Akin, Benjamin

A tanner, currier, and shoemaker, Benjamin Akin was born into a prominent Bristol County family in Dartmouth, Massachusetts, on May 18, 1715. Benjamin's father, John, served several stints as a selectman and representative to the General Court in the 1720s and 1730s, and when Benjamin married Eunice Taber (1711-1762) on Sept. 13, 1739, two of the more important local families were united. Benjamin and Eunice had ten children during their marriage: Benjamin (b. 1739), Jacob (b. 1740), Sarah (b. 1742), Jerusha (b. ca.1745), Lois (b. 1746), Stephen (b. 1748), Bartholomew (b. 1705), Eunice (b. 1752), and Lydia (b. 1754). After Eunice's death in June 1762, Benjamin remarried twice: first to Lydia Almy on May 27, 1763, with whom he had one child, and later to a widow Barker.

With a prolific and well-connected family and successful in his own business endeavors, Akin attained some stature in Dartmouth. First appointed town clerk in 1745, he filled that office from 1754-1770 and again from 1776-1780, adding the title Esquire to his name by the 1760s. During the Revolutionary years, Akin served on the town's public safety committee. He died on April 10, 1802.