Nathaniel Eaton

Nathaniel Eaton
Portrait of Nathaniel Eaton mistakenly painted on a John Harvard Olympus Cigar label in place of Harvard's founder John Harvard
Headmaster of Harvard College
In office
1637–1639
Succeeded byHenry Dunster (as President)
Personal details
BornBefore 17 September 1609 (baptism)
Great Budworth, Cheshire, Kingdom of England
DiedBefore 11 May 1674 (burial)
Southwark, Surrey, Kingdom of England
Alma materUniversity of Cambridge
University of Padua

Nathaniel Eaton (before 17 September 1609 − before 11 May 1674) was an Anglican clergyman who was the first Headmaster of Harvard, President designate, and builder of Harvard's first College, Yard, and Library, in 1636.

Nathaniel was the uncle of Samuel Eaton, one of the seven founding members and signatories of the Harvard Corporation by charter in 1650.

Harvard's first building, the Old College 1638-1670

Biography

The fifth or sixth son of the Reverend Richard Eaton (1565–1616), and Elizabeth [Okell?]. Nathaniel was baptised in St Mary and All Saints' Church, Great Budworth, Cheshire, where his father was vicar, on 17 September 1609. He was educated at Westminster School, London. He attended Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was a contemporary and friend of John Harvard who was a student at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He then attended the University of Franeker, where he studied under Rev. William Ames. Eaton later obtained a MD and a PhD from the University of Padua, in Venetia.

Eaton emigrated to the New England Colonies on the merchant ship Hector, arriving in Boston on 26 June 1637 in a party which included his older brothers, Theophilus and Samuel along with John Davenport. In the fall of 1637 he was appointed the first "headmaster" of the nascent Harvard College called New College at the time and was awarded 500 acres of land by the General Court of Massachusetts. He erected Harvard's first building, in 1636, called the Old College; named, fenced and planted the Harvard Yard called the College yard; established the colony's first printing press in March 1639, and created its first semi-public library, the Harvard Library.

Harvard Yard, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Around the time that Eaton started teaching at Harvard, the Antinomian Controversy had erupted in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The governor at the time, John Winthrop, was noted for his extreme stance within the Puritan community and was feared by many of the colonists. Even those who were Winthrop's close allies, such as Rev. Thomas Hooker, who cofounded the colony of Connecticut, were repulsed by his personality. As such, many left the colony and any Antinomians who didn't leave voluntarily were forced out, banished, or excommunicated (such as Rev. John Wheelwright who founded Exeter, New Hampshire, and his sister-in-law, Anne (Marbury) Hutchinson, who founded a new colony in what later became Rhode Island).

Eaton's older brother, Theophilus Eaton, led the group along with John Davenport as their religious leader. They intended to start their own settlement – probably due in part to the commanding persona of John Winthrop, Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony at the time (1637 to 1640, and many other terms). Winthrop was termed "an object of great fear in all the colonies," and caused the Rev. Thomas Hooker and others to go off and form their own colonies. Deciding that he didn't want to be involved in the animosity, he – like Rev. Thomas Hooker before him – founded a new colony, the colony of New Haven, though Winthrop and others begged both of them to stay.

In 1639, the year after Theophilus left, Eaton was fired from his job following allegations that he had beat one of his students too harshly and that his wife had supposedly served students hasty pudding with goat dung in it.[1] Eaton's trial gave rise to the concept of court reporters. After the Church of Cambridge attempted an appeal on his behalf, Governor Winthrop refused them, saying that enough evidence had already been presented by several witnesses. The church, however, was able to secure a promise that all subsequent trials would be accompanied by a recording of facts so that defendants and plaintiffs could refer to evidence already presented without witnesses having to go through the entire process again.[2] The only record of Eaton's own supposed "confession" was destroyed in a suspicious fire in the office of the historian, James Savage, and his guilt remains in doubt. In the same year as Eaton was fired, he was recorded as owning an enslaved man referred to as "The Moor", of which the students of Harvard complained about having to eat the same food as the Moor.

