Holley | Fourth Generation Inclusive

May 30, 2014

On trial for the murder of a Swede.

Murder and Arson.

Jesse Holley, a free mulatto, was arrested on last Saturday night, by Mr. A.D. Bordeaux and others, for the murder of a Mr. John Hendrick, and the burning of the house where said Hendrick lived, one night last week. When arrested, Holley had on clothes recognized as the property of the deceased. He was brought to town on Sunday morning and committed to prison, to stand an investigation at next Superior Court, which will be held here next week.

We learn that Mr. Hendrick was a native of Gottenborough, Switzerland [sic], where he has a wife and two children, and was making arrangements to send for them during the present year. He is represented as a man of industrious habits and a good mechanic. He was a shop carpenter by trade, but was in the employ of Mr. Bordeaux, about 2 miles from town, near the Railroad, at the time of his murder.

Wilmington Journal, 9 April 1852.

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To-day, Jesse Holley, a free mulatto, is on trial for the murder of John Hendrick, a Swede, who was killed on the night of the 3d inst., in his house on the Railroad, about 12 miles from town. The house was also burned down. – Jour. of yesterday.

The above named Prisoner has been found guilty.

Weekly Commercial (Wilmington), 30 April 1852.

April 20, 2013

They ran off and was married in an old field.

State of North Carolina, Halifax County } On this 20^th day of May, 1846, personally appeared before me Lemuel P. Johnston an acting Justice of the Peace in and for the County aforesaid, Mrs. Winaford Holley, a resident of said County and State, aged eighty eight years, who being first duly sworn according to law, doth, certify that She was an eye witness to the marriage of Drury Walden to his wife Elizabeth, whose maiden name was Elizabeth Harriss; that they ran away and was married some time in the year (1780) Seventeen hundred and eighty (she well remembers) in an old field a little from the Road, in the County of Northampton North Carolina, by Herbert Harris, who was, at that time, an acting Magistrate in Said County of Northampton; and that the said Drury and wife (after their intermarriage) took supper that evening, at her Winaford Holley’s Mother’s House. That she well recollects, that at the time of the aforesaid Marriage (To Wit) in the year (1780) her husband Jesse Holley, was then a soldier in the army.

She further certifies that upon her oath, that the said Drury Walden’s family, and his wife, the aforesaid Elizabeth’s family, were at (the time of their intermarriage,) living within an half Mile of her Mother’s house; and that she very well remembers, that the aforesaid Drury Walden, did serve one, and she believes two tours in the Army of the Revolution, after he intermarried with the aforesaid Elizabeth Harriss, for all of the above named families, were living at the same places, that they were, at the time of the aforesaid marriage, when the said Drury Walden returned home, from the service; and that she saw him, when he arrived at home from the said service. Winafred X Holley

Sworn to and subscribed on the say and year above written before me L.P. Johnston

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January 17, 2013

Jail break, no. 5.

Broke Jail. – We learn that Jesse Holley, the yellow fellow convicted at our last Superior Court, of murder and arson, and sentenced to be hung, but in whose case an appeal was taken to the Supreme Court, broke out of the jail of this town last night, and made his escape. Holley is a most villainous-looking fellow, about 35 years of age, some five feet eight inches high, and rather stout built. He is rather a light mulatto, with a kind of reddish or sandy hair, as if burned, and a muddy, freckled face.

We believe that a white man, awaiting trial on some charge of felony, made his escape at the same time. We have not learned any of the particulars. Wilmington Journal.

Fayetteville Observer, 3 June 1852.

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