Swan ~ Hartzell Family History

The record of William and Jane's marriage was taken from a record in the Family History Library International Genealogical Index [FHL IGI]. That record named him as William Richard Eaton, and specified that the marriage was in St. Mary's Church, Dover. However, that was a submitted record, not an extraction from a church record, and as mentioed above the available records for that parish commence only in 1588. The IGI submitter cannot be traced, but the FHL AF has no fewer than 28 submissions of this marriage, now all combined into one record which, however, does not specify the church. The earliest submission was by Lorraine Norlund of Ridgecrest, CA in 1990.

It should be mentioned that Molyneux [1911] in her history of the Eaton Families traces William's ancestry back to A.D. 1000, but such lists without dates, places and sources are of little genealogical value.

Jane's will was written 27 Aug 1584 and from it we find that she was a widow, and executrix of the will of her husband. She names her sons, and gives directions for the education of Peter and Nicholas, that "they shall be kept for one year more in France, to learn the French tongue, and shall afterwards be put to some science or occupation." She made her son-in-law Jacques Huggenson her sole executor. Jane was buried 29 Dec 1584 in the church yard of St. James the Apostle at Dover [Molyneux, 1911] .

There was at this time in St. Mary the Virgin parish in Dover a Richard Eaton whose family was intermediate in time to those of William and Peter, but whose relationship to them is unknown. Richard m1) 22 Jan 1581/82 Thomasin Hobden or Holder, and they had Alexander bp 27 Aug 1589, and Alice bp 27 Oct 1591. (Richard also had a daughter Rebecca who was buried 25 Oct 1595, and for whom no birth record exists.) Thomasina died after the birth of their second child and was buried Nov 1591. Richard evidently remarried, as he then was father to Tabitha bp 20 Jul 1594, Thomas bp 2 Oct 1597, and "Margarett, son of Richard" bp 29 Mar 1612.

There is a record at St. John, Thanet, in Margate, Kent [Putnam, 1922], of the baptism 23 Nov 1605 of Mary, daughter of Peter Eaton, Sr. Since William the son of Peter Eaton of Dover was married in that parish in 1627, there could well have been a family connection in Margate at this earlier date. However, the Peter Eaton of Dover could not at this time have been termed Sr., so this father was another Peter Eaton of County Kent, contemporary to our Peter Eaton of Dover.

In St. Mary parish is recorded the burial 3 Nov 1625 of Peter Eaton, Captain of the Hector. Whether this is our Peter, or someone else who died while his ship was in the port of Dover, is unknown.

Elizabeth was the widow Patterson when she married Peter [Molyneux, 1911]. The births and marriages of all of the children of this family are as given in St. Mary the Virgin parish records unless otherwise noted.

Also in St. Mary the Virgin parish as a contemporary to Peter was Robert Eaton, whose first daughter Elizabeth was baptised New Year's Day, 25 Mar 1601. His other recorded children were Robert bp 21 Nov 1606, and twins Christian, a daughter, and son Thomas, bp 7 May 1609. Thomas was buried three days later, but Christian evidently survived. Again, the relationship of this Eaton family to our line is unknown.

A Capt. Nicholas Eatton was buried Apr 1667 in St. Mary parish, and could be the father or grandfather of Capt. Nicholas Eaton who was buried there 12 Apr 1729. Other notable entries in the parish record after our line emigrated are Mr. William Eaton, Juratt, who was buried 8 Oct 1672, and Peter Eaton Sr., Knight, of London, who was buried in St. Mary's 3 Oct 1730.

William and Martha emigrated 1637 with their family, departing from the port at Sandwich, Kent, on the Hercules of Sandwich. The heading to the passenger list reads: "A true Roll or list of the names sirnames and qualities of all such persons which have taken passage from the Town & Port of Sandwich in the County of Kent for the American platacons since the last certificate of such passengers returned into the office of Dovor Castle from the said town of Sandwich 11 May 1637". Number 12 of the 13 families: "Wm Eaton of Staple husbandman & Martha his Wief", children John, Martha, and Albe, and servant Jonas Eaton. The list was witnessed by "wee the Maior & Jurats of the towne & porte of Sandwich aforesaid" 9 Jun 1637 [Putnam, 1921].

Jonas Eaton, on the passenger list as "servant", might have been indentured to William as an apprentice, as others so named on the list were known to be. He was also a relative to William, as attested in a 1696 deed executed by his son Jonas Jr. There the son explicitly mentions "my cousin William Eaton", known from the history of the property involved to be the grandson of the immigrant William Eaton. However, the term cousin was then used much more broadly than today, and we cannot infer from this the exact degree of their relationship. The records of St. Mary the Virgin parish in Dover, County Kent, England, do not bear out the claim that William and Jonas were brothers. We know Jonas' house in Reading was next door to that of William, so the personal relationship was probably close, whatever the blood ties might have been.

