Brooks-Richmond-Jefferson County GaArchives Biographies.....Atkinson, Marcus H/ 1841 - living in 1913
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Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 October 20, 2004, 12:10 pm

Author: William Harden
p. 846-847

   MARCUS H. ATKINSON. A native son of Georgia and representing one of the old
families, Marcus H. Atkinson began business at Meigs when that town was a hamlet
and for twenty years has been one of the principal business men and most
influential citizens of that locality. He was one of the men who wore the grey
during the war, and though the wound and hard service of that period impaired
his physical powers, he has led a wonderfully active and enterprising career.

   Mr. Atkinson was born on a plantation in Richmond county, Georgia, about
twenty miles west of Augusta, on the 25th of January, 1841. His grandfather,
Dickson Atkinson, a native of North Carolina, belonged to a family of seven
brothers, one of whom settled in South Carolina and five of them in North
Georgia. The grandfather was a young man when he settled in Richmond county, the
lands there not yet having been surveyed. He bought eight hundred acres of state
land, most of it heavily timbered, built a hewed log house and labored until he
had made a productive plantation out of the former wilderness, where he spent
the rest of his life. He married a Miss Shepard, whose parents were among the
pioneers of Richmond county, and she survived her husband by a number of years.
She reared six children.

   On this plantation in Richmond county were born, two generations, the father,
whose name was Zachariah Atkinson, and later, as already stated, Marcus H.
Atkinson, the son of Zachariah. The latter was reared in his native county and
having received four hundred of acres of land from his father, spent all his
life in general farming and died on the plantation where he was born, at the age
of sixty-five years. The maiden name of his wife was Ann Dye, a native of Burke
county, Georgia. Her father, Avery Dye, a native of North Carolina, and a
pioneer of Burke county, improved a plantation on Brier creek, where he spent
the last of his days. He married a Miss Owens, who survived him some years, and
they reared eight children. Mrs. Ann (Dye) Atkinson died in 1863, aged about
fifty-five. She was the mother of six children, named as follows: Avery Dickson,
William Shepard, Marcus H., Elizabeth Laura Ann, Robert Toombs, and George
Crawford. The last-named was too young, but all the other four sons served with
the Confederate army.

   Marcus H. Atkinson, whose forefathers were thus closely identified with the
early development of Georgia, was reared and educated in his native county, and
at the age of twenty-one, instead of taking up the practical duties of civil
life, engaged in the great war then in progress between the states. Enlisting in
1862, he became a member of Company D of the Twelfth Georgia Battalion of Light
Artillery. Sent to Tennessee he was with the western army for a time, was then
in Savannah and at Charleston during the siege, and early in 1864 joined
Gordon's brigade in Virginia. At the battle of Monocacy Junction he was wounded
in the left leg, was captured on the field and for three months remained a
prisoner of war at Baltimore. Being exchanged at Savannah and disabled for
further service, he returned home and was honorably discharged.

   The war having soon closed, he engaged in farming for three years in
Jefferson county, and in 1870 moved to Southwest Georgia, with which region his
career has been identified ever since. Buying land in Brooks county, he was
engaged in farming there until 1891, in which year he sold out and permanently
located at Meigs in Thomas county. At that time Meigs was only a hamlet with two
stores and a box-car served for the railway station. A cotton gin was his first
enterprise in the village and he also bought land in the vicinity and engaged in
farming. Later he also went into merchandising and established a saw-mill. The
Atkinson Mercantile Company has for a number of years been one of the largest
trading centers in this vicinity. He has also done considerable business in the
buying and selling of timber lands and improved farms. His own farm, which he
still operates, is located in the corporate limits of Meigs.

   In 1866 Mr. Atkinson was married to Miss Eliza Arrington, who was born in
Jefferson county, this state, a daughter of Leven Arrington. To their marriage
one daughter was born, Ida, now the wife of Mr. Mack Simpson, and they now
reside in Meigs. Mr. and Mrs. Simpson are the parents of seven children, namely:
Zoah, Medford, Asa, Ela, Myers, Mercy and Margaret. Mr. Atkinson and wife are
both members of the Methodist church.



Additional Comments:
From:

A HISTORY OF SAVANNAH AND SOUTH GEORGIA
BY
WILLIAM HARDEN

VOLUME II
ILLUSTRATED
THE LEWIS PUBLISHING COMPANY
CHICAGO AND NEW YORK
1913

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