USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > New Haven > A pictorial history of "Raynham" and its vicinity. > Part 9
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This Theophilus Eaton, the famous Governor of the New Haven Colony, was born at Stony Strat- ford, Oxfordshire. He was the eldest son and at this date the most fit to be made Executor of his father's will. He was an important merchant of London and interested in the East Lands Com- pany of which he had been Deputy Governor, and we are told he was an Ambassador from Eng- land to the Court of Denmark. He was one of the Patentees of the Massachusetts Bay Com- pany and assisted as a magistrate at several of their meetings in London before the records were sent over to New England.
* NOTE .- See Ormsrood's Cheshire, vol. i, p. 657. Over Wheatley, a township of Great Budsworth, Cheshire, com- prises the hamlets of Norcot, Antobus, Middlewalk, Seaven Oaks and Crawley. In the hamlet of Antobus is the Pole, the property and residence of the Rev. George Eaton, the son of George Selby, Esquire, who assumed the name of his wife Miss Eaton on succeeding to the estates. See the pedigree of Robert Eaton of [Sandiway] in Barrow Lane, Seaven Oaks, Lordship of Wheatley. The Eatons have possessed property in this parish for centuries.
t According to a well sustained tradition this Sister Hannah married the Rev. Francis Higginson, who came to New England with the Cape Ann Colony in 1629 and is the Mrs. Higginson of the New Haven Colony in 1640.
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Previous to his embarkation he was a resident of the Parish of St. Stephens, Coleman Street, of which John Davenport* was rector, and the Register of this parish records the births and burials of some of his childrent and from which I have copied the names of Theophilus, the son of Theophilus and Ann Eaton, baptized 11th March, 1630; Hannah, daughter of Theophilus Eaton, bap- tized 6th Oct., 1632 ; Jonathan Eaton, son of Theophilus Eaton, was buried 2 July, 1634. Elizabeth, daughter of Theophilus Eaton, was buried 8 Sept., 1630, and in the margin of a later page another Elizabeth, daughter of Theophilus Eaton was buried 15 March, 1637. This burial must have taken place a few days before Governor Eaton's embarkation from London in the ship "Hector," William Fernes, Master, and partly owned by the brothers Richard and Samuel Hutchinson, then of Boston and Lynn, Massachusetts. Circumstantial evidence and the Admiralty Court records show how this ship was detained at the port of London and would seem to place the date of the " Hector's " departure about the 12th of April, which with an average run down the English Channel of a week and her arrival at Boston on the 26th of June following would make her passage about an average one for this season of the year.#
The second wife of Theophilus Eaton, we are informed by J. P. Earwaker in his history of East Cheshire in a note, p. 33, was Ann, a daughter of George Lloyd, D.D.,§ (sixth son of Meredith Lloyd), Bishop of Sodor and Man, 1600-4, and consecrated Bishop of Chester, Jan. 4th, 1605. The Bishop died Aug. 1st, 1615, aged 55 years, and it is interesting to note just here that his palace, which is a remarkable example of the west of England architecture of the Seventeenth century with the arms of Lloyd and other insignia of his Sees of Man and Chester, portrayed over the principal entrance is still in existence in Water Gate Street, Chester, and is soon to be restored by ex-Mayor Brown of that city, who has lately bought this edifice.
In the Cathedral at Chester is an alabaster stone which once bore a plate that some vandal has carried off. On it was a Latin inscription of the burial of this Bishop Lloyd, the English translation of which I have had made and published in the New England Register, vol. 1898. The Bishop married Aune, daughter of John Wilkinson, of Norwich, Norfolk, and his before mentioned daughter, Ann, married for her first husband, Thomas Yale, Gentleman, eldest son of David Yale, LL.D., Vicar General to the Rt. Rev. George Lloyd, Bishop of Chester. Dr. Yale's will is dated 15th August, 1625, and proved in the Consistory Court of Chester, 16th June, 1626. In this will he gives "To David Yale, Thomas Yale, and Ann Yale, children of Thomas Yale, my eldest sonne, late deceased, twenty pounds a year," in toto -" three score pounds."
