Alexander Q. Holladay

Alexander Quarles Holladay LL.D. (May 8, 1839 – March 13, 1909) was an American lawyer, state senator and college administrator.

During the Civil War, Holladay was an officer of the Confederate States Army, rising to the rank of colonel. For the remainder of his life he was commonly called "Colonel Holladay".

Life The son of Alexander Richmond Holladay (1811–1877), a lawyer and former U. S. Representative, by his marriage to Patsy Quarles Poindexter, Holladay was born in Cherry Grove, Virginia. He was educated, like his father, at the University of Virginia (1857–1859) and then at the University of Berlin (1859–1861) where he specialized in Latin, Greek, moral philosophy, and law. On April 17, 1861, a few days after the outbreak of the Civil War, Holladay married Virginia Randolph Bolling, a daughter of Thomas Bolling of Bolling Island, in the upper James River in Goochland County, Virginia. On May 25, 1861, he was commissioned into the Confederate States Army. The Holladays' daughter Mary Stuart Holladay was born on February 3, 1862, their son William Waller Holladay on September 7, 1864, and their daughter Julia Cabell Holladay in 1868. They had two further sons, Alexander Randolph Holladay (March 12, 1870), and Charles Bolling Holladay, (February 12, 1873).

During the four years of the Civil War, Holladay rose from Second Lieutenant to Colonel. After the war ended in 1865, he studied law and went on to practice in partnership with his father between 1870 and 1877 (Holladay, White and Holladay). During that period, he served in the Virginia State Senate as senator for Richmond, from 1871 to 1875.

In 1889, the North Carolina College of Agriculture and Mechanical Arts Board of Trustees appointed Holladay the first chief executive of the college, which later developed into the North Carolina State University. Holladay originally applied for the position of professor of English of the new college. Holladay presided over approximately fifty students during the 1889–1890 academic year.

Connections Holladay's mother was a niece of George Poindexter (1779–1853), who from 1820 to 1822 had served as the second Governor of Mississippi. He was also related to Lewis Littlepage (1762–1802), the half-brother of Holladay's grandfather, Waller Holladay (1776–1860). Littlepage had a remarkable career as a diplomat in the service of the last Polish king, Stanisław August Poniatowski, and the Russian Empire.

Memorial The Alexander Quarles Holladay Medal is awarded by the North Carolina State University as the highest honor it can bestow on members of its faculty. The first building built at North Carolina State University, Holladay Hall, was renamed after him in 1915.

Publications Alexander Quarles Holladay, Some Genealogical Notes for the information of younger descendants (1901) Alexander Quarles Holladay, Social Conditions in Colonial North Carolina (E. M. Uzzell & Co., 1904)