B. L. Holt correspondence on the 1908 Confederate Veterans Reunion

Barrie Lucien Holt was born in Montgomery, Alabama, on December 24, 1858, to James Lord and Olive (Snow) Holt. He attended private schools in Montgomery and graduated from Worcester Academy in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1875. In the same year, he returned to Montgomery where he entered into business with his uncle D. M. Snow at the D. M. Snow Hardware Company. In 1884, he became a partner in the business.

In 1886, Holt was appointed quartermaster general of the Alabama National Guard by Governor Edward A. O'Neal and given the rank of colonel on the Governor's staff. He was reappointed to the position by each succeeding governor for more than 20 years. With the election of Governor Emmet O'Neal in 1910, Holt retired with the rank of brigadier general.

As quartermaster, Holt was actively engaged in maintaining the presence of the National Guard during the Hawes riot in Birmingham in the late 1880s. He was engaged in the logistics of transporting the Guard, whether infantry, artillery or cavalry, and their equipage, from point to point during the annual summer maneuvers both in and out of state.

Holt, who lived in Pickett Springs, outside Montgomery, owned extensive real estate and farmland, which was farmed by tenant farmers. His records include farm and plantation accounts in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Barrie L. Holt was active with the Alabama Agricultural Association in the early 1900s and was a Mason. He was married to Louise, daughter of Benjamin Franklin and Mary Thereasa (Cook) Noble, in 1879. They had five children: Mary, who married Robert Lee Harmon; Ethyl, who died in infancy; Olive, who also died in infancy; Dan Snow, who married Coradell Schuesslar; and Mittie, who married J. Michel Microsi. Holt died on October 27, 1911, at his home near Pickett Springs.