This Thomas Yale, late deceased, according to Earwaker, was the first husband of Governor Eaton's second wife. He died in August, 1619, and his inventory on file at Chester, dated August 27th, 1619, made by Thomas Heyes, administrator of the goods, chattels, etc., of Sª Thomas Yale, of the city of Chester, Esquire, deceased, was sworn to "before Dr. Robert King, and David Yale, Doctor of Laws, etc." In this administration xiv shillings each person is allowed a week for the diet of the widow and three children (names not mentioned). Value of personal estate £36 10s. 8d. From this instrument enough has been gleaned to prove this Thomas Yale was the son of Dr. David Yale, and father of the children mentioned in his will.
The historian, Cotton Mather, in his Magnalia, has given ns an outline of this noted man's career ; but only brief mention is made of his first wife, and her children, who, surviving their mother (Samuel and Mary) came to New England with their father, and as searches for Gov. Eaton's two marriages have not been successful, it was gratifying for me to find in the Record Office, Chester, among the Bishop's transcripts from the Parish Register of Great Budsworth, Cheshire, the burial of a certain " An Eaton, May 25th, 1658, of Seaven Oaks, widow."
* Davenport's father had been Mayor of Coventry, where Eaton's father at the time held a church living. And it is quite probable that these " Fathers of New Haven " were schoolmates.
+ We have no record of Governor Eaton's first wife's maiden name. His mother (old Mrs. Eaton) and two chil- dren by his first wife came to New Haven with him, Mary and Samuel. Mary Eaton became the second wife of Valentine Hill of Boston in 1616 and had issue. They moved to Dover, New Hampshire, where Mr. Hill died in 1662. Samuel Eaton, the eldest son, graduated at Harvard College in 1649, and married Mrs. Mabel Haynes, Nov. 17th, 1654, and died with wife in July of next year. [Dexter.]
# At this season of the year ships bound to New England usually took the Southern Course to avoid tempestu- ous weather.
§ See Burk's Royal Families, vol. 2, p. 39, Meridith ap John Lloyd.
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This was no doubt the burial of the Governor's widow Ann, who left New Haven soon after the death of her husband, for England via Boston and stopping enroute at Hartford, she entrusted her business affairs with her friend, Governor Winthrop, and the town employed a man to accompany lier and her family, which consisted of her sous Thomas Yale, Theophilus Eaton and daughter Hannah Eaton, and it is natural to suppose that on arrival in England, Mrs. Eaton, with her family, immedi- ately occupied her deceased husband's property, and perhaps resided at Brothwick House, in the liam- let of Seaven Oaks, in the Parish of Great Budsworth, some eiglit score miles from London. Here in the west of England she escaped oppression and died surrounded with the friends of hier youth and near her brother-in-law, the Rev. Samuel Eaton, who had returned from New England some years before and was then minister over a congregation of non-Conformists at Denton in the same county. By her will she appoints her son Theophilus and daughter Hannah Eaton, executor and executrix, and they their brother Thomas Yale, atty., who very soon after sailed for Boston, from whence he writes Gov. Winthrop, July 6, 1659, that as he has no horse to return to his home via Hartford, will sail for New Haven in Brother Alsop's vessel and will come to Hartford on his arrival, about his mother's estate left with the Governor, and which his brother and sister Eaton have put him in charge.
This letter with others of Thomas Yale, and sealed with the arms of Yale of Plas Grono. Ermine on a Saltire, Gules. A Crescent, Gold, are very interesting.
This Thomas Yale was the ancestor of the writer and married in 1645 Mary, daughter of Captain Nathaniel Turner, who was lost in the Phantom Ship in January, 1646. His town lot now owned by Yale University was on York Street, and on his return from England he took possession of the Governor Eaton farm in North Haven, west of the Quinnipiack River [Goodyear Farm], which his brother Theophilus and sister Hannah Eaton had deeded to him before his departure for New England, as fol- lows : "This Indenture made the nine and twentiethi day of March in the year of our Lord One Thou- sand six hundred fifty and nine, between Theophilus Eaton of Dublin in the Dominion of Ireland, Esquire, son and lieir unto Theophilus Eaton, late of New Haven, in New England, Esquire, afore- said, and Hannah Eaton of London, Spinster daugliter to the said Theophilus Eaton of the one part and Thomas Yale of New Haven, in New England, gentleman of the other part Witnesseth &c., &c., Theophilus Eaton and Hannah Eaton in consideration of the affection they bear to their beloved brother Thomas Yale, and for twenty shillings by him to them in hand paid receipt of which they do hereby confess to have received have granted him their farm and house on the Connecticut [Quinni- piack]* River in New England formerly in the tenure of William Bradley and now in possession of Thomas Yale &c., &c. They appoint Francis Newman of New Haven Attorney with right to enter on and transfer the said land to Thomas Yale which shall be for the use of him the said Thomas Yale and his heirs forever.
