ought to be killed before he grew up.Sis and Nan, daughters of Mattie, baked a cake for boy friends, Bill and Henry Aplin.  Their mother had forbidden such.  She was away visiting a neighbor.  They hid the cake in a drawer under the rocking chair seat.  The family parrot observed all this.  When Mattie came home she took off her bonnet and sat down in rocker.  The parrot told on them by saying, "Cakie burn your assie", repeatedly.  Mattie made them open the drawer and she found the cake.  The girls were so mad at the parrot, they sewed up his bowel opening so that he died!  They later married the Aplin boys.