James Nathaniel Holdaway was born on January 2, 1868, in North Ogden, Utah. Two years later, his parents Daniel and Martha Holdaway, moved the family to Deweyville, Utah, where they purchased a dry farm. Holdaway left the family homestead at age 16, in 1884, to seek employment in a mine near Butte, Montana. He worked there for about a year before returning to Utah to cut and haul timber out of Logan Canyon. Then, in the late 1880s, Holdaway decided to attend school at the Agricultural College of Utah in Logan, where he trained as a surveyor and an irrigation engineer. After completing his education, he secured a government job working out of Grand Junction, Colorado. Around 1892, Holdaway again returned to Utah, this time to work for the Hammond Brothers as a surveyor on the construction of a canal in the Bear River Valley. After marrying Louise Braegger on March 6, 1900, in Brigham City, Utah, Holdaway was elected Box Elder County surveyor. He served three four-year terms from 1900 to 1912. Following this, Holdaway resumed his career as a private surveyor as well as working on the family farm. Holdaway died on November 21, 1948, in Deweyville at age 80.

For more information see "The Life History of James Nathaniel Holdaway," by Vesta Holdaway Frost, daughter of James Holdaway, located in Box 1, Folder 5.