From History of South Carolina, edited by Yates Snowden & Harry Gardner Cutler: While his active business career covers little more than twenty years, Mr. Atkinson has made such vigorous use use of his time and opportunities that he is head of or otherwise officially connected with several of the leading business and commercial enterprises of his home city of Orangeburg. He was born in Sumter County, May 2, 1882, son of Edward R. and Beulah Josey Atkinson. The Atkinson family is of English Descent, and has been in America since the eary period of colonial settlement in the seventeenth century. Some of the family were Continental soldiers in the Revolutionary War. The family seat in South Carolina has been in Sumter County for a Century and a half. W. Eugene Atkinson was born on the old Atkinson homestead and in the same house in which his grandfather, Edward Atkinson, was born. In the material linethe JOSEY family has likewise been in South Carolina for many generations, and is of English descent. Eugene Atkinson grew up on his father's farm and acquired a good business and English education in the public schools in the Sumter and Orangeburg counties. In married life he left the farm to go to into business and spent nine years as a bookkeeper. He was a cotton broker and farmer. In 1911 Mr. Atkinson established the Atkinson Furniture Company, INC, of which he is president. He has also been president since 1918 of The Planters National Bank of Orangeburg, and is president, The Bankers National Life Insurance Company. The Planters National Bank of Orangeburg was organized in 1908, with a capital of $50,000.00 subsequently increased to $100,000.00. It is one of the strongest institutions in that section of the state, and in 1920 its resources were in excess $1,000,000.00. August 14, 1907 Mr. Atkinson married Agnes Holman of Orangeburg County. They had three children, Edwin Wilkes, David Holman and William Benjamin Atkinson. Mr. Atkinson is a steward in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, at Orangeburg, and a prominent layman of that denomination in the state, being appointed secretary treasurer of The South Carolina Conference. Prominent in Masonry, he is a past master of his lodge, past high priest of the Royal Arch, and past eminent commander of the Knight Templar and belongs to the Shirne. He is past chancellor of the Knights of Pythias and a member of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks.