The Excommunication of Gov. Eaton’s Wife in the New Haven Colony
Theophilus Eaton: 1591-1657 (Maternal
Tenth-Great-Grandfather)
Anne Yale Eaton: 1595-1659 (Wife of Maternal Tenth-Great-Grandfather—not
my ancestor)
Mary Eaton Hill: 1625-1708 (Maternal Ninth-Great-Grandmother)
One of my maternal tenth-great-grandfathers, Theophilus
Eaton, was a fairly important man in colonial America. He was one of the
Puritan founders of the city of New Haven, Connecticut, and served as the first
Governor of the New Haven Colony from 1639 until his death in 1657. Since he
was a significant figure in Connecticut history, records relating to his life
and the life of his second wife, Ann Lloyd Eaton, have been preserved. Among
those records were the transcripts of Anne Lloyd Eaton’s church trial for
disagreeing with articles of church faith, and for general bad behavior. It is
hard to imagine that such a well-respected man would have had such a wild,
scandalous home life!
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| Statue of Gov. Theophilus Eaton in Connecticut |
Anne Lloyd was the widow of Thomas Yale and the mother of
Yale’s four children when she married Theophilus Eaton in 1626. (Yes, that
Yale. Thomas and Anne Yale were the grandparents of Elihu Yale, founder of Yale
University.) Eaton was a widower with four children of his own, including my
ancestor and ninth-great-grandmother Mary Eaton, born in 1625. Following their
marriage, Theophilus and Ann had at least three children of their own, Hannah,
Elizabeth (died in early childhood) and Theophilus.
In 1637, Theophilus Eaton chose to accompany his childhood
friend, Puritan minister John Davenport, to colonial America aboard the ship
Hector. He brought most of his family with him, including his elderly mother
and his stepchildren. After spending nine months in the Boston and Salem area,
the Davenport group decided to found their own colony. They moved to lands
inhabited by the Quinnipiac tribe in what is now Connecticut, and spent
fourteen months building the original New Haven Colony settlement. Eaton helped
to negotiate a deal with the Native Americans to acquire their land and helped
to draw up a contract that spelled out the community’s governance, and was soon
elected the colony’s governor.
The homes erected in New Haven were far larger and more
luxurious than most 1630s and 1640s colonial homes. The Eaton home was the
largest of them all, with two sources claiming it had 27 rooms and 19 fireplaces.
The household comprised nearly thirty people, with servants and wards in
addition to the family. The house was built in the shape of an “E”, and was furnished
with Turkey carpets, tapestries, and fine furnishings.
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| Sketch of Gov. Eaton's large home in New Haven |
According to the inventory taken at Eaton’s death in 1657,
the rooms of the house included the “”greene chamber…blew chamber..” the hall,
parlor, Mrs. Eaton’s room, a chamber over the kitchen, the kitchen, the “other
chamber”, the garret, the counting house and the brew house.
So while Anne Yale Eaton had to leave the comforts of life
in England behind for the uncertainties and challenges of colonial life, she
was living in far better conditions than other colonial women, and she had
servants to help her with the unending work of managing a large household.
Still, the pressures were enormous, and her relationship with her husband seems
to have frayed.
Anne was well-educated for her time, and was able to read. Influenced by a book advocating adult baptism (Anabaptist belief) rather than the Puritan practice of infant baptism, she began talking about her beliefs to others, attracting the attention of Rev. Davenport. He responded by preaching a sermon refuting her beliefs. She was heard muttering “It is not so” as he spoke. She began walking out of church services whenever there was a baptism or when the Eucharist was offered. This infuriated Davenport and scandalized the colony.
Probably due to Gov. Eaton’s position in the colony, the
church first chose to censure Anne, and gave her several months to repent her
doctrinal errors. Church elders were sent to meet with her, to read the book
she was influenced by, and refute its claims. She stubbornly refused to change
her mind. Imagine her personal strength—men were visiting to harangue her, nearly
the entire community was shunning her, her mother-in-law loathed her, and
probably her husband was also angry with her. Yet she persevered and held her
ground.