Jonas was born about 1618 as he deposed in 1670 that his age was 52 [Putnam, 1922, citing Middlesex Court Files]. He married Grace, surname unknown, and they had eight children, starting in 1643. He was first in Watertown, but sold 16 Feb 1646 to Richard Cuttin the house he had bought there from Simon Onge. (The Onge family had immigrated on the ship carrying our Perkins ancestors and Roger Williams, founder of Rhode Island.) He was a proprietor of Reading the next year, where he was given a grant of eleven acres in "Bare Meddow". Jonas was a selectman in Reading 1650, 1662, 1670, and 1673, and in 1653 both William and Jonas were made freemen.

He and Grace were members of the First Church in 1648, and had at least three sons, John, Jonas Jr., and Ebenezer. John, the eldest, married the widow Dorcas alias Briant, had a son Noah, and died 25 May 1691. Ebenezer's will of 5 Feb 1738 mentions his wife Abigail and daughters Abigail and Phoebe. Jonas Sr. died 1674, leaving a house to each of his sons John and Jonas, as well as £6 a year to his wife Grace. Jonas also received 100 apple trees "which he shall choose out of my Nursery". Jonas Sr.'s estate was inventoried at £944 16 shillings, 4 pence, quite a tidy sum. One of his descendants was Lilley Eaton, the author of the history of Reading" [1874]. Jonas' widow Grace later married Henry Sillsbee of Lynn.

Putnam reports that there was a John Eaton, living at Watertown when William and Jonas arrived there, who moved later to Dedham and who might be William's young brother, born 1616. However, that John Eaton was born 12 Mar 1600, the son of Nicholas, Jurate, and hence nephew to our immigrant William. He married Abigail (Bachelor) Damon 5 Apr 1630 [Torrey, 1985], and lived in Staple, England, in Dedham, and in Watertown [Eaton, 1935], although his stepson followed William and Jonas to Reading. This John called Edward Hodsman kinsman, and died 1658 in Dedham. Thus, contrary to the claims of many writers, neither Jonas nor John of Dedham were brothers to William.

Two hundred years later one of John and Abigail (Dammant) Eaton's descendants, Ernest Eaton, was born in New Jersey. Ernest lived in Champaign, Illinois, where he and his brother Herbert published a weekly newspaper from about 1880 to 1886. He and his brothers-in-law traveled by train to Wichita, Kansas, and then by wagon to the Oklahoma Territory where he homesteaded land in Spring Greek township, Logan County [Anon., 1978?-80]. His home was a few miles southwest of where the daughter-in-law Merrie Hartzell of William Eaton's descendant Louisa Ricker (Eaton) Hartzell lived in Guthrie at that same time.

William and Martha settled in Watertown in the Massachusetts Bay Colony where William became proprietor 1642 (the year before Middlesex County was erected). On 10 May of that year, William was granted 80 acres, lot 22, in the 6th Division. That same day the town ordered "that an highway being laied out from the Pineswamp nigh to William Eatons Lott ...", which suggests that he was accorded a convenient means of travel across the town.

In the second inventory, of 1644, William's property was described as "an Homestall of One Acre" bounded South by the highway, North with John Jones, East and West by the Commons. During this same time period, however, William became an land owner in Reading, Middlesex, when that town was formed from part of Lynn. In 1642, a grant there to William Cowdrey was described in part as "bounded on the east with the meddow of William Eaton". On the other hand, in the Watertown record as late as 10 Dec 1649 there was still "Due to William Eatton for a wolfe", an amount unspecified. (Most of the suppporting details concerning our Eaton, Kendall, Swayne, and Hartshorne families in Reading are from "Historical Sketches of Ancient Reading", by William E. Eaton, 1935.)

Exactly when William moved his family from Watertown north to the new settlement of Reading is probably best estimated from the fact that they were dismissed from the Watertown church to the one in Reading 26 Sep 1648. On that same date the Reading church received Mary Swaine (undoubtedly the wife of Jeremiah Sr.), as well as Thomas Kendall, Thomas Hartshorne, and Jonas Eaton, all with their wives. Some fourteen years later, 13 Nov 1662, the church received John Eaton and wife, Mary Eaton (probably John's sister, who was then 19 years old), Mary Swain "Junio", and Sister Hartshorne (by letter from Ipswich).