Henry Dunster succeeded Eaton in 1640 as Harvard's first president, and the first students graduated in 1642.[3] Dunster resigned in 1654 over disagreements with the church about infant baptism.

Harvard College Library, Cambridge, Massachusetts

At around the same time that Eaton was dismissed from Harvard, he apparently was excommunicated from the congregation in Cambridge. He moved to Virginia in 1640 and then sent for his wife and children who left New England, except for Benoni. According to Winthrop in his History of New England [4] (known to be full of inaccuracies), the ship in which the family travelled disappeared without a trace. Benoni Eaton, left in Cambridge, was taken in by Thomas Chesholm and his wife, Isobel; Thomas was steward of Harvard College from 1650 to 1660. Through Benoni, Nathaniel has modern descendants.

Following the loss of his family, Eaton married the widow Anne (Graves) Cotton [5] (1620–1684), the daughter of Captain Thomas Graves (1584–1635) of Virginia, and served for several years as an assistant to the Anglican curate at Accomac, Virginia before returning to England, where he was appointed vicar of Bishop's Castle, Shropshire, in 1661 and rector of Bideford, Devon, in 1668.

In 1647 Eaton was "exonerated" of a £100 debt that Winthrop misstated as being for £1,000 in his History of New England, and with which Eaton had supposedly absconded to Virginia in 1640. The exoneration is documented in Henry Dunster's record book for Harvard College as a copy of a letter by two benefactors that Dunster recorded directly underneath his first design of the seal of Harvard College. The 1640 endowment letter was footnoted in 1647 by Theophilus, who wrote:

This money was put wholey into the hands of my brother Nath:Eaton. 9 August 1647. [signed] Theo:Eaton.

The intention of the footnote was to indicate that his brother had finally been repaid, and apparently Nathaniel had in part used the money to further his education. As for the £100, Thomas Symonds – a carpenter who had apparently assisted in the building of the college at Cambridge in 1639 and afterwards – was soon found to be in debt to one of the creditors of the college, John Cogan, for the same amount. As stated elsewhere, the college building itself was poorly erected – Symonds being the responsible party after Nathaniel left – and eventually Symonds and at least one of his assistants were thrown into debtor's prison.

Religious convictions

Eaton left for England around 1652, where he had already been accepted back by the Church of England and honoured as a parish priest, though obviously he had his scruples, and was said to waver between devotion to his newly found home and that to his former.

In all likelihood, that "back and forthedness" and covering up set up a scenario of confusion, which seems to have confused every recordkeeper involved. Eaton died in 1674 in King's Bench Prison, where he had been incarcerated for a similar debt: quite probably the same £100 debt from which he had already been given relief. His imprisonment coincided with the Stuart Restoration, and was likely reposted on an old list that King Charles II's father had kept concerning those of lingering or questionable indebtedness. He was given a burial service on 11 May 1674 at St George the Martyr, Southwark, Surrey, England.

Confusion with Nathaniel Heaton of Boston

There was also Nathaniel (H)eaton, Heaten, wife, Elizabeth and children, who emigrated on the Griffin with William and Anne Marbury Hutchinson landing on 18 September 1634 in the town of Boston, but who spelled his name "Heaton". This Nathaniel Heaten was made free on 25 May 1636. Nathaniel Eaton of this article only arrived on the Hector on 26 June 1637, and was made a Freeman on 9 June 1638. In 1903 a series of plans of Boston, showing existing ways and owners of property from 25 December 1630 to 25 December 1645 inclusive was published showing the work of cartographer, George Lamb. In these maps #98, Nathaniel Eaton is cited as a property owner in Boston from 1638 to 1645. The subject of this article, Nathaniel Eaton, was known to have left Cambridge in the fall of 1639 and relocated to Virginia by 1640. The Nathaniel Eaton cited in the Lamb map collection is most likely Nathaniel Heaton. This error may have caused further conflation of two individuals, Nathaniel Heaton (Boston), and Nathaniel Eaton (Cambridge). In The Crooked and Narrow Streets of the Town of Boston – 1630–1822 [note 185] by Annie Haven Thwing, Nathaniel Heaton is accurately cited.


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