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Only a few years before he located at Madill the city had been founded in a region of the Chickasaw country that for a generation furnished rest, recreation and rendezvous for many of the bold and bad men who openly violated the law. Soon afterward he was named county physician, an appointment which was remarked throughout the cattle country as an undeniable sign that encroaching civilization had become thoroughly established. It was as county physician that Doctor Holland had one of his most thrilling experiences, and one which attracted wide attention at the time. Several men of desperate character, charged with the theft of horses and believed to belong to a noted band of thieves, had been confined in the county jail. Along toward midnight following their incarceration one of them reported to the jailer that he was suffering from a chill and feared he would die unless he had speedy relief. The jailer examined the man and was convinced that he was indeed ill. He called Doctor Holland, urging him to make all haste, as the man was suffering intensely. Doctor Holland hurried to the jail. The prisoners were all gathered in an open cell. The jailer, unarmed, unlocked the door and as the doctor stepped in two strong men seized him and pitched him into a far corner. The other men rushed to the door, seized the jailer and flung wide the door. The entire group of prisoners, barring two trustees, made good their escape. It was a dramatic incident in which not a weapon figured, nor was a man injured. The only alarm raised was the cry of the jailer when the escaping prisoners threatened to pinch his arm in twain between the cell door and the door facing. Some of the men who escaped at that moment were not recovered for years. Doctor Holland's early practice among Indians in Marshall County brought him other experiences that are of a different interest and serve to illustrate old Indian customs. There had been white physicians in the territory fifteen and twenty years before his coming, but modern medicine had not entirely supplanted the Indian Medicine Men. The latter had sullenly opposed the coming of the white doctors and their influence among the tribesmen, especially the fullbloods, and created a strong sentiment against the doctors. Doctor Holland was called one day to attend Gilbert PICKENS, son-in- law of I. Hunter Pickens, who was one of the wealthiest and most influential men of the Chickasaw Nation. The red medicine man had had the case, and his herb and root concoction had utterly failed. Pickens was suffering from typhoid fever, and as Doctor Holland approached he saw the patient walking about in the yard. When he entered the house he found Pickens in bed in a state of collapse. He had suffered a severe hemorrhage that must have resulted fatally but for the timely aid Doctor Holland was able to give. This case, it is said, heralded the coming of a change in sentiment toward the pale- face medicine man among the more influential of the red men. Doctor Holland was born at Era, Cooks County, Texas, in 1878, and is a son of Joshua L. and Agnes J. (TRIPP) Holland. His father, who was a native o f Georgia and a Confederate veteran was an early settler in Cooke County, Texas. The grandfather was a native Georgian and before the war was one of the wealthiest men in his state, owning large plantations, slaves, mills and stores. When he settled in Texas after the war he paid $3.30 an acre for black prairie land that is today worth $150 an acre. Doctor Holland has a brother and three living sisters. R.J. Holland is a farmer at Era, Texas. One sister is the wife of F.W. WILLIAMS, a merchant in Myra, Texas; another is Mrs. E. KIRKPATRICK, wife of a farmer in Cooke County, Texas; and Thelma is the wife of Doctor REYNOLDS, of Marysville, Texas. While attending school at Era, Doctor Holland made up his mind to become a physician, but this determination met the opposition of his parents, and his medical education was accordingly acquired on his own resources. He graduated from the Era School with an A.B. degree and after a few years in the mercantile business entered the medical department of the Fort Worth College, graduating in 1905. In the year he began the practice of medicine at Madill. Doctor Holland was married in 1895 at Era to Miss Zona WALKER. Their two children are Wilna, aged fourteen and Mildred, ten years old. Doctor Holland is a member of the Baptist Church of Madill. He is city superintendent of the public health and is a member of the County and State Medical societies and the American Medical Association. His fraternal connections are with the Masons and with the Woodmen of the World, and in the former order he belongs to the shrine at Muskogee, the Consistory at McAlester, the Knight Templar Commandery at Ardmore, the Eastern Star at Madill, and the Blue Lodge No. 796 Ancient Free and Accepted Masons at Era, Texas. For five years he was clerk of the lodge of the Woodmen of the World at Hood, Texas. Typed for OKGenWeb by Linda Ricco, November 15, 1998.