John Eaton, apparently, did not shy away from challenges, political or personal. And back when he was President Andrew Jackson’s Secretary of War, the political and the personal challenges overlapped – a lot.
Eaton, who was born in 1790 in Halifax County near Scotland Neck, was quite a significant character in the U.S. government in the early 19th century. Local historian Mark Pace and WIZS’s Bill Harris talked about his life and work on Thursday’s Around Old Granville segment of The Local Skinny!
He was on the fast track like no other, it seemed. At age 12, he was a college student at University of North Carolina. But by 14, he dropped out and decided to study law.
He joined a wave of folks who journeyed to Nashville, TN for fame and fortune. At age 18, he was practicing law there and married Myra Lewis, the adopted daughter of Andrew Jackson.
He was elected to the U.S. Senate to represent Tennessee when he was 28 years old – two years shy of the minimum age to run for that office, Pace said.
His wife died shortly after they’d moved to an inn in Washington, DC, and it wasn’t long before Eaton became involved with the innkeeper’s daughter.
Her name was Peggy Timberlake and she was married to a much-older man who was in the military and died while on an overseas assignment. She and Eaton were married just months later, thus creating the “Petticoat Affair.” By this time, President Jackson had tapped Eaton to be his Secretary of War, and this whole ordeal posed a real challenge.
“It was the scandal of the day,” Pace said. The Eatons were shunned by DC society and, in fact, President Andrew Jackson ordered his cabinet members – all men – to require their wives to accept Eaton’s new wife. They did not comply, and, the whole Cabinet resigned which required Jackson to appoint an entirely new group.
Eaton resigned as well, Pace said, and became minister to Spain and later, he was appointed Governor of Florida.
As minister to Spain, Pace said, he didn’t excel. Eaton, it seemed, had developed a drinking problem and Peggy became the de facto ambassador, he added.
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