After John "The Ranger" died in 1742, John Holladay's grandfather, Daniel Holladay, moved to South Carolina where his father, also Daniel, was born in 1752. Both Daniels were signers of the South Carolina Declaration of Independence, and Daniel the younger enlisted in 1775, as an orderly-sergeant in Col. William Moultrie's 2 South Carolina Regiment. He fought in the Battle of Sullivan's Island in 1776, and was discharged on April 6, 1778.