Albert Eakin

    Albert Eakin, of the firm of Eakin & Co., grain dealers of Chattanooga, was born in Bedford County, Tenn., July 13, 1843, and is the son of John and Lucretia (Pearson) Eakin. The father was of Scotch-Irish lineage, and was one of the most successful citizens of Bedford County, and reputed one of the wealthiest citizens of the State at the time of his death, which occurred in 1849. The mother was a native of South Carolina. Our subject was educated in New Haven, Conn., and prepared for Yale, but the war breaking out, he came home and enlisted in Company F, Forty-first Regiment Tennessee Infantry. He was captured at Fort Donelson, and imprisoned eight months, after which he reentered the service, acting as commissary to the brigade of cavalry under Gen. Joseph Wheeler until the surrender. In October, 1865, he married Miss Cyrena Buford, who died in June, 1880, leaving one daughter. In 1868 Mr. Eakin entered the grain business in Shelbyville, Tenn.   In 1881 he went to Nashville and followed the same business. In July, of the same year, he married Laura Dayton, of Shelbyville, who bore him two children-a son and daughter. Mr. Eakin is a Democrat, and a member of the First Baptist Church. In June, 1882, he came to Chattanooga, and engaged in the grain business. In May, 1886 he engaged with the above mentioned firm, whose individual members are Albert Eakin, Thomas H. Cheek and James D. Buttolph, in the grain business.    They erected their present elevator on the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Railroad, corner of Boyce and Cravens Streets. The elevator is ninety feet high, four stories, and is 48x110 feet, including platforms, storage capacity of bulk and sack grain, 100,000 bushels. They have all the latest combined improvements in elevators.               Has Caldwell's conveyors and Barnett & Lee's separators, and has a capacity of handling and cleaning twenty car loads of grain per day. They give employment to twelve men on an average, do a general storage business, and also buy and sell about $400,000 worth of grain per year at present. They ship to nearly all points in the Southern States. In connection with this business, they have a mill for the manufacture of chopped feed, which is becoming a popular stock feed in the South.
Goodspeed's History of Tennessee 1887