Ashley-Clark-Hot Spring County ArArchives Biographies.....Holmes, John Pierce 
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Robert Sanchez http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00027.html#0006574 August 7, 2009, 4:52 pm

Source: Citation Appears Below Biography
Author: S. J. Clarke (Publisher, 1922)

JOHN PIERCE HOLMES.
    One of the leading lumbermen of Ashley county is John Pierce Holmes, who is
residing in Hamburg. A native of this state he was born in Okolona, Clark
county, on the 8th of December, 1873, a son of J. P. and Martha (Williams)
Holmes, both deceased. On the paternal side he is descended from English
ancestry, the Holmes family having come from England to this country at an early
date. J. P. Holmes was born in Georgia and came to Arkansas prior to the Civil
war. He was for many years a minister in the Methodist church and was widely
known throughout this section of the state. At Tulip, Arkansas, in 1862,
occurred the marriage of J. P. Holmes to Miss Martha Williams, a native of
Tennessee, who came to this state with her parents, they being among the pioneer
settlers at Tulip, Dallas county. Her brother, Sim, served in the Civil war. Ten
children were born to the union of Mr. and Mrs. Holmes, five bays and five
girls, six of whom are living. John Pierce, whose name initiates this review,
was the sixth in order of birth. Mrs. Holmes died at Princeton, this state, in
1882, at the age of forty-two years. Mr. Holmes departed this life in 18S6, at
the age of fifty-four years.

    John Pierce Holmes received his early education in the rural schools of
southern Arkansas and later enrolled in the Southwestern University at
Georgetown, Texas, where he took a literary course for two years. At the
termination of that time he went to work in a sawmill in Perla, Arkansas, as a
day laborer but did not long remain in that capacity, his conscientious
preformance of every duty assigned him winning him constant promotion. From 1890
to 1893 he was in the employ of that concern and at the time of his resignation
in the latter year, had been holding the position of foreman for some time.
Leaving Perla he went to St. Louis, Missouri, in the office of the Malvern
Lumber Company, and he was employed as bookkeeper there until May. 1896.
Subsequently he became sales manager for the Summit Lumber Company at St. Louis,
and was active in that connection until the 1st of September, 1896, when he was
sent to the Upland, Arkansas, branch of the company to serve in like capacity.
On the 1st of January, 1898, he went to Wesson as general manager of the H. C.
McDaniel Lumber Company and held that important position until 1905. The
following year he entered the lumber business on his own account, locating in
Union county, near El Dorado, and he remained in that location until September,
1917, when he organized the Ashley Lumber Company and located ten miles east of
Hamburg. He is still active in the conduct of that business and is achieving
more than substantial success. Working his way from the bottom to the top of the
lumber business he is familiar with every phase of it and is well qualified to
take his place among the foremost lumbermen in the county and state.

    At El Dorado, Arkansas, on the 8th of December. 1902, Mr. Holmes was united
in marriage to Miss Bessie Shumaker. To the union of Mr. and Mrs. Holmes one
daughter has been born: Martha, seventeen years of age. She is an accomplished
young woman and will graduate from the Hamburg high school this year. She
expects to attend Galloway College for a short time prior to enrolling in an
eastern college.

    The religious faith of the family is that of the Methodist church and Mr.
Holmes is a generous contributor to its support. He is alive to the duties and
obligations, as well as the privileges, of citizenship, and though he has never
sought nor desired public preferment, he takes a prominent and active interest
in any movement for the development and improvement of the general welfare. The
success he now enjoys is well merited and he is rightly entitled to a place
among the self-made men of Arkansas.


Additional Comments:
Citation:
Centennial History of Arkansas
Volume II
Chicago-Little Rock: The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company
1922


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