Son of Joseph William and Talitha Coburn Holliday. Joseph married (1)Mary Elizabeth Grissette, and (2) Mildred Annette Grissette.

"Joseph William Holliday was the patriarch of a family that carved out an agricultural empire in South Carolina's Pee Dee area.

Born February 14, 1827, near Little Washington, NC, Holliday was the son of Joseph William and Tabitha (Coburn) Holliday. Both parents were members of long established eastern North Carolina families, although the Hollidays trace their American roots back to Virginia.

Orphaned at an early age, J.W. Holliday inherited a share in the sizable estate of his father. But his inheritance was quickly squandered by his guardians and he soon found himself working for uncaring relatives in a kind of indentured servitude.

The war cost Holliday his personal possessions and his businesses. And the hard times of the Reconstruction era tested his well-tempered survival skills. After the war, Holliday engaged in the naval stores business at Cool Springs from 1866 to 1868, then began to look westward to the edge of Horry County and Galivants Ferry.

Yet Holliday's enterprises thrived. As a naval stores operator, merchant, planter and community leader, Holliday soon paid his debts and began amassing a fortune. He was also a partner in a prosperous mercantile business in Homerville, Georgia, in the late 1870s.

In 1870, he was elected Horry county commissioner, in part because of his service as a captain in the Home Guard. He agreed to serve until the county paid off its debts and he requested that his salary go to building roads and bridges in the county.

Holliday was the first postmaster of Galivants Ferry. He also held the postmastership at the community of Savage, later Kingsburg, where he had a general store.

Holliday gave the site and provided the materials to build the Baptist Church of Galivants Ferry that was organized by his wife, Mary Elizabeth Grissette. Mrs. Holliday was a student at Limestone College in the late 1850's before she became mistress of a large plantation and estate. They had eight children. She died June 10, 1889.

In 1891, Holliday married his wife's sister, Nettie Grissette. They had three children. "