Benjamin Holland (abt. 1732 - aft. 1830)

Born about 1732 in Maryland [uncertain]

Descendants

Died after 1830 after about age 98 in Cocke, Tennessee, United States

Biography

Benjamin was born in 1740. Benjamin Holland ... He passed away after 1830.

Benjamin Holland, the ancestor of the Cocke County Hollands, was born about 1740 and lived in Maryland before moving to Virginia; in a 1786 North Carolina land grant, his wife’s name was recorded as Martha. Around 1761 the family moved to Pittsylvania County, Virginia then known as Halifax County, during the early 1760s their home was burned down by Indians . James Cheston, son of John, and grandson of Benjamin Holland wrote that his maternal grandfather was killed by Indians while living in Virginia. Benjamin took out a land grant in Pittsylvania County on 18 November 1779 for 374 acres on both sides of the Cat Trail Ford of Sycamore Creek adjoining Issac Clement’s land and another for 174 acres on both sides of Sycamore Creek adjoining Calloway’s land.

Late in 1778, Benjamin Holland and his family moved to Montgomery now Wythe County, Virginia taking out land grants around Bobett’s Creek on Little Read Island and a branch of the New River including a grant for 250 acres on 22 March 1785.

The state of Franklin organized after the Revolutionary War as the result of the North Carolina legislature passing the Cession Act of 1784 giving Congress the unappropriated western part of the state to use as payment to soldiers for their military service but which left the inhabitants without a government. The newly created territory “South of the Ohio River” as it was known was no longer under state jurisdiction but rather under Congressional authority with two years to decide what type of government to install. Representatives from the territory met at Jonesboro on the 23rd of August 1784 to found Franklin as the 14th state of the recently independent United States whose government was established the previous year. Benjamin Holland was elected deputy representing Washington County.

On 10 November 1784, state of North Carolina land grant number 594, Benjamin Holland paid 50 shillings for 100 acres in the “Buffaloe Valley of Sinking Creek” adjacent to Christopher Cunningham, John Rider, and Thomas Hardeman. Two years later on 7 August 1786 “Benjamin Holland, yeoman, and his wife Martha” sold for 100 pounds North Carolina money to Jesse Hunt the same 100 acres. He added 120 acres adjoining the land “he now lives on” on 7 August 1787. Charles Robinson “being administrator to Christopher Cunningham deceased of Greene County” sold to Benjamin Holland his North Carolina land grant of 10 November 1784 for 100 pounds North Carolina money adjacent to Captain George Russell the 12th of June 1788 in Washington County. On 31 December 1793 “Benjamin Holland, planter” paid Mesheck Haile 300 pounds for 121 acres on Sinking Creek and the 30th of January 1812 Mesheck Haile sold to his son Zachariah Haile 320 acres on Little Sinking Creek for five hundred dollars adjacent to the original 300 acre land grant of Benjamin Holland and others. Benjamin died around 1833 near age 100; he and Martha are buried at the Holland cemetery on Round Hill near Lemon’s Gap, Cocke County, Tennessee. The graveyard dates from the earliest days with roughly hewn rectangular inscriptionless headstones. On the 31st of July 1797 Benjamin’s son Thomas paid Spencer Rice £40 Virginia money for half an acre of land on the north side of the French Broad River across from Huff’s Fort containing the ferry thereafter known as Holland’s Ferry. Big Creek the name changed to Del Rio in 1880 was “the funnel mouth of the [hog] drive up the French Broad River” and the Wolf Creek Inn was an important stop along the stagecoach road. Thomas commissioned Captain in the Cocke County Regiment of Militia on 5 April 1798 became a Justice of the Peace on the 26th of October the following year. From 2 July 1791 to 9 October 1797, Cocke County was part of the territory ceded to the United States by the Cherokee Indians by the Treaty of the Holston negotiated by William Blount Governor of the Territory South of the Ohio River and the Cherokee Indians. An act was passed creating Cocke County from a portion of Greene County, Tennessee on 9 October 1797 and by a 29 October 1801 act Thomas was to be paid one dollar per day for marking the dividing line between the two counties. During the 1792-98 court sessions of Jefferson County Benjamin gave his son Thomas power of attorney. In 1810, Benjamin gave 350 acres in Cocke County to his sons Thomas and John. Benjamin desired to give land to his grandson Benjamin as a wedding gift upon his marriage to Lydia Warren 22 April 1808. His father Thomas gave them a slave named David instead, the land was later deeded to Thomas in exchange for the slave. ^[1]

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Sources

1. ↑ First-hand information as remembered by Daniel Estefano, Thursday, March 6, 2014. Replace this citation if there is another source.

• https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/161014457/benjamin-holland
• Military Service Record of Thomas Holland, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

See also:

• https://www.familytreedna.com/public/holland?iframe=yresults