Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 5.djvu/678

 VIRGINIA BIOGRAPHY

Anthony Holladay, was church warden in 1749 of the Chuckatuck parish; and a bur- gess for Nansemond county in 1752. His uncle, Jonas Holladay, was a burgess for Norfolk county in 1714. Others of the fam- ily were prominent in the Chuckatuck par- ish. (Thomas, a vestryman and church warden in 1758-62; Joseph, a vestryman, 1779; Brewer, church warden in 1779; Jo- seph and James, vestrymen in 1825, and in the Revolutionary and Civil wars ; Joseph, lieutenant in the Revolution ; Francis David, a captain, major and colonel of the Confed- eracy). Alto Francis Holladay was the son of Colonel Francis David and Emily Susan Holladay (nee Pinner), was born in 1843 at Holladay's Point, Nansemond county, Vir- ginia. The estate of Colonel Joseph Holla- day was inherited by his son. Colonel Fran- cis David Holladay. Alto Francis Holladay was first sergeant of Company B. Sixteenth Virginia Regiment, Mahone's Brigade. He entered the service at the age of sixteen and served through the Civil war, and was paroled at Appomattox Court House, April 9, 1865.

Sergeant Alto Francis Holladay on Feb- ruary 15, 1866, married Judith Beverly Hun- ter Copeland. Their children are : Kath- erine Beverly (Mrs. R. H. Pretlow), Francis Alto, John Copeland and Joseph Edward Bridger. Grandchildren : Robert Henley and Francis Beverly Holladay Pretlow; John C, Beverly Long and Francis David Holladay (children of John Copeland Hol- laday).

Judith Beverly Hunter Copeland was the daughter of Colonel John R. and Judith Ann Copeland (nee Hunter). Her father. Colo- nel J. R. Copeland, after the close of the Civil war was instrumental in founding the Farmers' Bank of Nansemond. He was made cashier of the institution, January, 1870, and filled the office until 1884, when he was called to the presidency ; and that posi- tion he held until declining health and ad- vanced years required him to retire from business in 1890. He was the first Demo- cratic mayor of Suffolk, Virginia, who was elected after the Civil war. Judith Ann Hunter (wife of Colonel Copeland) was the daughter of Dr. E. R. Hunter, a practicing physician, and for many years a legislator from Nansemond county. She was the great-great-granddaughter of Sir Edward Bridsfer.

Tradition tells us that Sir Joseph Bridger with care superintended the building in 1632 of St. Luke's (the Brick Church) in New- port parish. Isle of Wight county, Virginia. He was the father of General Joseph Bridger, councillor of state to Charles the 2nd, "Pay- master General to the British troops in America during Bacon's Rebellion, in the reign of Charles the Second of England."

Joseph E. B. Holladay, the present mayor of the city of Suffolk, received his early and preparatory education in the public and pri- vate schools of Suffolk, Virginia. In 1898 he entered Hampden-Sidney College, apply- ing himself especially to the study of liter- ature. He became a member of the Philan- thropic Literary Society in which he so excelled that he was awarded the Freshman Declamer's Medal in 1899 and Debator's Medal in 1900. He was also a member of the Phi Gamma Delta Fraternity.

In the fall of 1901 Mr. Holladay entered the law department of Washington and Lee University, where he continued for two years. Later, 1903, he took a special course in law at the University of Virginia, and in June, 1904, passed the state bar examina- tion and began the practice of his profession, September, 1904, in his native town and has been an active practitioner since.

Mayor Holladay has not only been suc- cessful in his profession and proved himself efficient in the offices of councilman and now as chief executive of his city but he has also become an inventor of note. Early in life he zealously studied the science of elec- tricity, inventing several electrical appa- ratuses and recently produced, after several years of study and experiment, the Detecto, called after his name. This instrument, so acute that it will catch even a whispered sound and convey it several hundred feet, has been accepted by the United States gov- ernment.

On December 5, 1906, Mayor Holladay was married to Margaret Elizabeth Bree- den, a member of the Pee Dee Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, and daughter of Captain P. L. and M. E. Breed- en, of Bennettsville, South Carolina.

Albert Littleton Powell, Washington Lee Powell. The most important and influential jiosition in the financial world of Newport News, Virginia, held by the Powell Trust Company is a condition that owes its ex-