American Biography

Abraham James Holderman was the oldest of the five children reared by his parents. His father died November 28, 1887. The younger children were: Albert Henry, a farmer and stock raiser at Morris, Illinois; Martha, wife of M. D. Wilson, a farmer near Morris, Illinois; Landy S., a farmer near Paxton, Illinois; and Samuel, who occupies the old homestead in Grundy County.

Abraham James Holderman thus had home and influences during his youth such as would stimulate his high ideals and would procure for him the best advantages. He attended the public schools of Grundy County and also the Morris Classical and Scientific Institute. He learned farming not by haphazard experience but under the direction and with the advice of his father, known as one of the most skillful agriculturists and stock men in Illinois. In 1876 he began farming for himself, and through farming and stock raising he rapidly gained financial independence.

It was in the spring of 1885 that Mr. Holderman moved to Butler County, Kansas. Here be bought 640 acres of the finest land in the county. This land is located along the Walnut River at Chelsea. Since then his holdings have been increased to 1,400 acres, and there is hardly a farm in the state that possesses greater fertility, both by nature and by wise conservation which is scientifically conducted. It is operated as a general farming proposition, and Mr. Holderman in the average season feeds a herd of about 500 cattle.

This farm includes one of the historic sites in Butler County. It is in Chelsea Township, and the old Town of Chelsea is included within its limits. Chelsea was at one time the county seat of Butler County. At different times Mr. Holderman bought all the old buildings of the town, excepting the old schoolhouse and the church. Both these structures still stand well preserved, with the verdant fields of the Holderman farm as their background. Mr. Holderman donated the ground upon which the church was built.

Besides the home farm Mr. Holderman has another place adjoining El Dorado on the west. This is also one of the show places of the rural districts of Butler County. Mr. Holderman has constructed a large artificial lake, and it is well stocked with bass and crappie. These fish afford game sport to the owner and his friends.

Since 1886 Mr. Holderman has directed his various business affairs from his home in the City of El Dorado. In 1898 he became a stockholder in the Farmers and Merchants National Bank of El Dorado. He was one of the directors from that time and in May 1909, was elected president to succeed R. H. Hazlett. The Farmers and Merchants National Bank was organized in 1894, and is now the oldest bank in point of continuous existence in El Dorado. Its standing and resources are proportionate to its age. It has a capital of $50,000, surplus of $50,000, and its deposits aggregate $500,000. This was not Mr. Holderman’s first participation in banking. During the late ’80s he and W. T. Clancy conducted the Bank of El Dorado, a private institution, which they subsequently liquidated.

Associated with R. H. Hazlett, Mr. Holderman also organized the Butler County Telephone Company, and was president of that organization until it was sold to the Bell Company in March, 1916. This company was one of the largest independent telephone companies in the state. It covered with its lines the entire county and had exchanges in all the towns except Potwin and Whitewater.

The larger life of the community as well as its business affairs has benefited much by Mr. Holderman’s residence of more than thirty years at El Dorado. He was elected mayor of the city in 1903 and re-elected in 1905. His two terms proved a high water mark in the municipal government. During those terms the city commenced the construction of its sewage system, acquired the waterworks under municipal ownership and constructed the concrete dam on Walnut River, rebuilt the stand-pipe and made other permanent improvements at a total cost of $50,000. Mr. Holderman is a republican in politics.

On March 6, 1877, he married Miss J. Virginia Bashaw. Mrs. Holderman is a daughter of Robert Hume Bashaw of Warrington, Virginia. Mrs. Holderman is one of the most cultured women of El Dorado and has presided with wonderful dignity and grace over their fine modern home on High Street, considered the best residence in Butler County. It is a home widely noted for its hospitality. Mr. and Mrs. Holderman are the parents of five children.

Mary Virginia, the oldest, was born March 28, 1878, and is the wife of Robert H. Ramsey.

Theodore W. Holderman, oldest son of A. J. Holderman, was born in Illinois September 29, 1888, was reared and educated in Butler County, and since coming to his majority has been more or less actively identified with farming and stock raising. He now owns and operates a 160-acre farm in Chelsea Township, and apparently possesses the family faculty of handling and growing stock with a high average of success. He was married July 1, 1907, to Miss Mattie Lee Hunt, daughter of Joseph Hunt and Sarah Belle (Wood) Hunt. They have one child, Alfred Donald.

Grace Pearl Holderman, the third child, was born January 3, 1890, and has completed a five year course in the Mount Carmel School at Wichita, Kansas. The youngest sons are Abraham J Holderman, Jr., and Curtis Malcolm Holderman. The latter was born November 25, 1900.

