VIRGINIA BIOGRAPHY
375
elected mayor of Suffolk in 1885, and served
to 1887, in which year he became common-
wealth attorney for Nansemond county, an
office he held until 1908. when he was
elected to the \'irginia state senate, holding
his seat in that body until 191 1 and relin-
quishing it to take his place in the national
House of Representatives. He has sat in
the Sixty-second and Sixty-third Congresses
and has served as a member of the commit-
tees on post offices, post roads, census,
elections and territories. Mr. Holland was
from 1883 to 1885 chairman of the Demo-
cratic County Executive Committee, and has
also held membership on the Democratic
State Executive Committee. Since 1892 he
has been president of the Farmers" Bank of
Xansemond county, at Suffolk. He is a
trustee of Elon ( North Carolina ) College,
and belongs to the ^lasonic order and the
Independent Order of Odd Fellows. His
college fraternity is the Beta Theta Pi. He
married. November 26, 1884, Sarah Otelia
Lee. born in Nansemond county. Virginia,
in i85o, died in 1897, daughter of Patrick
Henry and Joanna (Rawles) Lee. Their
children were: Lee Pretlow, of whom fur-
ther; Elizabeth Otelia, educated in Hollins
College. Roanoke, \"irginia.
Lee Pretlow' Holland, son of Edward Everett and Sarah Otelia ( Lee ) Holland, was born in Nansemond county. Mrginia, September 2, 18S5. After attending the public schools he became a student in Elon College (North Carolina), where he re- mained for three years. He completed his general education in Washington and Lee L^niversity. at Lexington, Mrginia, matricu- lating in 1903 and receiving his A. B. de- gree in 1906. The following three years he spent in the legal department of the same institution and was graduated with the LL. B. degree in 1909. In the following year he was admitted to the practice of law in Nansemond county, Virginia, and since then he has been associated with his father in legal pursuits. While a student at Wash- ington and Lee University, Air. Holland was elected to membership in the Phi Delta Phi legal fraternity, and the Delta Tau Delta fraternity. His political sympathies are Democratic, and he belongs to the Christian church.
Frank Harrell Redvi^ood, M. D. The
earliest record found of a Redwood is that
of Abraham Redwood, who w^as born in
Bristol, England, in 1665. He was a sea-
faring man and captain of a ship trading
between London and the West Indies, in
1687 he married, on the island of Antigua,
Mehetable Langford. through whom he
came into possession of a valuable sugar
plantation, Cassada Garden, with a large
number of slaves. He had ten children, and
in I7LS- after the 'death of his wife, he
moved with them to Salem. [Massachusetts,
seventeen years later moving to Newport,
Rhode Island. He married (second) Mrs.
Patience (Howland) Phillips, who bore him
four daughters and a son. The Redwoods
of Rhode Island, New York. Philadelphia,
and Virginia, descend from Abraham (2)
Redwood, a son of his first wife, and from
\Mlliam Redwood, son of his second wife.
Abraham (2) Redwood was a wealthy
Quaker with a town house and a country
seat evidencing the wealth and taste of the
owner. His country seat. "Redwood Farm,"
he bought for six thousand five hundred
pounds from Daniel Coggeshall in 1743.
This farm was first settled in 1639 by John
Coggeshall. of Newport, one of the first
settlers of Rhode Island. His botanical
garden was stocked with curious foreign and
valuable domestic plants, which were free
to his friends' enjoyment. He founded
"Redwood Library" in Newport in I747>
ordering books to the amount of five hun-
dred pounds from London as soon as the
building was completed to receive them. It
was the Redwood Library that rendered
reading fashionable in Rhode Island dur-
ing that early period and sowed the seeds
of the sciences that made the inhabitants
of Newport, if not a more learned, a better
read and a more ambitious people than
those of any town in the colony. The rever-
end and learned Dr. Ezra Stiles was the
librarian for nearly thirty years, and often
declared that he owed his literary taste to
the Redwood Library, the gift to Newport
of Abraham Redwood. Abraham and
Martha (Coggeshall) Redwood had six
children, including a son. Abraham (3), and
Jonas Langford, whose son, Jonas Lang-
ford (2) Redwood, married a Miss Holnian,
of Virginia, and ha'd a son. Holman, who
married Martha Christian, of Middlesex
county, Mrginia. Their son, \\'illiam Hol-
man Redwood, was born in New Kent
countv, Virginia.
