SUBMITTED BY: Stacey Holman Pollio; written by Flossie Martin (1962); edited by Cheri Todd Molter; vetted by Hallie Smith
Isaac Holman, born June 16, 1800, died May 28, 1868, was considered to be the founder of a small settlement about five miles northwest of Mocksville located where the old “Mocksville to Wilkesboro Road” crossed the “Salem to Statesville Road.”
The first member of the Holman (also spelled Holeman) family to settle in what is now Davie County was Isaac, who bought 700 acres of land in the extreme northwest section. He built his house on [part of Wilkesboro Road which was later referred to as] Holman Road in early deeds.
Jacob Holman, a son of Isaac’s, married Lydia Pinchback. [Lydia was the] daughter of John and Isabella Pinchback, who operated a tavern on the Georgia Road near the junction with Holman Road.
It was [Jacob and Lydia’s son, also named] Isaac, who gave the name to Holman’s Crossroads. That Isaac married Mary Neely, then Mary Crenshaw. He had at least five daughters and one son: [Mollie, Margaret, Lula, Camilla, Emma, and Henry.] Mollie J. Holman married Dr. Leon Cash in 1861. They settled at Smith Grove where he practiced medicine for many years. Margaret J. Holman married W. F. McMahan. Lula Holman married a Fitzgerald. Camilla Holman married Berry Steelman. Emma F. Holman married Dr. DeWitt Clement of Mocksville. Henry C. Holman married Sarah Ward in 1861 and lived across the road from his parents.
In Davie County Deed Book 1, [there] are recorded deeds to Isaac Holman for [enslaved people] and for several hundred acres of land. His grandson, D. C. Clement, who lives at Holman’s, says his Grandfather Isaac owned at one time 2500 acres of land and [fifty enslaved individuals] but that when they were freed [by the Emancipation Proclamation], his grandfather was ruined financially. Mr. Clement also said that his grandfather lived first down the road next to Tennison Cheshire but moved up near [what became known as] Holman’s Crossroad in about 1850.
During the Civil War, Union soldiers came by the Holman place. As they went through the gate into the yard, they shot a dog, then got corn from the crib and fed their horses on the front porch of the house. Upon learning that Isaac Holman was a Mason, they did no further damage. After the war, [Major L. W. Duckisney of Boston, Massachusetts, returned, hired a “hack” in Mocksville, and visited the Holmans’. Mr. Clement had an autographed photograph that Duckisney had taken of Mrs. Holman going to the well.]
After the death of her husband, Mrs. Holman took boarders to help the family income. [Those boarders], it seems, were horse traders bringing droves of fifty or sixty horses from Virginia to Mocksville. Other boarders were Mr. Pink Cornatzor [and his sons] from the Baltimore section of Davie County, who came…to buy up timber.
Berry Steelman, [Camilla Holman’s husband], bought Isaac Holman’s place, tore down the old log house and built a large frame house on the site.
Across the road, Henry C. Holman also had a store and in it the Post Office of “Holman’s” was established, March 19, 1878. A service station now stands on the lot on which the store was located. The next postmaster was Jimmie B. Smoot. This post office was discontinued April 30, 1906. Blackwelder’s Garment factory was built on the store lot in 1956, and the Blackwelder home stands on the location of the Henry C. Holman house, which had been torn down.
The Holman house differed from many other two-story frame houses of that period [because it had] a small upstairs porch above the front door. One branch of Elisha Creek [runs behind] the Blackwelder house and factory.
Mr. Dewitt Clement, Emma Holman and Dr. Dewitt Clement’s [son and Isaac’s grandson], lives on a tract of his grandfather’s land, and on the south side of Highway number 601, formerly called the Wilkesboro Road. Immediately north of the house is the old roadbed of that Salem-Statesville Road referred to so frequently in early deeds of that section.
Mr. Clement traced this road as he knew it, claiming that it crossed the Iredell-Davie line at the county line, to Calahaln, to Ijames’s Crossroads, down Liberty Hill, to Holman’s Crossroads, on Cana Road to the present Woodward Road, past the old Isaac Holman place, Tennison Cheshire’s, McMahan’s, to the bridge at Dutchman’s Creek, crossed the Farmington-Mocksville Road, by the “Red House,” crossed Cedar Creek, then ran by Mumph Call’s, Smith Grove, Frank Williams, and on to Hall’s ferry at the Yadkin River Road further south.
Now the name Holman’s Crossroads is forgotten, for Holmans no longer own the land, and the roads do not cross.
The Holman’s public-school house was south of the community, and it has been replaced by the William R. Davie Elementary School, [which was] built when the schools of that area were consolidated.
Major L. W. Duckisney, [the officer] who took that picture [of Mrs. Holman going to the well], would not recognize Holman’s now. Roads are paved, old log houses have long since been torn down, replaced by large brick factory buildings, a busy service station, and…small, shining new homes, and a few more elaborate places with extensive grounds.
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On May 11, 1792, the Rowan County Court ordered Vachel Ijames, William Clark, Thomas Hughey, Isaac Eaton, John Pinchback, William Hodox, Richard Peaks, Peter Glasscock, John Beaman, George Steelman, William Steelman, and Solomon Jones…to lay off a road leading out of the main road to go by Joppa Meeting House the best way to the Surry line. John Pinchback was overseer of said road from Riddle’s road to Captain Foxes’ and John Beaman from thence to the Surry line.
The “main” road from which the new road was to lead by Joppa Meeting House was probably the “Shallowford Road” or “Huntsville-to-Salisbury Road” through Mock’s Old Field (Mocksville).
Deeds and overseer assignments seem to indicate that the Riddle Road was the road later known as the Salem-to-Statesville Road.
The August 1838 Court of Davie County ordered Wilburn Stonestreet to be overseer of the road from Isaac Holman’s to the branch at the foot of Liberty Hill with hands of Isaac Holman, W. Stonestreet, Tennison Cheshire, Thomas B. Owins, George Coon, and Bren Booe.
Flossie Martin
January 24, 1962