Reading, originally Redding, was formed from what had been known as Lynn Village by order of the Massachusetts Bay Colony on 29 May 1644. Based on a list of settlers that year, Eaton [1935] constructed a map, from detailed land descriptions, which I have adapted for our purposes below. In addition to the homes of our direct ancestors, named in the figure, five of the other houses were of families which married into our Eaton, Kendall, Smith, and Swayne lines in the next generation.

Reading, Massachusetts ca. 1650

A general division of additional land was made 6 Dec 1647, at the rate of two acres per person and one per beast, but with a minimum of ten acres and a maximum of twenty. In this division, Thomas Kendall received 24 acres (above the stated maximum), Jeremiah Swain 12, Jonas Eaton 11, and Thomas Hartshorn 5. Why Kendall was favored while William Eaton was passed over is not known.

In Reading William was freeman 18 May 1653 and a town officer. He owned an apple orchard, as did Jonas Eaton next door. When the first parsonage was built, in 1681, his son John, then on the family homestead, was paid £1 10 sh for apple trees for the parsonage lot, plus 15 sh for setting up the orchard fence. In the division of lands westward to the Woburn town line in 1652, William was granted 10 acres, and at other times he received three acres in Parley Meadow, large acreage in the expansion northward, and in 1666 land in the "Great Swamp". In addition to grants from the town, William was active in buying and selling various parcels, and in particular in 1657 purchased 100 acres of upland by Wigwam Meadow, east of the Saugus River. This deed came from Robert Burnap of Reading, and William bequeathed it to his son Daniel, whose son William married Mary Burnet, probably granddaughter of the original holder of that land.

In Nov. 1667 William gave his age as about 60 [Putnam, 1922, citing Essex Court Files], and in 1669 deposed that he was then about 62 [Putnam, 1922, citing Middlesex Court Files]. William's will was dated 26 Sep 1672 and proved 11 Jun 1673. In it he provided that his wife was to be paid £9 during her life by sons "John & Danell", and was to receive all of the moveables, "except £5 given to my daughter Martha". Son John was bequeathed the dwelling house, out buildings and 210 acres of land excepting a portion reserved to his wife during her life, after which it would go to John. "Danell" received the farm "at the Wigwams", with 100 acres, and all the meadow at "Ready Medow", and his children were also mentioned. William's daughter Mary received £20, and sons-in-law Thomas Brown and Francis Moore (husbands of Martha and Alba) £10 each. His inventory totalled £427 1 sh. Eaton [1935] reported that Fred H. Eaton of Andover, Massachusetts, had a silver, heart shaped pin, handed down from one generation to the next, which is said to have been brought from England by William Eaton three hundred years earlier.

Martha's will dated 24 Nov 1675 and proved 21 Apr 1681 bequeaths to the same children [Pope, 1900]. William died 13 May 1673 in Reading, and his wife died there 14 Nov 1680.

Martha's baptism and death are from Putnam [Putnam, 1922] . See this reference for well documented research on Jenkin families back to 1490 in County Kent. Emigrating at the same time as William and Martha was Nicholas Butler of Eastwell who had a Richard Jenkin among his five servants. In the earlier, 1635, Passenger list from Dover a Nathanel Tilden of Tenterden had an Edward Jeakins as one of his seven servants. Martha had a brother Edward Jenkin.

Martha was bequeathed £20 by her father's will of 1624. Then, 16 Jan 1661, Margaret Lane of London, widow of Edmond Lane in the parish of St. Dunstan's in East London, bequeathed "To my sister Martha, wife of William Eaton, now, I think, in New England, one hundred pounds within one year next after my decease. To her five children twenty pounds, to be equally divided amongst them, and also within the like time, to their said father or mother for their use ..." [Waters, 1883].

Martha's own will was written 24 Nov 1675 and proved 21 Apr 1681. It gives her son John the farm, son Daniel all of the sheep, and the remainder to her two sons-in-law "Thomas Browne and Francis Moor".

The line from William⁴ and Martha (Jenkin) Eaton through John⁵, William⁶, Benjamin⁷, and David⁸ Eaton is recorded by Cutter [1908], and, except for David, by Stearns [1906; 1908]. However, the documentation for each generational relationship is specified in what follows below.

The baptisms in England of the children of William and Martha (Jenkin) Eaton, and two of their burials, are as given by Putnam [1922] citing the Parish Registers of Staple, Co. Kent, 1590-1640.

The seven children of William and Martha (Jenkin) Eaton were Mary, Martha, Alba, William, John, Daniel and Mary.

