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HOLDEN, CHARLES A.
Vol. 5, p. 1812

Among the men who are winning success at the bar of Western
Oklahoma, one who is rapidly coming to the forefront is Charles A.
Holden, city attorney of Clinton, and one of the energetic and
influential young democrats of Custer County. Mr. Holden was born at
Walhalla, Oconee County, South Carolina, September 23, 1887, and is a
son of A. P. and Ann P. (CONLEY) Holden.

The Holden family originated in England, from whence one John Holden
came to America about the year 1700 and settled near Williamsburg,
Virginia, where he was a planter, a vocation followed by many of the
family. Among his descendants were three who fought as soldiers in
the Revolutionary war, John Holden, William Holden, and Capt. John
Holden. The last named was a captain of Militia in the patriot army,
and, like the others, a planter. The son of Capt. John Holden, also
named John, was a great-grandfather of Charles A. Holden, and in 1805
located in the Pendleton District, South Carolina. He passed his life
in planting and died in 1856, leaving a family of twelve children.
Five of his sons were in one company in the Second Regiment, South
Carolina Volunteer Infantry, during the Civil war, and another son
was a captain in another regiment under Wade Hampton. The oldest of
the twelve children of John Holden was the grandfather of Charles A.
Holden. He was born in Pendleton District, South Carolina, in 1813,
and followed the family vocation of planting. When he attained his
majority he left home and secured a plantation of his own in the
vicinity of Pine Mountain, Georgia, where there his death occurred
May 31, 1893.

A. P. Holden was born at Pine Mountain, Georgia, in 1860, and about
the time of his marriage moved across the state line to Walhalla,
South Carolina. There he was engaged as a lumberman until November,
1907, when he came to Cordell, Oklahoma, where his death occurred
February 1, 1908. He was a stanch and unswerving democrat and a
member of the Masonic fraternity. Mrs. Holden, who survives and
resides at Cordell, is a native of Macon County, Georgia. There were
three children in the family, as follows: Charles A., of this notice;
W. S., who is a merchant and resides at Cordell; and Bessie, who died
February 17, 1908, at Cordell, aged sixteen years.

Charles A. Holden received his early education in the public schools
of Walhalla, South Carolina, being graduated from the high school
there in the class of 1906. The next two years were spent at the
University of North Carolina, at Chapel Hill, and three years were
then passed at the University of Missouri, at Columbia, where he was
graduated in 1911 with the degree of Bachelor of Arts. He was
admitted to the bar in that same year and in September began practice
at Cordell, Oklahoma, from whence he came to Clinton in July, 1913.
This city has continued to be his field of practice, his offices
being located in the Welch Building, on Frisco Avenue. He has built
up an excellent general practice, being equally at home in all
branches of his profession, and is the representative of some large
interests. A stanch [sic] democrat, he has taken an active part in
county and state convention work, having attended every county
convention since coming to Oklahoma and being a campaign speaker of
note, whose services are always in demand. In 1914 he was the
successful candidate of his party for the office of city attorney, a
position in which he is rendering his adopted city valuable service.
Mr. Holden is a member of the Phi Alpha Delta Greek letter college
fraternity, and is generally popular in social circles of the city.

On April 15, 1914, at Pawnee, Oklahoma, Mr. Holden married Miss
Jennie B. BERRY, daughter of George M. Berry, who was a member of the
Oklahoma Constitutional Convention and is now a well known banker of
Pawnee.

SOURCE: Thoburn, Joseph B., A Standard History of Oklahoma, An
Authentic Narrative of its Development, 5 v. (Chicago, New York: The
American Historical Society, 1916