This biography of Ben Holliday McFarland is in the USGenWeb Project Archives
for Monroe County, Mississippi and is available online here.
The source cited is Rowland, Dunbar, ed., The Official and Statistical
Register of the State of Mississippi, 1904. Nashville, Tenn.:
Press of the Brandon Printing Company, 1904. Pages 550-551.
BEN HOLLIDAY MCFARLAND, of Aberdeen, was born March 10, 1880, at Aberdeen, Miss., and is the son of Baxter McFarland and wife, Mary (Holliday) McFarland. His ancestors came from Scotland and were of the Clan McFarland; they settled in North Carolina in 1772; he is related to the Hollidays, McKays and Speights of North Carolina, being a great-grandson of Senator Jesse Speight, of Mississippi. The father of the subject of this sketch was a soldier of the Confederacy, and served as Lieutenant in the Eleventh Mississippi Regiment, Adjutant Forty-first Mississippi, and on General Tucker's staff with rank of Major; was Chancellor of the First District from 1883 to 1899, and is now a member of the Aberdeen bar. Mr. McFarland attended the private and public schools of Aberdeen; entered the University of Mississippi and was graduated in 1899 with the B. A. degree; was graduated from the law school of the University of Mississippi in 1901 with degree of LL. B.; began the practice of law at aberdeen October 1, 1901, with father under firm name of McFarland & McFarland; elected to the House of Representatives from Monroe County November 3, 1903. Mr. McFarland is a Democrat; member of Methodist Church; Mason, Knight of Pythias, Woodman of the World and Elk; was married June 3, 1902, at Columbus, Miss., to Jean Edward Watson, daughter of Edward Minor Watson and wife Lilly Moore, of Holly Springs. Mrs. McFarland is the granddaughter of Hon. J. W. C. Watson, who represented Mississippi in the Confederate Senate; her father was Assistant Attorney-General in Cleveland's first administration.