John Holladay - Salt Lake

Salt Lake

In late spring 1847, on receiving word that main party was en route, they retraced their steps to Laramie thence to the Salt Lake area arriving on on July 29, 1847. From Pueblo they carried a seed supply of Taos wheat a hard wheat variety grown around Taos, New Mexico. This seed did well in the Salt Lake Valley becoming a commonly used strain.

In Utah, John eventually settled his family and others of his group on Spring Creek, a tributary of Little Cottonwood Creek at a place which was called Holladay’s Burg after him and which became the present-day town of Holladay, Utah.

In 1851, the Holladay family joined Apostle Amasa Lyman’s LDS Church sanctioned purchase and colonization of Rancho San Bernardino, present-day San Bernardino, CA. The family returned to Utah in 1857 after Brigham Young dictated the demise of the San Bernardino colony which he apparently considered a threat to the Utah project. The colonists had secured a mortgage collectively to purchase the Rancho San Bernardino. They were forced to default when it was almost paid off suffering heavy economic loss never compensated by the LDS Church. With the exodus their real estate became worthless. Some Holladays remained in the area and left the LDS.

Back in Utah, John settled first at Beaver, Utah then at Holladay Springs, Utah near present day Santaquin, Utah where he remained until his death on December 31, 1861 according to his obituary in the Deseret News which has his name as John Holladay. He was buried in a field near the home where Catherine was also buried when she died on April 19, 1877. Their grave markers were moved in 1960 to the Santaquin City Cemetery. The unmarked graves remain at the original burial place, which is now plowed under.

His children, who pioneered in Utah, Arizona, Idaho, and California, were:

• Lutisha (Letitia) Hollis Holladay m. Allen Freeman Smithson
• Catherine Beasely Holladay m. Braxton Acres
• John Daniel Holladay m. Mahalia Ann Rebecca Matthews, Johanna Blake,

and Sarah Elizabeth Hollis

• Sarah Ann Holladay m.Absolom Porter Dowdle
• Karen Happoch Holladay m.Thomas Bingham
• David Hollis Holladay m.Henrietta Taylor
• Keziah Donnel Holladay m. Henry Green Boyle
• Thomas Wiley Middleton Holladay, m. Ann Hotton Mathews
• Lenora McCray Holladay d.1853