Hollingsworth, Orlando Newton (1836–1919)

Orlando Newton Hollingsworth, legislator and education leader, son of Benjamin and Joycie (Jones) Hollingsworth, was born in Calhoun County, Alabama, on April 5, 1836. The family moved to Rusk County, Texas, in December 1845. Hollingsworth attended the University of Virginia from 1859 to 1861. In 1861 he enlisted in Robert H. Cumby's Company B, Third Texas Cavalry, and became company adjutant. He was badly wounded during the Battle of Corinth in 1862 and was transferred to the topographical corps. He married Ruth Grace Katherine Platner in Rusk, Texas, in 1864, and the couple had at least six children.

After the Civil War, Hollingsworth taught at a private academy in San Antonio until he founded Coronal Institute at San Marcos in 1868. He was admitted to the bar and in 1872 was elected to the Thirteenth legislature, representing Hays and surrounding counties.

A conservative Democrat, Hollingsworth was elected superintendent of public instruction in December 1873 and took office in January 1874. He served as secretary of the state board of education from 1876 to 1884, living in Austin at the time. In 1880 he established the Texas Journal of Education, which he sold in 1882. After serving as receiving clerk at the General Land Office, he disappeared from public life. By 1900, Hollingsworth was living with his wife in the area of Atlanta, Georgia, but at some point he returned to Austin, Texas, and died there in 1919.