There are two wills extracted by Eaton [1935] for John, the first dated 17 Dec 1695, and the second 16 Mar 1695/96, three months later. The first will made specific bequests to his wife, two sons, and three of his married daughters. The second will specified instead that his estate, after several legacies, "shall be divided among my children, my son William has liberty to purchase said lands but he has received his portion already by gift." Apparently the family prevailed upon John to reconsider his first thoughts on the division of his assets. The William mentioned here is our ancestor; see the record below of his exercise of the "liberty" he had to purchase the land from his siblings. The inventory on 17 Dec 1695 showed that John's estate amounted to about £255, while a second one 6 Jan 1695/96 was more detailed and totaled £313 14 shillings.

John and Elizabeth's daughter Martha married Timothy Hartshorn, son of Thomas the founding ancestor in this country of Duane Hartshorn's line (see Reading map above). This is the lineage of Duane Hartshorn who married Pat's daughter Julie Thiessen.

Deacon Thomas Kendall was apparently brought to this country by his parents when he was very young, and was proprietor 1644 in Reading. The Kendall line goes back seven more generations in Kent, Norfolk, and Westmoreland counties, England, to John born about 1421 [FHL AF].

Their children are given by Eaton [1874], except for Abigail, and all but Elizabeth and Benjamin are listed in the Reading vital records [Baldwin, 1912]. John B. Hill for his Bancroft family history in Bi-Centennial of Old Dunstable, 1878, concluded correctly that the Abigail Eaton who married Capt. Ebenezer Bancroft must belong to this family.

William Eaton was first taxed in Reading in 1695, the year of his marriage in that town [Reading vital records and tax lists]. He was a weaver, being so described first in a deed dated 30 Dec 1702 selling for £7 a lot of seven acres "that was my father John's" lying in Cedar Swamp.

As mentioned earlier, William's father in his second will left his estate to be equally divided among the children, but giving William the right to buy the whole from his brothers and sisters. In a deed dated July, 1703, William exercised that right. For "a valuable sum of money paid to each", he purchased all of the family's land on the "Southerly side of Ipswich River" from his brothers, brothers-in-law, and unmarried sister Hannah. The deed was written 18 Dec 1702, and witnessed by the parties 19 Jul 1703. (For some reason, it was acknowledged once more before an official on 4 Mar 1718/19.)

Then, on 5 Jul 1706, when he was 36 years of age, William sold to his brother-in-law Thomas Nichols for £100 "all of my housing & 30 acres of land in Reading lying East of Great Pond". However, Thomas was to take possession of only ten acres and half of the house until their mother Elizabeth was deceased. This transaction enabled the family to move to that part of Lynn later called Lynnfield, where William died.

Another interesting Eaton/Swaine connection(s?) two or three generations later appears in the DAR Patriot Index [Anon., 1966] :

	William Eaton, Jr. born 29 Feb 1754, d 11 Oct 1837, wife Mrs. Betsey Swain, Pvt New Hampshire.
	William Eaton born 8 Mar 1756, d 13 Sep 1835, wife Betsey Swain, Pvt Massachusetts New Hampshire.

These two, separate records nicely illustrate the coincidences and/or confusions that can arise from early sources.

Torrey [1985] gives William Eaton's marriage to "Mary (Swain) dtr Jeremiah", thus establishing her lineage. However, the Reading vital records show William's marriage only to "Mary ____". As most of the later genealogies list her as Mary Swain, I use that spelling, although her birth record gives her as Swayn, and her father's name was more often than not spelled Swayne.

The first four children in this family appear on the filmed copy of the vital records of Reading, Massachusetts [FHL Microfilm 0890236] as well as the printed extracts of Baldwin [1912]. Benjamin, the youngest son and our ancestor, is according to Baldwin also registered in Reading as the son of "William and _____, Mar. 21, 1705". However, the half page on which births were recorded for the six month period from Mar to Sep of that year was destroyed before the filmed copy of the vital records of Reading was made. The entire family was referred to by name and dates in a genealogical note in the Boston Transcript of 14 Dec 1933, where it is reported there that the family removed to Lynn End.

Unfortunately there was another Benjamin Eaton who with his wife Elizabeth had children born 1750 and 1752 in Lynn, so it is not possible to claim that the constable recorded in the town meeting records, e.g., and the Baptist preacher were the same man.

The first three of Benjamin and Anna's children are recorded in the Lynn vital records. There are two more children listed there as the children of Benjamin and Anna Eaton ‹ Benjamin born 1745, and Elisabeth born 1747. It is not certain that this is the same couple, as our Benjamin and Anna moved to Dunstable before 1738 when the twins were born, and both died in New Hampshire. However, Benjamin Jr. married an Anne Worthen of Candia, who could have been a sister or niece of the youngest son Jesse's wife Sarah Worthen of that town, so I am including him and Elizabeth tentatively in this family.

