Book Description

This eight-generation genealogy of the Eaton line begins with the immigrant John Eaton and his wife, Anne, who first established themselves in the new grant of Salisbury, Massachusetts, in 1640. In 1646, the family left their elder son, John, with the Salisbury land, and moved to Haverhill, Massachusetts, where their younger son, Thomas, would receive the new land divisions after the parents' death. The Rev. William H. Eaton (1818-1896) designed this work as an extension of his fine four-generation treatment of this line, published in the 1880s. He died, however, well before its completion. The old manuscript was found, modernized, and completed by Philip E. Converse. The genealogy is patrilineal, and covers some ninth-generation Eatons who lived the bulk of their lives before 1850. About 5,000 descendants are numbered, and biographical texts of varying length are provided for a majority of the males, along with information about daughter's marriages where available. One long appendix attempts to identify all Eatons (not only from John and Anne) listed in the Federal Censuses from 1790 to 1850 in Northern New England, for the states of Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. The identification rate for Eaton sightings is over eighty-five percent in each state, so this appendix will be of interest to descendants of the several other Eaton lineages who came to New England during the Great Migration, some of whom migrated northward from Plymouth and the Boston area. This volume includes fifteen sidebars giving some context about the local challenges these Eaton generations encountered in New England, along with ten maps, and indexes for Eaton names and cognate surnames mentioned.