EATON, Arial Kendrick 1813-1896
EATON, JARNAGIN
Posted By: County Coordinator
Date: 5/6/2012 at 23:09:38
Arial Kendrick Eaton
Born Dec. 1, 1813
Died: July 15, 1896Wife - Sarah Jarnagin Eaton (1827-1903)
Child - Jones Eaton (1858-1861)
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#1:Gen. Arial Eaton Dead
General Arial K. Eaton died at his home in Osage at the age of 83. General Eaton and General Jones of Dubuque were the two oldest public men of Iowa. Gen Eaton came to the state in territorial days, and for many years was a prominent man in all affairs of interest to the state.
Rolfe Reveille - Thursday, July 23, 1896, Rolfe, Iowa
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#2:A. K. Eaton
Henry Kelley has returned from Osage where he went to attend the funeral services of General A. K. Eaton.
The funeral services were held in the court house and over 2,000 people were present. It was the largest funeral ever held in that section. General Eaton was a few weeks over 82 years of age.
General Jones, of Dubuque, was expected to be present but was in such poor health that it was impossible for him to be there. It was General Eaton who gave the casting vote that made General Jones a United States senator. During the past five or six years Mr. Eaton has been engaged in writing Iowa history.
[Waterloo Courier - Wednesday, July 22, 1896]
(Credit: S. Bell)
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#3:ARIEL K. EATON, one of the lawmakers of Iowa, was born at Sutton, New Hampshire, on the first of December, 1813.
His education was acquired in the public schools and for several years he was a teacher. In 1841 he located at Winchester, Indiana, where he was elected county auditor. He was admitted to the bar and for several years practiced law. In 1846 he removed to Delaware County, Iowa, where he built the second log cabin in the new town of Delhi. He was soon elected prosecuting attorney and afterwards county judge.
In 1850 he was elected a representative in the Third General Assembly and was chairman of the committee on schools. He was reelected to the Fourth General Assembly which enacted the Code of 1851. Upon the establishment of the new United States Land Office at Decorah in 1855, Mr. Eaton was appointed by President Pierce receiver of public money. In 1856 the Land Office was removed to Osage and Mr. Eaton made the place his permanent home. After his retirement from office and the practice of law, General Eaton for many years contributed valuable historical articles to the press. He died on July 14, 1896.
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#4:Arial Kendrick Eaton
Arial Kendrick Eatont was born in Sutton, New Hampshire December 1, 1831, on a rugged, stony hill farm. Here he worked with his widowed mother with few school advantages, until the fall of 1831 at which time you attended to select school of Silon Pillsbury, one of the ancestors of the Pillsbury family of Minneapolis, at South Sutton, New Hampshire. He afterward taught school in Massachusetts and Fayette County, Ohio until June 1840, during the most of the last four years of which he taught a select school at Washington Court House. During this time he studied law with be honorable Wade Loofboro, and formed the personal acquaintance of Governor William Allen and Allen G. Thurman.
June 3rd 1836 he was married to Sarah Ann McArthur at Washington Court House, who died there June 15, 1840. He then moved to Winchester, Randolph County, Indiana. In 1841 he was elected county auditor and re-elected in 1842. He was licensed to practice law in 1842. He was made a Mason in Indiana in 1844. In June 1844 you resigned his office on account of ill health, and on June 7th was married to Sarah Jarnagin. In August 1846 he settled at Delaware County, Iowa.
Death claimed him At an hour most benignly, most lovingly deferred. It found him "only waiting, calmly waiting at the gate, with neither dread nor longing to depart.
And may we not hope with him that; "Gently and without grief the old shall glide into the new and the internal flow of things like a bright river of the fields of Heaven shall journey onward in perpetual peace?"
"Where we not glad that he had lived so long?
And glad that he had gone to his reward?
And could we deem that Nature did him wrong,
Softly to disengage the vital chord?
For when his hand grew palsied and his eyes
Dark with mists of age it was his time to die."And yet we hardly realized he was aged except in the physical frame. The mental, moral, social forces were not abated. What man of near onto 83 years, have we seen who kept his heart so young, his pulse of spirit up to the full-beat -- mind so sustained in all its powers -- so alive, so alert upon the current events, his thoughts so fully abreast with the evolutions of things?
He seemed not to retire unto the past, not to fall out by the way, or lag superfluous behind. He was not left upon the shore, but he was ever in the channels stream -- battling in its living flow -- with the zeal of youth.
A gentleman of the antique American type but quite modernized -- up to date. The ancient pattern somewhat, with many of the modern improvements. Young with the young, mature with the mature, and old with no one.
How little of the common pioneer the rusticity-coarseness he carried along with him! And he lost none of his primitive virtues by the way.
His type of mind and spirit was much the original New England Puritans, softened in our later humanity -- yet retaining the celestial temper still, and somewhat intolerant bias. His were some of the graces of the cavalier too.
Here was your Puritan slow growth, resoluteness of purpose, calm intrepid soul, building, organizing instinct -- forcing of the new ways -- good heart and good cheer amid fortitude -- or loss, the sincere, earnest, steadfast look into the face of things -- the calm unyielding front kept to them, the tenacious grapple with them -- unbroken, invincible always.
His was your freedom of thoughts -- candor of speech -- never running into vulgar riot -- or offensive hauteur. Here your thoughtful, conviction -- and is courage, everywhere, and here your conscience or ever presiding power over all. He might not always see his way clearly, truly, in his mind -- but in his heart he did.
His tastes were quite literary, eminently historical. His culture of both remarkable for his time. He was a gifted and faithful recording scribe. His memory the first of powers usually the fall was the last to yield. He took a large interest in all governmental affairs -- his mind seemed to gravitate and revolve more here. Here he was more masterful in thought and knowledge than elsewhere. The principles of justice in the law human, its administration, he was much given to study and revere.
He was a frequent attendant upon our courts -- How far he was its advocate expounder before he came here, or how successful, we do not know. But we think he had little bias -- and but an indifferent taste, or equipment for forensic contests.
Perhaps he was not rough-shod and dexterous enough for it.
Had not it's quick logic -- the gift to "make the worse appear the better reason." As a writer and speaker he sometimes lacked the orderly movement, connected chain, the logical array. So that the product was not an organic whole, leaving a certain unity of the impression. His lines of thoughts were not ranked -- but scattery -- individual, independent, now and then. [truncated]
Source: from a book of loose-leaf clippings in the Osage Public Library, Osage, Iowa.
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#5:Death of Gen. Eaton.
Wednesday July 15, 1896, Gen. A. K. Eaton of Osage died, aged 82 years 8 months and 11 days, he was born in New Hampshire, moved to Iowa in 1846, was county judge, prosecuting attorney and member of the legislature from Delaware county from ‘50 to ‘53.
In 1855 President Buchanan appointed him receiver of public moneys for the Turkey River land district, the office being at Decorah but in the summer of 1856 was removed to Osage.
He was one of the proprietors of the town plat of Osage, a charter member of the Masonic Lodge and a member of Osage chapter, and a Knight Templar.
While the democratic party was democratic he was a democrat, but when it had followed the republican party into plutocracy he abandoned it for the real doctrine of democracy espoused by the better democracy of populism, than that of Cleveland and
John Sherman offered him.Iowa Plain Dealer July 21, 1896, FP, C6
(Submitted to IAGenWeb by Joy Moore, 8/2017)
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#6:
Photo of Arial from HISTORY OF MITCHELL & WORTH COUNTIES, IOWA, 1883.
Mitchell Obituaries maintained by Sharyl Ferrall.
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