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Giles County, Tennessee
Anderson Biographies
EMBRY EDGAR ANDERSON was born in Atoka, Tennessee, Tipton county, on the 5th of December, 1880, the son of William Edgar and Nora (Reeves) Anderson. The father, a native of Giles county, Tennessee, is now living with his son, the subject of this sketch, in Memphis [Shelby County], and is seventy-two years of age. The mother, also a Tennessean, was born in Fayette county and has now passed away. Embry E. Anderson is the eldest of the three living children of this couple; the others being a brother, Littleton Paul Anderson, a grain dealer of Memphis who is mentioned at length elsewhere in this work; and a sister, Bessie Maude, now the wife of Dr. H. F. Dickson of Covington. Until he was eighteen years old E. E. Anderson lived in Atoka, where he received a common school education and later attended the Robinson high school. He says that his most valuable training for life's work was obtained in the “University of Hard Knocks.” He entered this venerable institution as a lad of eighteen, going into the brokerage business at Covington. In 1900 he embarked in the retail and wholesale produce trade in the same city, remaining in this line of work for sixteen years. For several years of this period he was in partnership with his younger brother, buying and selling all kinds of farm produce on a large scale. He was also the most extensive dealer in hickory nuts in the United States, buying and shipping them in large quantities. In 1916 Mr. Anderson came to Memphis to engage in the grain and feed trade, in which he has met with well deserved success. As an authority on the special grades of oats, hay and ear corn he has worked up a large trade in these commodities, which is the distinctive feature of the business of the Industrial Elevator Company of Memphis, of which he is the proprietor. His trade extends through most of the states of the mid-south, and experiences an annual increase as the company is able to meet the demands of a widening market.
On the 14th of December, 1905, Mr. Anderson was united in marriage to Miss Erin Crofford of Covington, a member of a prominent family in the state and a native of Coffeyville. Her father, the late Dr. Thomas J. Crofford, was a physician well known in Memphis. Mr. and Mrs. Anderson are the parents of three children: Antoinette Elizabeth, Erin, and a little boy of twelve named William Embry. Mrs. Anderson is a leader in the work of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, having been president of the Mary Latham Chapter of Memphis. She is also active in the Court Avenue Presbyterian church, of which she and Mr. Anderson are members, and is a worker in the Sunday school. Mr. Anderson is one of the deacons in the church.
Since coming to Memphis Mr. Anderson has taken a deep interest in the commercial life of the city, especially along his own line of work, becoming identified with the Chamber of Commerce, the Memphis Traffic Club and the Memphis Merchants Exchange, in the latter of which he has served on the board of directors. He is also a member of the National Grain Dealers Association and a member and ex-president of the Grain and Hay Association. His fraternal connections are with the Benevolent Protective Order of Elks.
(Tennessee, The Volunteer State, 1769-1923, Vol. 2, John Trotwood Moore and Austin P. Foster, S. J. Clarke Publishing Co., Chicago, 1923, pp. 840-1)
ST. CLAIR EAVES. An enumeration of the able and successful members of the bar of Kentucky must include the name of St. Clair Eaves, who has long stood at the head of his profession in Muhlenberg county. Mr. Eaves was born in this county May 11, 1875, and is a son of George W. and Sarah J. (McNary) Eaves. His father was born in Hopkins county, this state [Kentucky], February 5, 1840, and died in Greenville, September 23, 1915, at the age of seventy-five years. He was a farmer and slave owner and a man of prominence and influence in his community. He supported the democratic party and was an elder in the Cumberland Presbyterian church. He was a son of Mr. and Mrs. John S. Eaves, the former of whom was born in Muhlenberg county and died in McLean county, this state. He was a farmer and slave owner. His wife, who was a native of Kentucky and a member of the de Turbeville family, died in Muhlenberg county. John S. Eaves was a son of John S., Sr., and Luraney (Ingram) Eaves, both of whom were natives of North Carolina, whence they came to Kentucky, and their deaths occurred in Muhlenberg county. He was a farmer and owned a number of slaves, and he was a democrat in his political views. Sarah J. McNary was born in Muhlenberg county, March 19, 1843, and died at the home of her son, St. Clair, in Greenville, June 13, 1926. She was a daughter of Hugh W. and Sarah (Scott) McNary, the latter of whom was born in South Carolina and died in Muhlenberg county, this state. Hugh W. McNary was born in Fayette county, Kentucky, and died in Muhlenberg county. He was a farmer and slave owner and during the Civil war was an intense Union sympathizer. He was a democrat in politics and a Presbyterian in his religious faith. He was colonel of the regiment which escorted the Marquis de Lafayette across North Carolina and St. Clair Eaves now possesses one of the brass flint-lock pistols worn by his grandfather on that occasion. The paternal greatgrandparents were William and (???) (Campbell) Eaves, the former of whom was a farmer, owning many acres of land and a large number of slaves.