The fourth and fifth twin sons, Jonathan and our ancestor David, were recorded in both Dunstable Township in Hillsborough County, New Hampshire, and in Dunstable, Middlesex, Massachusetts. This was originally one town which ended up on the state line, with the northern part becoming Nashua, New Hampshire. Benjamin Eaton died about 1772 in Dunstable [Stearns, 1906] and his widow Anna died in Candia at the home of her son William.

The DAR record mentioned above lists David as belonging to the Civil Service in Massachusetts during the Revolution. This means that he held some elected office, such as Selectman, Town Clerk, Constable, or Supervisor of Highways. From the recorded births of their children, they moved from Massachusetts to New Hampshire in 1765 or 1766. Worthen [1890], from the perspective of Sutton, New Hampshire, says that he "came probably from Deerfield (Franklin County, Massachusetts) or Nottingham (Rockingham County, New Hampshire)" and that he was in Sutton by 1782. Thus the places the family actually lived during and immediately after the Revolution have yet to be established.

Also we have a David Eaton, Corporal, entered 1 April, discharged 20 Nov, 1759, age 21, Capt. Edmund Mooers'Company, Colonel Bagley's Regiment for the Reduction of Canada, according to a Haverhill history [Chase, 1861]. The age of this David is correct, but if he were David, wife of Elinor, his DAR entry should not have been as a Civil Servant.

David Eaton appears in the Sutton town records from 22 Jul 1784, when he was on a committee to lay out a road [Sutton Town Clerk]. (I was unable to verify Worthen [1890] that he was a constable in 1782, but the town records are both extensive and difficult to read, and any one item would be easy to miss.) In 1784 he was Moderator of the "Leagal Town Meeting", and was very active all of his life with committee assignments regarding lands and roads in Sutton, appearing in the town records two or three times almost every year. On 25 Apr 1787 we find: "Dn Mathew Harvey & David Eaton be a committee to employ a surveyor & chain-men if need be to find what common land we have in said town & to observe what lotts are cut short by Pond & to make report ...". Although David was not an original proprietor of the town, and so not entitled to any division of common land, he was evidently trusted to be responsible for the equitable settlement of land questions.

One interesting entry in the record book of the town meeting of 1 Apr 1793: "Voted to allow Lieut. Nelson and David Eaton their accounts Brought in for service done Being a Committee to settle with the town for the damage of roads Crossing their land said Services done Last year." Apparently in this "old boy network" they got paid for the job of deciding how much the town should pay them for land taken by a new road!

David was probably well off by the standards of the town. In 1794 he subscribed $9 for the purpose of building a meeting house in North Sutton at the lower end of Kezar's pond. Only Deacon Mathew Harvey and two others subscribed more, most of the donations being $1. Also that year he was chosen a Grand Juror, but during the last decade of his life it is difficult to distinguish between him and his son David in the town records. In 1796, one was a shareholder and (possibly the same) one a director of the Sutton Library. Most likely the David Eaton chosen Surveyor of Highways in 1797 was the son, as that was typically a job handed to the aspiring young men of the town.

David's land was next to Mathew Harvey's, and his son Jonathan's daughter Patty drowned in Kezar's pond just south of Harvey's place when she was ten years old. As will be seen in the next generation, David's son Jonathan married a younger sister of Mathew Harvey's wife. Just north of Harvey's land were lots owned by James and William Eaton, and south a few miles was a lot owned by Benjamin Eaton. In the record of the original proprietors of Sutton in 1784 we find Eatons with given names Benjamin, Benjamin, Jr., James, Timothy, and William. Benjamin could be David's young brother, come to Sutton earlier, but the others probably belong to a family of unrelated (or distantly related) Eatons who settled mostly in the south part of town. That other family came to be known as the Eaton Grange Eatons, from the name of their family home in later years.

Another family name in the list of original proprietors was that of Clement, represented by Samuel, Timothy, Moses, and James, a minor in 1788. (In order to achieve the mandatory number of sixty proprietors necessary to incorporate a town, it was often the practice that minor children would be listed, the property devolving to them when they came of age.) The first two of these are given names in Elinor Clement's ancestry, and quite possibly all are relatives of hers. Also original proprietors were Aaron and Zebediah Sargent. David's son Jonathan married a Jane Sargent, and we can surmise that these two might have been her uncles or cousins of some degree.

Her given name was spelled Ellenor when her father recorded it in Haverhill Births, but Elenor in her Haverhill marriage to David. Her birthplace was given by him a "on ye line of Towns number 5 joyning upon Rumford", now Merrimack County.