By June 14, 1644, the church elders decided to put her on
trial, so to speak. Rev. Davenport reported on her original doctrinal sin,
stating that
“…she neither asked her husband at
home according to the rule 1 Cor. xiv, 35 (whose faithfulness and sufficiency
to have held forth 'light to her according to God, we all know) nor did she
seek for any light or help from her pastor according to the rule. Mala, ii, 7,
though in other cases she has come freely to him, and departed from him not
without fruit; nor did she seek help from the body whereof she is a member, nor
from any Member of this body, save that she showed her book with the charge of
secrecy to one or two whom she hoped to gain to her party, and so to have made
way for a further spread of her infection in the body.”
This passage shows the anger and disgust of the church
leaders, who saw her questioning of church doctrine as an “infection”. It also
shows the powerlessness of women in Puritan society, who were ordered by the
Bible to submit to their husbands and ministers and were to have no
independence or free will.
When he brought Mrs. Eaton’s case before the church for
“trial”, Davenport went far beyond his original complaint. He collected gossip
and malicious stories about Mrs. Eaton, and fashioned it into a list of supposed
crimes she had committed, linking each to one of the Ten Commandments which she
was violating. He read those out to the assembled congregation. Among the
crimes were the following:
1.
She struck her mother-in-law in the face during
dinner, and Mr. Eaton had to restrain her.
2.
She accused her step-daughter (my direct
ancestor) Mary Eaton of knitting two gloves and hiding one, and then struck
Mary when she said she’d knit only one.
3.
She accused poor Mary of possibly being
pregnant:
“saying her belly was great and her breasts big almost to meet, and she looked blue under the eyes, and that she vomited, and that she looked very ill, and she feard her sickness would prove an ill sickness.” She went on to say that Mary’s “carriage was wanton” (her way of walking and moving looked slutty).
4.
She said Mary Eaton was “the cause of the ruin
of the souls of many that came into the house”.
5.
She spilled milk while heating it, and blamed
Mary Eaton for the spill.
6.
She claimed Mary Eaton “wrought with the devil.”
7.
She got upset with the servant girl/ward Mary
Launce and pinched and hit her in the face.
8.
She demanded to know when Mary Launce was
leaving the household, then denied knowing she was going to leave her employ.
9.
Anne Eaton’s mother-in-law had moved out (to get
away from her vicious daughter in law?) and Mary Launce went to work for her,
throwing Mrs. Eaton into a rage.
10. The
mother-in-law, trying to keep the peace, sent Mary Launce over to help Mrs.
Eaton several times, but Mrs. Eaton turned her away, and then lied to her
husband that the girl had never offered her help.
11. She
accused a black servant of bewitching the beer she was brewing.
12. She
accused another maid, Mary Breck, of lying, stealing, whoring and working with
the devil.
13. She
told her maids God would “send their souls to hell”.
14. She
used “unpeaceable” words (swearing?) against the servants.
15. She
muttered “it is not so” in response to Rev. Davenport’s sermon.
16. She
argued with her husband in front of guests regarding whether he had given her
candles or not.
17. When
she got angry with a male servant and her husband took the man’s side, she told
Mr. Eaton “you and this man may go together” and she spoke of her desire “of
getting from her husband.” This, Davenport complained, “is against the Covenant
of Marriage.”
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| Map of New Haven Colony with Eaton Home lot in lower right |
In addition to this lengthy litany, the congregation heard
testimony from other members of the household, who said that Mrs. Eaton
frequently lied and was verbally abusive to the servants. The servants said
they tried to please her but couldn’t. Poor Mary Eaton also professed that “it
was the desire of her heart to give her Mother content and not willingly
provoke her.”