St. Clair Eaves secured his education in the public and private schools of Greenville after which he read law in the office of Judge W. H. Yost, ex-judge of the superior court of Kentucky. He was admitted to the bar in April, 1899, and entered into a partnership with Judge Yost. which continued for four years. In 1904 he became associated in practice with E. A. Taylor, under the firm name of Taylor & Eaves, and in 1914 T. J. Sparks was admitted to the firm, the style of which became Taylor, Eaves & Sparks. In 1921 the firm was dissolved and Mr. Eaves formed a partnership with W. P. Sandidge, of Owensboro, Kentucky, under the name of Eaves & Sandidge, which continues to the present time. This is widely recognized as one of the strongest and most successful legal firms in western Kentucky and commands a large business in the courts of this section of the state.
On November 28, 1900, in Greenville, Mr. Eaves was married to Miss Lucy Anderson, who was born in Pulaski, Tennessee, September 3, 1873, a daughter of W. G. S. and Quintilian (Gordon) Anderson. Her father was a native of Tennessee and on coming to Muhlenberg county engaged in the coal business, becoming an extensive coal operator in this county, being thus actively engaged until his retirement in 1906. His death occurred in Greenville April 18, 1911, at the age of eighty-two years. He was a democrat in his political views and was a member of the Presbyterian church. His wife was born in Tennessee and died at the home of a daughter in Athens, Georgia. Mrs. Eaves was educated in the public schools of Pulaski, Tennessee, and a finishing school in that city, after which she taught school in Greenville, Kentucky, prior to her marriage. She is a member of the Baptist church and its societies. To Mr. and Mrs. Eaves have been born three children: William McNary, born January 6, 1904, graduated from the Greenville high school in 1921, and from Georgetown College, at Georgetown, Kentucky, in 1925, with the degree of Bachelor of Science, and is now manager of the Cooley Clay Company, at Hickory, Kentucky; John S., born March 30, 1907, graduated from the Greenville high school and is a student in Georgetown College, class of 1928; Jane Anderson, born November 27, 1908, graduated from the Greenville high school in 1926 and is now a freshman in Agnes Scott College, at Decatur, Georgia. Mr. Eaves is a democrat in his political views and is a member of the Cumberland Presbyterian church. He is affiliated with the Kentucky State Bar Association and the American Bar Association and belongs to the Greenville Country Club. He is a director of the Farmers State Bank of Greenville. During the World war he served as chairman of the legal advisory board and took an active part in all Liberty Loan drives. He has at all times shown an unselfish interest in the welfare of his city and county, cooperating in all measures for the advancement of the public good and is regarded as one of Greenville's most public-spirited citizens. (History of Kentucky, The Blue Grass State, Vol. III, The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company, Chicago - Louisville, 1928, pp. 395-6)
Quince [sic] GORDON, age 12, born Tennessee, is on the 1850 Giles County, Tennessee census, a student in a boarding house in Pulaski (Pulaski District, p. 332, HH62-62). In 1860, W.G.S. ANDERSON, 29, M, TN, is a constable in Pulaski, with Ophelia [sic], age 19, TN, in his household (Pulaski District, p 123), and in 1870, William G.S. ANDERSON, 40, M, TN, white, farmer, $19,000-$6,000, is in Giles County, District 7, Pulaski P.O., page 122, with Quinie T., 32, F, TN, white, and Gertrude, 4, F, and Lucy Matt, 1, both born in TN.
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