John Rogers Eakin
Birth 14 Feb 1822
Shelbyville, Bedford County, Tennessee, USA
Death 3 Sep 1885 (aged 63)
Burial
Old Washington Cemetery
Washington, Hempstead County, Arkansas, USA
Son of a Scottish immigrant, graduate of University of Tennessee, having begun college at the age of eleven; studied history and read law at Yale; used his inherited wealth in agricultural experiments and when those failed he relocated to Washington, Arkansas to practice law; used his position as editor of the "Telegraph" to oppose secession, his newspaper becoming the official organ of the Arkansas Confederacy during the final years of the war; joined the Democratic party after the war; elected to the State legislature in 1866 and served in the constitutional convention that wrote the charter under which Arkansas is governed today; served as chancery judge; and was appointed to the Arkansas Supreme Court in 1878; he strove to protect the rights of women; he vehemently dissented in an 1882 case, "Felkner v. Tighe" whose decision prohibited women from making contracts.
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/80589045/john-rogers-eakin
