California Biographies 

Source:
History of Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Ventura Counties, California
by: C M Gidney - Santa Barbara. Benjamin Brooks - San Luis Obispo. 
Edwin M Sheridan - Ventura
Volumes II - Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago, ILL., 1917

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm


JOHN JAMES HOLLOWAY . Reminiscent of much that has been written into California annals is the 
career of John James Holloway one of the pioneer ranchers of Santa Barbara County, a resident of Los 
Alamos.  Mr. Holloway is almost a Californian '49er, having come to this state when a boy in 1850. 
Within his personal recollection and experience have developed nearly all those phases of California 
life which are so well known to the people of this state and elsewhere. He was one of the early 
Americans to locate in Santa Barbara County, and there for nearly half a century has prospered and 
lived an upright and public spirited life. 

Born in Benton County, Missouri, January 26, 1839, he is a son of John and Nancy K. (Foster) Holloway, 
his father a native of Kentucky and his mother of North Carolina. As a boy he attended the Missouri 
public schools. Then at the age of eleven years, in 1850, he came across the plains with his parents to 
California. There were twenty-five wagons in the caravan that slowly trekked over the wilderness of 
the West, and there were incidents, hardships and difficulties almost without number in the several 
months spent on the way.  
 
Mr. Holloway attended school after coming to California, but most of his training was acquired in 
looking out for himself and in drinking in the spirit of adventure which then filled all the Golden State. 
At the age of twenty he began farming for himself in Sutter County. In 1861 he moved to Butte County 
and was a stock raiser there until 1864.

For two years he was a stockman in Modoc County, and while all the incidents of his career cannot be 
dwelt upon at length, there was one in connection with his life in Modoc County that requires some 
special mention. He was looked upon as one of the leading citizens of that county, and while there he 
wrote the first agreement of law and order for white settlers published as the basic law or constitution 
of the county, and that agreement when written out by him was signed by 104 men, constituting 
practically the entire law abiding population of the county at that time.

From Modoc County Mr. Holloway continued the cattle business in the State of Nevada for a time, but 
in 1868 came to Southern California and since then has been identified with the Santa Maria Valley. He 
has been a successful farmer and he still owns a fine place of thirty-two acres, highly developed and a 
property that gives him an ample competence for his declining years. 
He has always been interested in public affairs, and served as deputy county assessor four years, as 
squirrel inspector three years and as school trustee for eleven years. He is a member of the Christian 
Church.  
 
On December 22, 1870, at Santa Maria Mr. Holloway married Miss Rebecca T. Miller. Mrs. Holloway, 
who died in 1882, was the mother of six children: Lucy E., Dora, Nancy, Albert, Everett and James. In 
1884 at Santa Maria Mr. Holloway married Sarah Linebaugh. who passed away January 31, 1899. Four 
children were born to this union: Charlotte, Carl, Cornell, deceased, and Frank.