Eady Ann Tolar's Bible
Was it given as a wedding gift? All Eady Ann’s immediate family members were entered initially, in one hand. The data would have had to come from mother Eady or grandmother Suannah, even if neither of them actually wrote it.
The original entries in the Bible appear to have been written by someone comfortable with writing. The handwriting was regular and even. It contained Eady Ann’s family history up to the time of her wedding to James David Rowan. The latest entries were the deaths of Daniel’s wife, Permelia Ann, and their infant son, Lemuel Lamar, in March 1878. It listed only Eady Ann’s immediate family. It did not even include her stepfather, Jesse Inman, or her mother’s marriage to him, although it did include her two half brothers.
The 1860, 1870, 1880 and 1885 censuses report that neither Jesse nor Eady Tolar Inman could read or write. The 1900 census reported that Jesse could not read or write, and Eady could read but not write. Therefore, someone else (maybe a friend or maybe the minister) made all the initial entries. It could have been Eady Ann who wrote it, but the handwriting does not match any of the subsequent entries, which appear to be by at least two different hands.
In the original birth entries, both Susan and Susan Caroline’s names are entered as Suannah, without a second “S” (i.e., not “Susannah”), leaving the possibility that whoever wrote it simply misspelled both, but Suannah’s death (in 1888) is entered in a completely different hand and is spelled the same way.
Original Entries, all same pen, ink and handwriting
Births - Eady Ann’s family
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Second page of births (same original handwriting)
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Note: There is no death date for Bryant Holland. What happened to him? Where did he go? No CSR found for him. One would think they would have included his death date along with the others unless he was still alive somewhere, but he has never turned up on any tax roll or census. Did he just never come back from the war and they didn't know what became of him?
Conclusions I draw from considering the contents of this Bible:
1. Eady Holland did not have any other Holland siblings -- because no one was listed besides Bryant and Suannah Caroline.
2. There is a 20-year gap between the birth of Mary J Gray in NC about 1812 and Eady Holland’s birth in Georgia about 1832. Suannah was about 16 when Mary J was born in NC and about 36 when Eady was born in Georgia. It is not likely that she had her first child at age 36. Mary J Gray was having children in NC while Suannah Holland was having children in Georgia.
3. If Suannah Holland is Mary J Gray’s mother, then she probably had more than one husband and Mary J is not a Holland, but from an earlier marriage. It seems reasonable to think that if Mary J had been a Holland, she would have been listed in the Bible along with Bryant and Susan Caroline. It does seem strange that half-siblings of Eady’s would not have been listed in the Bible, but maybe it was intended to show only the immediate Holland family in Gadsden.
4. It seems unlikely that Suannah would have left NC alone to go to Georgia, so she must have married again before leaving. Who was Suannah’s earlier husband, before Holland? How many children did she leave in NC?
Point #4 leads to a statement in Oscar Leddon’s story about Mr Holland and the kidnapped girl marrying in NC and having the daughter who married Joseph Gray. Then it says, “The parents moved to Georgia.” - - not “The family moved to Georgia” but “the parents moved”. To me, this implies consistency with the theory that Suannah Holland may have left an earlier family in North Carolina and gone to Georgia and had another family. Maybe it was her first husband who "bought" her, and Holland was the only name Oscar Leddon could remember. All conjecture.
