J. C. AKIN, proprietor of the Evans Hotel, was born July 2, 1827, in Granville County, N. C. His father, Thomas AKIN, moved with his family from North Carolina to Maury County, Tenn., about 1830, and lived there till his death. He was a farmer and raised a large family. The genial subject of this sketch was reared on a farm. He came to Shelbyville in 1854, married and engaged in mercantile trade for a short time. He then farmed till 1857, having bought a farm near Shelbyville. He then removed to McMinnville, Warren Co., Tenn., and engaged in the grocery business there a short time, and then at farming till the war, in the meantime having bought two farms and stocked them. During the was he was in the drug business till early in 1865. He then went to Maury County and raised a crop of cotton; thence he returned to McMinnville, and remained till 1878, when he again moved to Shelbyville, and for six years ran the Barksdale House. Since then he has been running the Evans Hotel, the only first-class hotel in the city. He also runs a fruit evaporator in Shelbyville.
He was married, September 18, 1854, to Mrs. America LANE, the widow of Robert LANE, of Marshall county. Her father was Isaac HOLMAN, who was once a member of the Legislature. Mr. AKIN and wife have been members of the Missionary Baptist Church for many years, and are among the leading members of the church at Shelbyville. Mr. AKIN has been chairman and treasurer of the executive board of the Duck River Baptist Association for many years, and at one time was president of the Baptist Sunday-school Association, and of the Bedford County Sunday-school Association. He is a member of the K. of H. Politically he was merely an old-line Whig, but is now a conservative Democrat. He is justly regarded as an enterprising and influential citizen of the county, who has always taken special and active interest in all charitable, religious and moral enterprises. The wife was the mother of four children by her former marriage, two of whom are now living.
Transcribed by Kathryn Hopkins
Source: Goodspeed Publishing Co. History of Tennessee from the Earliest Time to the Present: Together with an Historical and a Biographical Sketch of Maury, Williamson, Rutherford, Wilson, Bedford & Marshall Counties, Besides a Valuable Fund of Notes, Reminescences [Sic], Observations, Etc., Etc. Easley, S.C.: Southern Historical Press, 1988.