Jacksonville Blogger

Emily Carolyn Mehaffey was a long time First Baptist Church of Jacksonville member and director of youth and adults over her 40 some years at the church.  She worked in various places in the fellowship  including church training, the ladies department, with young people and as a director in the Women’s Department under the leadership of Miss Guinell Freeman. In her young adult career,  she worked at the Eelbeck warehouse on Beaver Street in Jacksonville, Florida.   Later, she became a real estate agent with fine skills of order, and detail. Mehaffey had a lot of satisfied home buyers.

Emily was born October 30, 1918 in Eelbeck, Chattahoochee County, Georgia and died in Duval County on August 21, 2012.  She was buried in Columbus, Georgia.

She was preceded in death by her parents and many of her siblings including Clifford, E. L, Hubert, William, Madeline and Lucile.

It was her parents who built the Eelbeck Grits and Pancake company in Columbus, Georgia.  The name Eelbeck was derived from the homeplace of Henry J. Eelbeck, the postmaster, who married Sarah Cook whose father owned the property.  Over the years, it became a milling business and called “Eelbeck”.  Mr. Cliff Mehaffey leased the property and Eelbeck Milling became a house-hold name.  

“The mill is a large wooden structure which age has blackened but notimpaired its sturdy longleaf pine timbers and weather-boarding. The lumber was cut on the site which once had many beautiful bodies of original timber. Every beam and every board in it was dressed on both sides by hand. This was done mostly by slave labor. Every piece of it appears today as sound as it was theday it was put in place. Inside the mill are parts of the original equipment, such as the meal bins and elevator. The former are made of solid pieces of long leaf, pine twenty inches wide, which gives an idea of the size of the timberonce foresting the section.”( Chattahoochee Cty GaArchives, 1922)

The actual plant site was sold to Fort Benning Military Reservation.  The family moved to Jacksonville and the Eelbeck name continued on with warehouses on Beaver Street in Duval County.  Emily worked in the office on Beaver Street before retiring and taking up the real estate business. 

Until 1941, the site was filled with all of the workings to make grist but that year, it was absorbed by Fort Benning. Military Reservation.  The Eelbeck Mills complex was dismantled in 1943.

Eventually, Eelbeck sold to Martha White, an American brand of flour, cornmeal and mixes. It was established in 1899 in Nashville, Tenn.    

Andrew L. wrote on Emily Mehaffey’s “Find a Grave listing”, “You are loved and missed by your First Baptist Family.” We can all make a difference. Right?

See you tomorrow,

Sources, Find a Grave, Sarah Cowie, H. G. Mehaffey, photo, Chattahoochee County GaArchives History-Eelbeck 1933, N. K. Rogers, Google Books, Kenneth, Jr.,J.M. Land, Jason Whittkopp Collection (photo).