One of Greenville, Alabama's early settlers was John Bolling. John was born in Henry County, Virginia in 1778 to Samuel Bolling (b. September 27, 1758 Halifax County, Virginia; d. August 14, 1808 in District 96, South Carolina) and Abigail Choice Bolling (b. 1759 Halifax County, Virginia; d. July 12, 1832 in District 96, South Carolina). The parents of Samuel Bolling were William and Amelia Randolph Bolling. * The parents of Abigail Choice were Tully and Mary Choice. Samuel and Amelia married on November 2, 1777 in Martinsville, Henry County, Virginia.

In 1815 John married Sarah Ann Raburn in South Carolina. John and Sarah had one son, Samuel Jackson Bolling, born Feb. 29, 1816 in Laurens County, South Carolina.

John, Sarah, and their little son moved to Greenville, Alabama in early 1819 along with his sister Elizabeth and her husband James Dunklin and several other families. In Greenville, John was the proprietor of the Bolling Hotel, which was a very popular hotel south of the courthouse. A note in the Commissioners Records of Butler County, 1857 mentioned the Bolling Hotel: "The commissioners rented a large room in John Bolling's tavern ($15.00 also paid for wood, candles, water and other accommodations for five days for prisoners and guard for the spring term of court.)" [source: the Sept. 1988 issue of the quarterly publication of the Butler County Historical Society, vol. 24, no. 3, pg. 14]

John Bolling died in 1863 and is buried in Pioneer Cemetery in Greenville, Alabama next to his wife Sarah, who died in 1842.

In 1838 John and Sarah's son Samuel Jackson Bolling married Mary Ann Ewing (b. about 1818 to Jonathan Ewing and Alice Thompson) in Butler County, Alabama. They had seven children, three dieing in infancy. Their surviving children were John Bolling (b. March 31, 1841, d. May 14, 1898), Lucinda Elizabeth Bolling, (b. Dec. 10, 1844, d. Oct. 3, 1892), Samuel Jackson Bolling, Jr. (b. August 14, 1848, d. April 12, 1932), and Sarah Bolling (b. May 28, 1854, d. ?). Samuel Jackson Bolling was probate judge of Butler County for 35 years. Mary Ann Ewing Bolling died July 5, 1860 and Judge Bolling died November 17, 1891. Both are buried at Pioneer cemetery next to John and Sarah Bolling.
 

* There is a controversy surrounding the existence of William and Amelia Randolph Bolling. The sources that I am using for the parents of Samuel Bolling are Family Trace of Bollings by Sally Powell and Of Whom I Came: From Whence I Came: The Bolling Volume by Zelma Wells Price.