Col Amos Woodward Eaton, I

1. AMOS1 EATON (Stephen2, David1) was born on 28 Jul 1785 in Cornwallis Township, Kings, Nova Scotia. He died on 26 Feb 1862 and was buried in Eaton Cemetery, Pugwash Junction, Cumberland, Nova Scotia. He married SARAH HARRIS on 10 Jan 1810 in Cornwallis Township, Kings, Nova Scotia. She was born on 02 Apr 1787. She died on 17 Oct 1865 and was buried in Eaton Cemetery, Pugwash Junction, Cumberland, Nova Scotia (inscription: died in her 75th year).

Notes for Amos Eaton: • He moved early in life to Pugwash, Cumberland Co.; was a colonel in the militia, and was very highly respected. The Nova Scotia Eatons, 1885 • What may have induced Amos Eaton to leave Cornwallis for Pugwash we do not know. The name Pugwash must have been fastened to the river in Cumberland County which bears this name when the Micmac Indians roamed the province and have been perpetuated by the French when the scanty settlement on the banks of the river began to develop into hamlets or villages. The Pugwash River flows from somewhere in the interior of Cumberland County into Northumberland Strait and at its mouth in the first half of the nineteenth century shipbuilding was carried on. The history of Cumberland County at large has never been written; indeed, with the exception of King's, Annapolis and Pictou, not one of the fourteen counties of Nova Scotia proper and the four of Cape Breton Island has ever been adequately written, Lunenburg and Yarmouth perhaps coming nearer a proper consecutive writing than any others, and so varied is the historical interest of Cumberland that it ought to be a joy for some man gifted with proper local - historical sense before long to do this work. In saying that Cumberland's history has never been written I do not, however, forget a very valuable small book called "The Chignecto Isthmus and its First Settlers," by Howard Trueman, published in Toronto in 1902, which does give many important facts in the history of the English settlement of the county and concerning its early settlers, that make a fine basis for a complete history when a competent historian shall arise.

At the time that Shirley was carrying out his determined plan to destroy French influence in America one of the strongholds of French power in Nova Scotia was beabassin, on the Isthmus of Chignecto in this county, where the French had built a fort called Beauséjour, and from here Duchambon of Verger, who commanded the fort, in the dead of winter of 1746-1747 sent out five or six hundred troops on their snowy march down into King's County, murderously to destroy the English force stationed at Grand Pré. From this isthmus and so from Cumberland County at large, as Parkman in his "Montcalm and Wolfe" so graphically shows, the French in 1755 were finally expelled, Fort Beauséjour then becoming Fort Cumberland; and in 1760 into Cumberland County, as into most other counties of the peninsula of Nova Scotia, swept a tide of New England families of the finest New England stock. Between 1772 and 1774 came also a large group of Yorkshire families to Cumberland, and these were followed in 1783 and 1784 by many "United Empire" Loyalists from New England. In a late chapter of this volume I shall speak at some length of a Loyalist MacPherson family, some of whose members came from Shelburne County, Nova Scotia, to Pugwash and were intermarried with the Eatons in the eighth generation, and it is probable that these MacPhersons were attracted to Cumberland by the presence there of these other Loyalists, who may have come directly from the United States. But I suppose the possibilities of agriculture and perhaps Shipbuilding rather than any facts of previous migration into the county from New England or by people of Loyalist stock impelled Amos Eaton to leave his native King's for this most northerly county of the Nova Scotia peninsula. At any rate he did migrate to Cumberland and there became a prosperous and highly respected man, his family in time intermarrying with other important Cumberland families like the MacPhersons, Blacks and Cranes. The Black family, which has had great prominence in Nova Scotia, particularly in Halifax, are descendants of the noted Rev. William Black, one of the Yorkshire settlers in Cumberland, who is commonly known in Nova Scotia history as the Father of Methodism in the Lower Provinces. The name Cyrus, which has been and still is conspicuously borne in the Eaton family, undoubtedly came into the family from its association with the Black family, in which it appears prominently again and again. The Eaton Family of Nova Scotia, 1929

Amos Eaton and Sarah Harris had the following children:

2. i. LEVI WOODWORTH2 EATON was born on 23 Aug 1811 in Pugwash, Cumberland, Nova Scotia. He died on 20 Sep 1897 in Pah Road, Onehunga, Auckland, New Zealand. He married (1) SARAH ROSE ANN BIGELOW about 1834 in Nova Scotia. She was born in 1814 in Pugwash, Cumberland, Nova Scotia. She died on 19 Jul 1879 in Auckland, New Zealand. He married (2) MARY ANN LARKIN on 11 Nov 1882 in Remuera, Auckland, New Zealand. She was born in 1836 in Scotland. She died on 10 Mar 1925 in New Zealand. 3. ii. NATHAN HARRIS EATON was born on 13 Mar 1814. He died on 04 Oct 1855 in Pugwash, Cumberland, Nova Scotia. He married ALICE BIGELOW in Nov 1836. 4. iii. AMOS EATON was born on 06 Oct 1815 in Oxford, Cumberland, Nova Scotia. He died on 20 Jan 1879 in Attleboro, Bristol, MA. He married ELIZABETH URQUHART MACPHERSON on 26 May 1836. She was born on 17 Apr 1817 in Shelburne, Shelburne County, Nova Scotia. She died on 01 Aug 1890. 5. iv. MARGARET LUCILLA EATON was born on 20 Sep 1817. She died on 03 Mar 1850 in Pugwash, Cumberland, Nova Scotia. She married ISAAC NEWTON BIGELOW. 6. v. STEPHEN EATON was born on 26 Jun 1819. He died on 28 Dec 1883 in Pugwash, Cumberland, Nova Scotia. He married MARY DESIAH "AMELIA" PARKER on 05 Jan 1842 in Pugwash, Cumberland, Nova Scotia. She was born on 16 Jan 1825 in Pugwash, Cumberland, Nova Scotia. She died on 09 Mar 1913 in New York, New York, NY. 7. vi. CAROLINE S. EATON was born on 20 Nov 1821 in Pugwash, Cumberland, Nova Scotia. She died in 1879 in Centreville, Kings, Nova Scotia. She married GIDEON BIGELOW on 13 Jul 1844 in Pugwash, Cumberland, Nova Scotia. He was born on 27 Dec 1817 in Pugwash, Cumberland, Nova Scotia. 8. vii. SARAH ELIZA EATON was born on 03 Aug 1824 in Cornwallis Township, Kings, Nova Scotia. She died in 1908 in East Boston, Suffolk, MA. She married ISAAC NEWTON BIGELOW on 11 Apr 1849. 9. viii. JAMES EDWARD EATON was born on 03 Jun 1826 in Cornwallis Township, Kings, Nova Scotia. He died about 1845. 10. ix. REBECCA EATON was born on 12 Aug 1828 in Cornwallis Township, Kings, Nova Scotia. She died about 1847. 11. x. ALPHEUS EATON was born on 01 Sep 1831 in Pugwash, Cumberland, Nova Scotia. He died on 05 Dec 1896 in Auckland, New Zealand. He married ELIZABETH BURTON Pellow on 04 Jul 1867 in New Zealand. She was born on 14 Feb 1842 in Cornwallis Township, Kings, Nova Scotia. She died on 12 Aug 1930 in Auckland, New Zealand.