Wit JOHN BROTHWICK JOHN PEPPER
Signed THEOPHILUS EATON HANNAH EATON "
The original is on parchment indented and was recorded twenty-four years later, April 23d, 1683, Jolın Nash, Recorder. Space will not admit here the history of this farm, also the Gov. Eaton Farin near the Iron Works, and his estate at Eaton Neck and Southhold, Long Island.
Mrs. Eaton's eldest son, David Yale, and wife Ursula, with sons David, Eliliu, Theophilus and Thomas, returned to England with their parents about 1650, and all died without issue except Elihu, who left three daughters. Elihu was born at New Haven, April 5th, 1648, admitted to Merchant Tailors' School, London, Sept. 1st, 1662, went to India and became Governor of the East India Company. He was a benefactor of Yale College, and died in London, July 22d, 1621, and was buried in Wrexham Church yard, where his fine monument stands which has lately been restored by the Yale University.
We are informed he left a will giving money to Yale College, but as it was not properly executed, his son-in-law objected to the bequest and it was never paid.
Mrs. Eaton's daughter, Anne Yale, married Governor Edward Hopkins, of the Connecticut Colony, and returned to England with him and is mentioned in his will [Ruthen 148] dated London, 7 March, 1657, and proved 30 April following by Henry Dally, nephew and sole executor. In this
* Quinnipiack River was often called Connecticut River.
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will which is quite lengthy, numerous bequests and many Connecticut names are mentioned. "Of his estate in England one hundred and fifty pounds per annum to be paid to Mr. David Yale, brother of my distressed wife for her comfortable maintenance and to be disposed of by him for her good, she not being in a condition fit to manage it for herself. To brother Mr. David Yale two hundred pounds. To brother Mr. Thomas Yale, two hundred pounds. To sister Mrs. Hannah Eaton, two hundred pounds." The residue of his estate to my father, Theophilus Eaton, Esqr., Mr. John Daven- port, Mr. John Culleck and Mr. Goodwyn in trust, &c., &c., to give some encouragement in those for- eign plantations for the breeding np of hopeful youths in a way of learning both at the Grammar School and College for the public service of the Country in future times .*
It is interesting to make notes of the Governor's will dated 26 Aug., 1656, in which he gave to his wife "one third of his real estate wheather in England lying and being in the Parish of Great Budsworth, in the County of Chester, or in any other place in said county or whether in New Eng- land in or near New Haven," for life, also one-third of the residue of the estate and in token of his love fifty pounds over and above her third.
Governor Eaton died suddenly at his mansion house on Elm street, New Haven, on the 7th of January, 1657 N. S. and was buried in the churchyard on the Green, and the General Court caused a monument to be erected to his memory. H. T. Blake, Esq., says in his "Chronicles of New Haven Green," p. 263, " Among the monuments removed from the Green to the New Grove Street Cem- etery, there was one of especial interest, that over the grave of Theophilus Eaton." In May, 1658, just after Governor Eaton's death, the General Court of the Colony adopted the following order :
" The Court, calling to mind the good services done to this Colony by our late honored Governor, did order that a comly tomb, such as we are capable of, shall be made over his grave and that the estate he left behind him shall be free from rates this year to the Jurisdiction."
In May, 1661, there was something propounded about the engraving of Governor Eaton's tomb, which was left "to ye Governor Deputy, Governor, and New Haven Court with advise of ye Elders of New Haven."
The two stone blocks or pillars which support the tablet, in the Grove Street Cemetery, are probably part of Governor Eaton's monument.
The Rev. Abraham Pierson of Branford wrote on the death of Governor Eaton an elegy of thirty-eight lines to express his sorrow, three linest of which are on this tablet.
"Theophilus Eaton Esq" Govr Decd Jany 7th 1657 Ætat 67"
+" Eaton so famed, so wise, so meek, so just The Phoenix of our World here lies his dust This name forget N. England never must "
"T'attend you, Sir under these famed Stones Are come your honored son and daughter Jones On each hand to repose their weary bones."
Wm Jones Esqr Dept Govr Decd Oct. 17 1706 Ætat 82 Hannah Jones daughter of Govr Eaton Decd May 4th 1707 Ætat 74
* He was the founder of the Hopkins Grammar School.
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