The son of Robert Holliday and Rebecca Burroughs, Henry Burroughs Holliday was born in Laurens County, South Carolina, in 1819.  The family later moved to Fayette County, Georgia. 

After serving in the Mexican War, Henry Holliday adopted Francisco Hidalgo, a Mexican boy orphaned by the war, and brought him to Georgia to raise. 

One of the elder doctor's brothers, Henry Burroughs Holliday, was a fascinating person himself. He fought in the Mexican-American War in 1846 as a second lieutenant in the Fannin Avengers and returned with a 13-year-old Mexican orphan, Francisco Hidalgo. The orphan had to be hidden in the cargo hold of the train as he was not exactly a United States citizen. Hidalgo later received that citizenship and fought in the War between the States, dying just a few years later from respiratory problems received in the war shortly after returning to Georgia,

Serving as a major in the Civil War, Henry Holliday received a medical discharge in 1862. 

In 1864, he moved his wife Alice Jane and 13-year-old son John Henry (Doc) from Griffin, Georgia, to a farm north of Valdosta, Georgia, near Bemiss in Lowndes County.  Doc’s mother died two years later from tuberculosis when Doc was about 15 years old.  She is buried in Sunset Hill Cemetery in Valdosta. 

Two months later, Major Holliday married Rachael Martin, the 23-year-old daughter of his neighbor. 

Both the death of his mother and sudden remarriage of his father had a great effect on Doc.  After Major Holliday’s remarriage, the family moved into Valdosta to a house at 405 East Savannah Avenue.  Known locally as “the Doc Holliday house,” this house is still standing.  It was moved several years ago to a residential neighborhood off of Jerry Jones Road.