Thomas Leonidas Holliday, son of Richard Ivey Holliday (1791-1857) and Mary Evans Holliday (d. 1852), was born in Georgia on April 29, 1822. His parents were from Maryland and Georgia, respectively, and the family moved from Georgia to Sharon, Madison County, Mississippi, in 1844. Sharon is located about seven miles northeast of Canton. Thomas Holliday was living with his parents in Sharon in 1847. He frequently attended religious camp meetings in the county, and he was a member of a brass band in Canton. Richard and Thomas Holliday were both farming in Madison County in 1850, and Richard Holliday owned $2,232 in real estate. By November of 1850, Thomas Holliday was engaged to his second-cousin, Harriet E. Catching, who was born on October 23, 1828, and lived in Georgetown, Copiah County, Mississippi. After their marriage, Thomas and Harriet Holliday had five children: Mary (b. 1851), Benjamin, Josephine, Harriet Thomas, and Thomas Catchings Holliday (b. 1868). Thomas Leonidas Holliday died of a stroke at his home in Sharon on June 21, 1892, and Harriet Catching Holliday died on January 4, 1910.

This collection includes thirty-four items of correspondence written by Thomas Leonidas Holliday from Sharon, Madison County, Mississippi, to Harriet E. Catching in Georgetown, Copiah County, Mississippi, and one other letter. The single letter is from A. P. Stuts [?] of Bowling Green, Kentucky [?], to Holliday, concerning the death of someone close to the writer. Six of the thirty-four Holliday letters are undated, but the rest of the correspondence covers the 1847 to 1851 period when Holliday courted and became engaged to Catching. The courtship letters focus primarily upon the correspondents, but Holliday occasionally mentions other people living in Copiah and Madison counties. Other references are made to Presbyterian revival meetings attended by both correspondents, local weddings and deaths, and illnesses that Holliday and others suffered.

1. Correspondence. 1847-1851; n.d. 4 folders.