1925 Biography - Neal McEacharn

Neal McEacharn is grocer and druggist and planter at Delhi in Richland Parish, is a member of the parish school board and is a World war veteran with an overseas record.

He is a native of Louisiana, was born on his father's plantation in Ward Five of Franklin Parish, January 28, 1891, son of Neal and Eliza (Smith) McEacharn, and grandson of B. F. McEacharn, a Kentuckian who came to Louisiana from Mississippi.

B. F. McEacharn was a Confederate soldier and he was wounded during the siege of Vicksburg. Neal McEacharn, Sr., is now sixty-eight years of age and his wife fifty-six, and they occupy the old homestead settled by his father, B. F. McEacharn. Neal McEacharn, Sr., was educated in Franklin Parish and Delhi, and for many years has been a very prosperous planter. He and his wife are members of time Harmony Baptist Church. They had a family of five sons and four daughters. Three of the sons wore United States uniforms during the World war. Ernest is associated with the England State Bank at Little Rock, Arkansas. Frank, with his brother Neal in the grocery business at Delhi, was in the quartermaster's corps at Little Rock and at Camp Beauregard, Louisiana. The son, Russell, also in the grocery business with his brother, was with time medical corps and accompanied the first division to France. The younger son, Stanley, is still in school. Neal McEacharn, Jr., was educated in country schools, took business college courses, and after leaving home at the age of eighteen, worked at Hazelhurst and Vicksburg, Mississippi, and at Shreveport was an electrical worker.

He was a member of the First Regiment of the Mississippi National Guard and with that organization was called to duty on the Mexican border in 1916. He was on the border five months. He returned to Jackson, Mississippi, with the rank of Second lieutenant. At the beginning of the World war he was transferred to time Thirty-second Division, made up largely of Wisconsin and Michigan troops. He had a service record of a number of months overseas in France and during the great Meuse-Argonne campaign was wounded by machine gun fire on the side of the face and shoulder. He was also taken prisoner and was put in a German Prison at Strassburg in Loraine until the armistice. Mr. McEacharn had nothing to complain of his treatment in German prison except lack of good medical attention. After the armistice he was with the army of occupation seven months at Coblentz. While overseas he participated in three major engagements and was promoted to the rank of lieutenant.

On returning to the United States, he received his honorable discharge at Camp Shelby, Mississippi, and soon after his return home engaged in the grocery business at Delhi. On January 1, 1925, he became president of the E. W. Thompson Drug Company. He has been a member of the Parish School Board since 1924, and has also served on the Parish Democratic Executive Committee. He was the first commander of the Clark-Woods Post of the American Legion.

Mr. McEacharn married March 12, 1922, Miss Agnes Hendrick of Ruston, Louisiana, where she finished her education in the Louisiana Polytechnic Institute. Her mother, Mrs. Helen Hendrick, resides at Delhi. Mr. and Mrs. McEacharn have a son, Neal Doyle. Mrs. McEacharn is a member of the Baptist Church.

Contributed 2021 Nov 04 by Mike Miller, from A History of Louisiana, by Henry E. Chambers, published in 1925, volume 2, page 235.