Abraham J. Holderman, Jr., was born at El Dorado, Kansas, December 16, 1894, was educated in the grammar schools and put in one year at the high school, was a student in the Tennessee Military Institute a year and a half, and finished his education with a year and a half in the Florida Military Academy at Jacksonville. He was graduated from the Florida institution in 1914 with the rank of captain adjutant. During the year 1916 he attended the Kansas State Agricultural College at Manhattan, and was commissioned to the rank of captain by Governor Arthur Capper of Kansas. He is a member of the Scabbard and Blade military fraternity, the most exclusive and distinctive organization of the kind in the world. He is also a member of the El Dorado Loyal Order of Moose, is a member of the Presbyterian Church and in politics is independent. In 1917 A. J. Holderman, Jr., became bookkeeper in the Farmers and Merchants National Bank at El Dorado, of which his father is president.

Mrs. James L. McCoy has for a number of years been one of the recognized leaders in women’s affairs at Coffeyville Kansas, and has accomplished a great deal in making woman’s influence effective in behalf of a cleaner and better city and more wholesome conditions throughout the community. Mrs. McCoy, who married Mr. McCoy in 1891, at St. Paul, Arkansas, was before her marriage Miss Katie Bretz. She is in the fifth generation from her ancestor Bretz who came from Holland and settled in Pennsylvania in colonial times. This ancestor was Philip Bretz, who located in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, in 1765. Mrs. McCoy has a complete and authentic record of all the generations subsequent to the Bretz family on American shores.

Katie (Bretz) McCoy was born at Moccasin, Effingham County, Illinois. She was educated in the public schools there, and was a teacher in those schools for three years. For two more years, before her marriage, she was connected with the schools at St. Paul, Arkansas, which is where she met Mr. McCoy.

Mrs. McCoy is one of the active workers of the Methodist Episcopal Church at Coffeyville, teaches a class in the Sunday School and is conference treasurer of the Home Missionary Society. She is a member of Coffeyville Chapter No. 112 of the Order of the Eastern Star. Her name is especially familiar in connection with woman’s club affairs. She belongs to the Culture Club, which is affiliated with the State Federation of Woman’s Clubs, and is a member of the City Federation of Woman’s Clubs. Again and again her work and influence have been helpful in promoting many movements for the advantage and improvement of her home city.

All this she has accomplished together with the rearing and training of a large family of promising children, many of whom are already on their own responsibilities and making good in the business world. Mr. and Mrs. McCoy have one grandchild. The oldest of their ten children is Clarence, who was born December 20, 1892. He is manager of his father’s sawmill at Horatio, Arkansas. Clarence McCoy married Ethel Millwee at Horatio Arkansas, by whom he has one child, J. L. McCoy, Jr., born March 9, 1915.

Lawrence McCoy, the second son of James L McCoy and Katie (Bretz) McCoy, was born December 24, 1893, and conducts his father’s lumber yard at Angola, Kansas. He is a graduate of the Coffeyville High School. Katie Ray McCoy was born August 18, 1897, and died December 10, 1902. William McCoy was born November 20, 1899, and is a junior in the Coffeyville High School. Elizabeth McCoy was born June 8, 1901, and died in early infancy. Ruth McCoy, born August 26, 1903, is making rapid progress as a scholar and is now in the eighth grade of the public schools. Esther McCoy, born November 18, 1904, is also a remarkably bright child and is in the eighth grade. Frank McCoy was born October 9, 1906, and George McCoy on January 9, 1909, both being in the grammar schools. Ralph McCoy, the youngest, was born November 19, 1912, and died October 3, 1914.

Mrs. McCoy’s father is John Bretz, who was born at Akron, Ohio, June 12, 1836, and is now living at the venerable age of eighty years at Abbott, Arkansas. He grew up and married his first wife in Ohio, was a farmer for a number of years, moved to Illinois in 1862, where he followed farming and the drug business, and in 1887 entered the saw-milling industry in Arkansas, where he is still living, being now retired. Mr. John Bretz is a democrat, and has held the various lay offices in the Methodist Episcopal Church. He is a Royal Arch Mason. His first wife was Julia Hoffman, and her two children were: Jennie, the widow of Thomas Kramer, who was an Illinois farmer and died in 1915; and George, a farmer at Shields, Kansas. For his second wife John Bretz married Angeline Mahin, who was born in Illinois in 1845 and died at Moccasin in that state in 1879. Her children were: Sarah and Lizzie, both deceased; Mrs. James L. McCoy; Edward, deceased; Bertha, who lives in Louisiana, the widow of William Shanklin, who was in the mining business in Missouri associated with his uncle Nathaniel Shanklin, who still lives there; Frank, a sawmill man at Horatio, Arkansas; and Effie, now deceased. John Bretz married for his third wife Mary Culler, and the only child of that union is Fannie, who is unmarried and lives at Massillon, Ohio. For his present wife John Bretz married Lizzie Lucas.