Finally, a Brother Bradley, another employee, testified that
“he never knew any cause given by the maids to provoke Mrs. Eaton, but they had
great provocations from her, for they could do almost nothing to give her
content, which did discourage them, and many times made them careless. He
further saith he hath observed Mrs. Eaton's way to be very unquiet, unstable
and self willed, and more of late than formerly.”
The result of this extraordinary “trial” was a unanimous
male vote (women could not vote) to “admonish” her. When she failed to repent
after the admonishment, they charged her again with lying, and eventually
excommunicated her.
What can we gather about the Eaton household and about Anne
Yale Eaton’s state of mind?
First, this was a blended family that just hadn’t blended
well. Anne’s children from her first marriage had left the home as quickly as
possible. Anne Eaton obviously loathed her mother-in-law, even charging her
husband with “breach of promise, in bringing his Mother into the house against
her will”.
She hated her step-daughter, my ninth-great-grandmother Mary
Eaton, taking every opportunity to belittle her, criticize her, and accuse her
of loose morals.
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| Possible portrait of Mary Eaton |
Lastly, she wasn’t getting along with her husband, Gov.
Eaton, even publically expressing her desire to be rid of him. In addition,
other New Haven Colony records show that there was a lot of gossip about Mrs.
Eaton. One couple was hauled into court for false witness for having been
caught saying “Mrs. Eaton would not lye with her husband since she was admonished,
but caused her bed to be removed to another roome…they lay apart…” So it was
apparently common knowledge that Anne Eaton was refusing to have sex with her
husband, bitter because he had failed to support her when she was admonished.
Researchers and genealogists who have read the trial transcript
were quick to label Anne Yale Eaton as mentally ill—suggesting that she had a
nervous breakdown. I can understand why they would jump to this conclusion, but
I think it is equally likely that she was just angry, miserable and fed up with
having no control over her own life and being under the community’s microscope
every single minute. She was a strong woman with a mind of her own, and that
didn’t fit into the rigid sexual roles of a Puritan colony.
I have to admire her for persevering in her Anabaptist beliefs.
She never wavered, even with the community and her family pressing her to
recant.
Following Gov. Eaton’s death in 1657, Anne Eaton and her
daughter Hannah returned to England, following her son Theophilus who had
returned there earlier. Some of the records indicate that New Haven’s residents
paid for a man to escort her to a ship bound for England—it sounds as if the
colony was eager to be rid of her.
Sadly Anne Eaton had little time to enjoy the more civilized
society of England and her greater freedom as a widow. She died in 1659, just
two years after her husband Theophilus.
Unrelated Note: Ann may have been Theophilus’ third wife.
The records for Theophilus’ previous wife, Grace Hiller, are very murky.
Supposedly they married in 1622, but their three oldest children seem to have
been born in 1614, 1615, and 1619, several years before the wedding. Only their
last child, my ninth-great-grandmother Mary Eaton, was born during their
marriage, in 1625. According to most researchers, Grace Hiller died in February
1625, the same year daughter Mary was born, so perhaps Grace died in
childbirth. As for the discrepancy in marriage dates, I suspect she was
actually Theophilus’ second wife, and the first three children were born to his
first union, but I have found no records that support my hypothesis. The other
possibility is that the marriage date is off by a decade, and they were married
in 1612 when Grace was 19. The third possibility is that the three oldest
children were from a different Eaton family. Some sources do not include those
three children as part of Theophilus Eaton’s progeny.
Sources:
Trial Transcript: https://archive.org/stream/papersnewhavenc03socigoog/papersnewhavenc03socigoog_djvu.txt
Gossip about Eaton Marriage:
https://archive.org/details/recordsofcolonyp00newh/page/270/mode/2up
History, genealogical
and biographical, of the Eaton families 1911 Authors: Molyneux, Nellie Zada Rice
Subjects: Eaton, Francis, d. 1633 Eaton, John, d. 1658 Eaton, William, d. 1673
Eaton, John, d. 1668 Eaton familyPublisher: New York : C. W.
BardeenContributing Library: Boston Public Library Digitizing Sponsor: Internet
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