David and Elinor were the parents of David, Jr., Hannah, Jonathan, and of "perhaps other children" [Worthen, 1890]. Two sons named Samuel are both in the Haverhill vital records [Anon., 1910], as are all of the childrens' birth and death dates given below unless otherwise specified. David's birth date is so far unknown to me. Since the couple were married 19 Feb 1761, he could have been born before the end of 1761, and Samuel in October the next year, so I am temporarily showing him as the eldest son.

Eaton Homes in the US and Canada

John Eaton settled in the town of Hull on the north bank of the Ottawa River in what was then called Lower Canada. This town is located across the river from a place, then called Bytown, which is now Ottawa, the capital of Canada. Lower Canada, later Canada East, is now Quebec Province, while Upper Canada across the river was later Canada West, and is now Ontario Province. Hull had been settled at the mouth of the Gatineau River by Philemon Wright (born 2 Sep 1760), Tiberius and Ruggles Wright, and other settlers from Woburn, Massachusetts, in 1800. Bytown would be settled on the southern bank of the river some nine years later. Hull was not only a self sufficient outpost in the Canadian wilds, but grew rapidly as a saw mill, grist mill, and blacksmith's shop with four water powered bellows were constructed, and the export of lumber down the Ottawa to the port of Quebec began in 1806.

It is not known how large Hull had grown by the time John came there in 1816 or 1817, but the 1825 census showed 100 families, and a population of 803. The population statistics are interesting. The approximately 100 families had an average of three children, and constituted 477 of the town's citizens. The rest of the town consisted of 284 single men, and 42 single women. Tiberius and Ruggles Wright had in that census a total of 85 single men in their two households! Three other households each had from ten to 20 single males. Apparently these founding families provided living accomodations for the single men they had attracted to Hull to make the town self sufficient. The 20 single women over eighteen years of age must have found it an interesting town in which to live. In addition to the Wrights, another of the town's original settlers was Benjamin Chamberlin, who was still alive in 1842. In 1825 there were seven Chamberlin and six Wright families (although Philemon had apparently died by then) in town.

We don't know whether or not John married Louisa Ricker in her home town of Bath on the Connecticut River in Grafton County, New Hampshire, but she would have been no more than 17 years of age when John came to Canada. John's parents had been living in Tunbridge, Orange, Vermont, around 1794, and Louisa's parents were in Newbury, less than twenty-five miles away in the same county, until about 1795. So the two families could have been acquainted in the previous generation, and John might well have emigrated to Canada knowing that family friends were there. Several at least of Louisa's family had apparently moved to Canada, and we know her younger brother David was there. It seems most likely that the couple met and married in that frontier outpost, but this is purely a guess.

In 1823 "J. C. Eaton" subscribed £5 for the construction of the first church on an acre of land on "shier falls island" given by Philemon, Tiberious, and Ruggles Wright, Esquires [May, 1923]. The first of the articles of the committee commenced: "RESOLVED that each of the Committee do use his individual exertion and by personal application collect such subscriptions, to commence the erecton of the church either in money or articles useful about the said building". The laborers later pledged that "each agree to refrain from useing any spiritous Liquours on the scaffolding or walls of the said Church". Each £5 pledge entitled the subscriber to one vote as to the location of the church, and was to be a credit in the subsequent disposal of the pews by vendeau.

Two years later, the 1825 census shows J. C. Eaton with five people in his household; he and his wife, one boy under six, one boy six to 14, and one daughter under 14. None of these three children appear in the 1842 census seventeen years later, and we don't know their names nor whether they died or married and moved out of the household. Since Louisa was born 1800 or 1801, her eldest child must have been born not much before 1819, and the other two during the period 1820 to 1825, so these three would have been between seventeen and twenty-three at the time of the second census.

The 1825 census also shows a John Eaton and wife living in Buckingham, about 20 miles from Hull down the Ottawa River to the east. He was born between 1785 and 1800, and she between 1780 and 1811, so they were of the same generation as John and Louisa, but nothing else is known concerning them. There were no Rickers, or other related names, censused there or in the two neighboring townships of Lochabor and Templeton that year.

The Canadian census for 1842 is illuminating, but intriguing in that it provides many bits of information which raise questions rather than proved answers. J. C. Eaton had ten inmates in his household, six of whom where natives of the Continent of Europe, two of the United States, one of Ireland, and one a citizen of French Canada (see below). Since these had to include five or six of their Hull born children, the census forms must have defined Lower Canada as belonging to the Continent of Europe. Eight of these ten belonged to the Baptist or Anabaptist Church, one to the Church of England (which John had helped found almost twenty years earlier), and one to the Church of Rome.

