He was sent by training teachers, Reverend Loomis and his wife, to Brainerd Institute, and later continued his education at Revere Lay College in Massachusetts.

Within a year, he had moved to Albany and purchased 50 acres (20 ha) of land near the Flint River for the campus, and established a board of trustees.

[citation needed] In its early period, the foundation of the school was to prepare blacks for a life that emphasized a Christian living, habits of industry, literacy, agricultural skills, and homemaking.

Holley's mother was a slave who could neither read nor write, and growing up the opportunities for education for negro children were not freely available.

Having experienced this lack of scholastic options, Holley developed the passion to improve the education element of the lives of the Negro youth in the South.