April 22, 1833–February 13, 1897
On January 15, 1856, Holt married Laura Cameron Moore, of Caswell County. She was a sister of Louisa Moore who married his brother, Thomas. The couple had twelve children: Ida Cameron, Glenn, Walter Lawrence, Edwin C., Samuel M., James Henry, Jr., Robert L., William I., Ernest A., Mary Lou, Laura A., and Daisy A.
Interested in banking, Holt became the cashier of a bank in Thomasville in 1862. Two years later, he left that civilian position to enlist as a private in Company K, Tenth Regiment of North Carolina Artillery, Confederate States Army. He was stationed at Fort Fisher from April until December 1864, when he was commissioned as a captain and transferred to Fayetteville to serve on staff of the Fayetteville Military Academy. In April 1865, the war ended and James Holt received his parole and returned home to Alamance County.
On returning home, Holt was made a member of the family firm of Erwin M. Holt's Sons. He also joined his father and his brothers in the founding of the Commercial National Bank in Charlotte and for many years served on its board of directors. From the residence he built in Graham, Holt commuted to the Alamance and Carolina cotton mills, which he helped manage. In 1879 he and his brother William built the Glencoe Mills, located two miles upstream from Carolina. When William moved to Charlotte to become a banker, James became the sole manager of this enterprise. To be nearer his office, he moved to Burlington and resided for the rest of his life in a house he built on Park Avenue. The site is now a part of the property of the Macedonia Lutheran Church.
Holt was a member of the Graham Presbyterian Church until a congregation of that denomination was organized in Burlington. He then became one of the principal contributors to the construction of that town's First Presbyterian Church, where he served as an officer until his death.
Holt "died suddenly at his home in Burlington" on February 13, 1897. According to his obituary, he was recovering from "an attack of la grippe [influenza] and was in his usual health." However, he fell "violently ill" on February 12th, and died the next day. Holt was buried in Pine Hill Cemetery in Burlington.
Glencoe Mills continued producing plaid fabrics under Walter Green, Jr. until it closed in 1954 in the wake of increased competition from U.S. and foreign textile manufacturing and the growth of the synthetic fabric industry.