There was one farm servant employed, and since Melissa later married a John Penoyer (in a Presbyterian church), it is quite possible that he was a French Canadian, Roman Catholic farm laborer living with the household. The family also employed a female servant, and this could have been a sister or other relative of Margaret Kirk, the Irish born wife of Louisa's brother David Ricker. These are mere speculations, however.

John was at that time a farmer with 250 acres of land, 45 acres of which were improved, tenured by him on the basis of a government grant. During the year he produced 10 bushels wheat, 50 of oats, and 60 of potatoes. He had 5 meat cattle, 2 horses, 19 sheep, and 5 hogs. The household also produced 30 yards of flannel cloth, and gathered 30 pounds of wool. All in all, the picture is one of a prosperous farm in a frontier town that still must have seem isolated far into the wilderness of Canada. That year John was censused next after Josiah Chamberlin, who had a family about the same size on a farm that was just a little larger and more productive than the Eaton one.

On 3 Jul 1848 Melissa Eaton married John Penoyer at St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Wakefield, the next town north of Hull [Blondin, 1986]. Within a couple of months the entire family with their new son-in-law had followed Louisa's brother David and his family to Jackson County, Missouri. There John on the 16th of September purchased 200 acres straddling the Santa Fe Trail in Washington Township about a mile from the border of what was then called Indian Country, later to be named Kansas Territory. That same year, a town called Kansas was platted some thirteen miles north on the Missouri River in Kaw township in the north west corner of the county. Over the years, this town was to become the metropolis of Kansas City which would eventually spread to almost completely obliterate the farmlands and small towns where the Eatons settled in Missouri. The following sketch maps show the location of the Eaton land along the Kansas-Missouri border in the 1850's.

Eaton Home on the Santa Fe Trail

In 1850 the census has John C. Eaton listed as a farmer with his wife Louisa and five children, John and Melissa Penoyer and their son Charles, 11 months old, and a John Eaton (later we find that his middle initial was O.) born in Canada and aged 22 years, and listed after the children of the family. John Clement Eaton had a younger brother Cyrus (and two much younger brothers Stillman and Harrison) who could have gone to Canada with him, so it's possible that John O. is John Clement's nephew. However, in 1825 there was another John Eaton in Buckingham Township in Lower Canada, he and his wife having been born before 1800 (i.e., about John Clement's age) but with no children that year. It is quite possible that John O. is that John Eaton's son, born 1828, but there seems to be no place on the Eaton family tree for that elder John. What John. O.'s relationship is to John Clement remains a mystery, but he remained closely involved with the family for the rest of their lives.

Also in the Jackson County census we find Louisa's brother David Ricker with his wife Margaret (Kirk) Ricker, born Bath, New Hampshire and Ireland, respectively, and a daughter Melissa named possibly after David's niece Melissa Eaton. David and his wife and their five Canadian-born children came to Missouri about 1845, preceeding John Clement and Louisa by three years.

Also in 1850, in Kaw township, we find Ann Eaton, aged 34 and born in Ireland, with six children born between 1836 and 1846 in Canada. It is believed by Cheryl Edwards, a descendant of David, that Ann was a sister of Margaret Kirk, the wife of David Ricker [Edwards, 1991]. Ann's eldest son was named Jonathan, quite probably after John C.'s father. But whether Ann was the widow of one of the two early sons of John C. and Louisa, or of someone from yet another branch of the Eatons in Canada is still not known.

In 1850, we find Louisa Eaton listed as a new member, by experience, of the Blue Ridge Baptist Church of Grandview, Missouri, located just three miles east of the Eatons' land. Also a member by letter of the church at this time was a Preston Clements. Whether or not he was a relative by marriage of Louisa's we don't know. Preston was dismissed from the church by letter in 1854, returned in 1859, and a John Ambrose Clements and Hannah A. Clements were baptised in 1860. Preston again was dismissed by letter in 1868, and it is noted in the records that Hannah died 1887, and John Ambrose in 1904. The last extant record of Blue Ridge Baptist is the membership list of 1875, and presumably the church closed its doors around that time.

On 25 Aug 1851 Harrison S. Vivion was appointed administrator of the estate of John C. Eaton who had recently died intestate. On the 10th of October a sale was held at public vendue (auction) of the goods and chattels of his estate. Louisa took at the appraised value some $103 worth of goods, including a yoke of three year old steers for $30, a black mare for $25, a red cow and calf for $12, a speckled cow and calf for $11, and a bay pony for $8. Since she also bought for cash a $12 wagon, the $103 probably represented a widow's one-third of her husband's personal estate. The rest of the property was auctioned for $169, including a field of oats to her brother David Ricker for $8.50, and several items including a shotgun for $4.25 and a $21.50 silver watch to the administrator, H. S. Vivion. The list of buyers, and the items they purchased for prices ranging upward from 25¢ for two carpenter's gouges, takes up two and a half handwritten, legal size pages.

