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ATON, JOHN, teacher and supervisor of schools in Cleveland and Toledo, Ohio; chaplain and sanitary inspector in the United States volunteer army; superintendent of Freedmen in the Mississippi valley; assistant commissioner of the Freedmen's bureau; United States Commissioner of Education, 1870-86; president of Marietta college, 1886-91; was born in Sutton, Merrimack county, New Hampshire, December 5, 1829. His father, John Eaton, was a tanner and also carried on a rugged New Hampshire farm and was noted for his strength and energy of both mind and body. His mother, Janet Collins (Andrews) Eaton, influenced both his intellectual and moral life and directed in a large measure his youthful career. His first ancestor in America, John Eaton, settled in Salisbury, Massachusetts Bay colony, in 1640; and a Revolutionary ancestor was Nathaniel Eaton who commanded his company at the Battle of Bunker Hill in the absence of the captain.

His boyhood life of hard work on the farm taught him habits of industry which have continued through his active life. He attended a summer school when three years old, but after his fifth year his school attendance was limited to two months each winter; and the books he read during his boyhood were obtained at a social library eight miles from his home and he walked the distance repeatedly, urged by his mother who was anxious that he should thus develop his mind and acquire a taste for reading. It was the early inculcated sense of duty to others that awakened an impulse further to cultivate his mind. His home, and next his companions at school, influenced his early life, while his association with Grant and Lincoln and surroundings incident to the Civil war were most active and vigorous in shaping his work in life. He was prepared for college at Thetford, Vermont, his teacher being Dr. Hiram Orcott. He was graduated at Dartmouth, A.B., 1854, A.M., 1857. He was principal of a grammar school, Cleveland, Ohio, 1854-56; chairman of committee of Teachers' Association for Investigating Jails and Reform Schools there, which resulted in the Ohio reform school; superintendent of schools, Toledo, Ohio, 1856-59; commissioner of schools, Shelby