HOLLAND, JAMES K. (1822-1898). James K. Holland, Texas legislator, son of Spearman Holland, was born in Paris, Tennessee, in 1822. His family lived for some time in Holly Springs, Mississippi, before settling in Harrison County, Texas, in 1842. After serving as a captain during the Mexican War, Holland followed his father in politics by representing Panola and Rusk counties in the Third Legislature. He was United States marshal for eastern Texas in 1851 but returned to politics as a senator in the Fifth Legislature. Holland declined nomination to the Secession Convention but represented Brazos, Grimes, and Montgomery counties in the Ninth Legislature and served as a colonel on Governor Pendleton Murrah's staff during the Civil War. Holland was a delegate to the National Union Convention at Philadelphia in 1866. He moved to Austin in the 1880s and made the first report ever presented in the legislature on the University of Texas. He was killed in a fall from a buggy while riding in Tehuacana, Texas, on May 26, 1898.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: E. L. Blair, Early History of Grimes County (Austin, 1930 Frank Brown, Annals of Travis County and the City of Austin (MS, Frank Brown Papers, Barker Texas History Center, University of Texas at Austin Annie J. Holland, "A Texas Volunteer in the Mexican War," Texas Magazine, March 1913. James K. Holland, "Diary of a Texan Volunteer in the Mexican War," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 30 (July 1926).