When John C. bought his land 16 Sep 1848 from Dwight Spencer, he had paid the $1200 purchase price with $200 "in hand" and three notes due in one, two, and three years of $333.33 each, with interest. After his death by Aug 1851, his estate did not have the cash available to meet these notes, none of which had apparently been paid. On 24 Sep 1853 Spencer obtained a judgment in the Circuit Court of Jackson County against "Harrison S. Vivian as Administrator of the Estate of John C. Eaton, deceased, John Pannoyer & Melessa Pannoyer his wife, Jane Eaton, Louisa Eaton, Elizabeth Eaton, Edgar Eaton, Alfred Eaton, John Eaton & Louisa Eaton for the sum of one thousand and forty three & 52/100 dollars", to be brought before the court at the March term in 1854. (That represents, incidently, a 7.5 annual interest compounded.) Since the children are named in order of birth starting with Melissa, the last named Louisa is the widow. The John Eaton named before her must be the John O. whose exact relationship to the family we don't know, but who was considered by the court to be an heir in the intestate death of John C.

As a consequence of this judgment, and the debt still not being paid six months later as required, the Jackson County Court at its July term in 1854 ordered that the administrator of the estate sell the land "for the payment of depts, at public outcry, at the Court House door in the City of Independence, on the 2nd Monday in August next". The poster that the administrator had printed is defective in its description of the land to be sold, describing a quarter section (not owned by Eaton) but specifying 20 acres, so it's not possible to tell what portion of the original purchase was sold on 14 Aug 1854, nor why the entire farm didn't have to go.

On 6 Oct 1851 a town called New Santa Fe had been platted on the Santa Fe Trail at the Missouri border about two miles SW of the Eaton land, and just about the time of John's death. The portion of the trail between his land and the new town is today called the Santa Fe Trail Road, in south Kansas City, meeting the Kansas border between 122nd and 123rd streets. Early in 1857 the town of Oxford was laid out just across the border in what is now Kansas, essentially a continuation of New Santa Fe. The leading member of the town was Christopher Columbus Catron, a pro-slavery advocate, and Oxford became the county headquarters for that party. Over the next few years it prospered, but was abandoned by its pro-slavery inhabitants during the border wars, and fell into only sporadic use as a barracks by Union soldiers during the war. Soon after the war the town was completely converted to farm land.

On 22 Jul 1858 Louisa Eaton purchased or claimed Lot No. 1 in Sec. 14 in Oxford, comprising 61.58 acres, at $1.25 per acre. Section 14 was a fractional section abutting the Kansas-Missouri border (and thus at the eastern limit of the Kansas land survey), about 0.2 miles wide. Thus it held about 128 acres, and Lousa's lot must have been either the northern or southern half of the fractional section. The south-east corner of the section lies about a half mile north of the Santa Fe Trail where it crosses the border. On 19 Oct that year there is record of an indenture "between Louisa Eaton of the County of Johnson and Territory of Kansas and John O. Eaton of the same" in the amount of $76.98 for Lot No. 1, and on 7 Feb 1859 Louisa testified to her grant of the land to John O. before John T. Schuck, J.P. On 2 Apr 1860, with Preemption Certificate No. 1205 (recorded 2 Mar 1908), the U. S. granted to Louisa this same lot, and it noted that she "has deposited a certificate of the Registor of the Land Office at Lecompton whereby it appears that full payment has been made".

On the church record indicating that Louisa had joined the Baptist church in 1850 is the notation that she died in 1860. That year, John O. Eaton, age 31 and born in Canada, was censused on 22 Aug in Oxford Twp. as a constable owning property worth $1200. In his household were Melissa Pennoyer and her son Charles, Louisa Eaton (age 24), and Alfred Eaton (17, a farmer). Thus mother Louisa Eaton died between April and August of 1860. Melissa's husband John would have been 35 years of age at that time, and what happened to him and to Louisa's other children is unknown.

John O. Eaton was still on the Oxford land in 1870, where he was censused at age 42 as a farmer with $1000 in personal property. By 1880, however, he had moved to Concord in Clinton County, Missouri, where many members of the Eaton and Hartzell families lived. That year he was censused with his wife Annie, 16 years younger than him, and son Charles, 12, and daughter Mary, 8. Perhaps some day we will be able to find John O.'s exact connection to our line, as he was obviously closely involved with John Clement and his family over many years.

The first three children below are from the 1825 Canada census; the others from the 1850 Missouri census.