His brother Edward Isaac Golladay also became an attorney and served as a US Congressman from Tennessee.

His father Isaac was a descendant of French Huguenots who emigrated to Virginia about 1700 from Germany after escaping religious persecution against Protestants in France.

[1] In 1815 the Golladay family moved to Lebanon, Tennessee, where both Jacob and his younger brother Edward were born.

In 1860, Golladay was chosen as an elector for Constitutional Union Party presidential candidate John Bell and running mate Edward Everett for the Kentucky's 3rd congressional district.

This party favored preservation of the Union, but urged compromise and peaceful solutions.