Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 16.djvu/348

 moderation and fairness; indeed, it has been proudly asserted that all the lands of New Haven colony were obtained by equitable purchase of the Indians. Like many of his comrades, Eaton had ‘brought over a great estate, but after he saw the manner of the country he soon gave over trading and betook himself to husbandry, wherein, though he met with the inconveniences usual to others, which very much consumed his estate, yet he maintained a port in some measure answerable to his place’ (, p. 329).

Eaton died suddenly, 7 Jan. 1657–8, in the sixty-seventh year of his age. A plain sandstone tablet in the cemetery at New Haven marks the place of his burial, or rather of his reinterment. His will of 12 Aug. 1656 was proved on 31 May 1658. The inventory includes an estate at Great Budworth (, Thirteen Historical Discourses, 1839, pp. 354–357). Eaton was twice married. His first wife died in London after bearing him two children. His second wife was Ann, widow of David Yale, and daughter of Dr. Thomas Morton, bishop of Chester. Eaton ‘ became a most exemplary, loving, and faithful father.’ A son, Samuel, born in 1629, graduated at Harvard in 1649, and died in June 1655, within two days of his wife. The three surviving children were Theophilus, Mary (wife of Valentine Hill of Boston), and Hannah.

Eaton's widow, who had been driven to the verge of insanity by the severity of church discipline about 1644 (, pp. 87, 90, 296–306), went home, accompanied by Theophilus and Hannah, and died in London in 1659. Theophilus lived afterwards at Dublin, but Hannah married William Jones in 1659, and returned to New Haven (, Genealog. Dict. of First Settlers in New England, ii. 97–8, 567).

Hubbard, himself partly contemporary with Eaton, says (Gen. Hist. p. 330) he was a man of commanding presence, dignified manners, and profound judgment. Mather also testifies to Eaton's comeliness of person by the recital of a romantic anecdote.

[Authorities cited; Moore's Memoir in Collections of the New York Historical Society, 2nd ser. vol. ii. pt. ii. pp. 469–93; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1628–9, p. 578, 1634–5, p. 39, 1635–6, p. 37; Mather's Magnalia Christi Americana (1702), bk. ii. pp. 26–9; Winthrop's Hist of New England (Savage), ed. 1825, i. 228, 237, 259, and passim, ed. 1853, p. 272, and passim; Hubbard's General Hist. of New England (2nd ed. 8vo, Boston, 1848), pp. 262, 317, 318, 329–330; Young's Chronicles of the First Planters of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, p. 123 and passim; Kingsley's Centenary Discourse at New Haven, pp. 11, 75.]  EBBA or ÆBBE, (d. 679?), abbess of Coldingham, daughter of Æthelfrith, king of Northumbria, by Acha, sister of King Eadwine [see ], was the sister of the Northumbrian kings Oswald and Oswiu, and the aunt of Ecgfrith ( Hist. Eccl. iii. 6, iv. 19). On the defeat and death of her father in 617 she shared the exile of her brothers, and is said to have been sheltered by Donald Brek, a Scottish king, and later to have received the veil from Finan [q. v.], bishop of Lindisfarne, to have been granted the site of a Roman camp on the Derwent by her brother Oswiu, and to have founded a monastery there. The place is called Ebchester after her, the village church is dedicated to her, and the neighbouring promontory, St. Abb's Head, derives its name from her (Acta SS. Bolland. Aug. v. 194;, Durham, ii. 300–1). She became abbess of Coldingham in Berwickshire, where she received Æthelthryth, the wife of her nephew Ecgfrith, on her retirement from the world, and where St. Cuthberht visited her (Vita S. Cudbercti, c. 10). During a visit that Ecgfrith and his second wife, Eormenburh, paid to Coldingham, the queen was seized with a malady that was held to be the effect of demoniacal possession. Æbbe explained that this affliction was a divine judgment sent in consequence of the persecution of Wilfrith, in which both the king and queen had joined. At her bidding Ecgfrith released the bishop, and the queen recovered (, c. 39). Another miracle worked by Wilfrith was, Eddi tells us, often related by an abbess named Æbbe, who was alive when he wrote his ‘Life of Wilfrith,’ about 711. Mabillon points out that this must have been another Æbbe, and though Canon Raine holds that he was mistaken (Historians of York, i. 53), the abbess of Coldingham certainly died some years before Eddi wrote. Coldingham was a double monastery, where both monks and nuns lived under the rule of an abbess. Æbbe was not a successful abbess, for one of the monks, named Adamnan, not of course the famous abbot, had it revealed to him in a vision that the house would be destroyed by fire because the congregation led idle, dissipated lives, the brethren spending their nights in sleep or revelry, the sisters in weaving rich garments to attract strangers of the other sex. He told his vision to Æbbe, adding that the evil should not happen in her days. During the short remainder of her life the inhabitants of her house repented, but after her death they fell back into their old evil ways, and Adamnan's prophecy was fulfilled. Coldingham was destroyed by fire in 679 (A.-S. Chron.), and Æbba must therefore