Charles Aubrey Eaton Baptist Minister, New Jersey Congressman, and UN Charter Signatory
Charles Aubrey Eaton was Cyrus Stephen Eaton’s beloved uncle, friend, and mentor. Their roots in rural Pugwash, their committed work ethics, their shared Baptist heritage, the guidance and encouragement they received from educators and family, their ability to find sanctuary in the land, and their passion to use their intellect and ambition to improve the lot of humanity took these two from a small Canadian village to a global community.
Born in 1868, Charles was the youngest of eleven children parented by Stephen and Mary Eaton. One of his brothers was Joseph Howe Eaton, father of Cyrus. Since Charles was just fifteen years old when Cyrus was born in 1883, he was more brother than uncle. Both Eaton families endured sorrow and disasters. There were deaths from diphtheria epidemics, a fire on Stephen’s farm in Pugwash River, which necessitated a move to Pugwash Junction, where Cyrus and his family also relocated, and an overall downturn in the Maritime economy. It may well be that their resiliency in the face of tragedy was due to these early experiences in addition to their strong Baptist roots.
Daily life for both Charles (known affectionately as Charley) and Cyrus involved strenuous but enjoyable farm chores. Charles recalled, “I cannot recall an unhappy day in all those golden years of childhood. In those primitive days it was taken for granted that everyone would pull his own weight, and in our family at least everyone did. I do not remember when or how I learned to milk a cow, or harness a horse, or yoke and drive a pair of oxen, or swing a scythe or axe, or tow and sail a boat, or plant, cultivate, and harvest the various farm crops.[i]
Charles attended school in Truro but returned to help on the farm after his father’s shipbuilding business failed when steel replaced wood as construction material. His father departed for Colorado for a two-year stint in the mines to supplement his family’s finances. Upon returning, he suffered a massive stroke. Charles became head of the household since his older siblings had farms and jobs of their own.
One day, Charles’ self-confidence was sorely tested when he discovered his father unconscious, his mother desperately ill, and his young niece suffering from a terrible ear infection. At first, he panicked but then resolved to “win this fight, come hell or high water.”[ii] He was able to heat up the freezing house, put goose grease in Annie’s ears, press a hot cloth to relieve his mother’s pain, and still get all the chores done: feeding the horses, milking the cows, and tending the rest of the livestock.
He recalled that he had “tapped the immeasurable reserve of moral energy, that potent stimulus of the will-to-win which lies hidden deep in the spirit of every normal man. I am convinced that ignorance of or disbelief in existence of the spiritual reserves explains most of the tragic and unnecessary failures in life.”[iii]
To supplement their family income, fifteen-year-old Charles found work with a construction crew building a branch of the railroad with a route off the main line through Pugwash. Always resourceful, Charles figured out a way to save the workers time by attaching multiple carts together that were piled high with the trees that the construction workers had chopped down. He earned 25 cents per cart and felt like a capitalist. Quickly, he was promoted to be in charge of the entire dumping procedure and brought home a much-needed $20 per week to his mother.
While attending Amherst Academy (1884-1886), he worked in a shoe store and as a store clerk. He took one small trunk with him. Charles recalled, “It was not an impressive and elaborate inventory. My school books, the New Testament, a clean shirt or two, a pair of overalls. After paying my fare from Thompsons Station at Amherst, I had a 25-cent piece left as my entire monetary capital. Measured by modern standards, I was traveling light.”
Receiving his B.A. in 1890, Charles found his calling for the ministry at Acadia University in Wolfville. He landed a job preaching for $1.20 at a small local church, but his first preaching job was short-lived due to lack of ideas for sermons.[iv] He co-edited the college newspaper, which prepared him for his later work as a newspaper editor.
On one occasion, Charles gave up his room to some Baptist delegates in town for a conference. His landlord was so impressed by his generosity of spirit that he provided a complete scholarship for him to attend Acadia University for four years. Arthur Dickey, later Attorney General of Canada, offered Charles work as a clerk in a law office for 25 cents an hour. His diligence paid off and brought him other clerical work, allowing him the luxury of buying new clothes and renting a house where he brought his mother and young orphaned niece Annie to live with him in town. He began to lean toward a career in law.
After graduating from Acadia University in Wolfville in 1890 with high honors, Charles enrolled in the Andover Newton Theological Seminary in Massachusetts and became pastor for the First Baptist Church in Natick, Massachusetts, from 1895 to 1901. His outreach to the community, his rugged good looks, and his congeniality soon filled the pews with attentive parishioners. In 1895, he married Marion Parlin, daughter of a wealthy merchant and deacon, and they raised six children. Charles became a US citizen that same year. Eventually, he earned his masters from McMaster University in 1896. He was awarded a DD by Baylor University in 1899 and Acadia University in 1909 and a LL.D from McMaster in 1916.
For his next ministry, he accepted a position as pastor in Bloor Street Church, Toronto, Canada, from 1901 to 1909. Charles reached out to the larger community. During Easter week, he invited speakers from different faiths and representatives from labor unions to participate in the evening programs. His ideology led him and Reverend A.J. Vining to help establish the First Congress of the National Baptist convention in Winnipeg. Their mission was to nurture opportunities to connect Christianity to social problems in the communities and in the world. After being elected secretary of the convention by its 250 participants, Eaton delivered the closing address. “The plight of the poor and other pressing problems had to be approached from a national perspective. No longer can any nation live unto itself…We rise and fall together.”[v] Inclusivity was central to his beliefs.
A local newspaper described Charles Eaton’s energizing preaching from the pulpit. “He is a striking man to look at, with a face singularly attractive. He is dark, with deep brown eyes, raven black hair and a black mustache. His features are aglow with expression the whole of the time he is speaking, and his voice is vibrant and telling.” He earned additional income by writing for The Globe, working on the editorial staff. “At one time he went abroad as a special correspondent for The Globe. Dr. Eaton was often urged to enter politics, being famous as an eloquent speaker, but he never hesitated in following”[vi] his chosen path during those early years of ministry.
In 1920, Charles published For Troubled Hearts, his collected sermons from Bloor Street Church in Toronto. He wrote, "The fundamental idea of our American civilization is this: any man who has the stuff in him can, by his own energy, thrift, industry and courage, rise to any height he may choose. His only limit is his own weakness.”[vii] A natural storyteller and an inspirational speaker, Charles became the minister from 1901 to 1909 at the Euclid Avenue Baptist Church in Cleveland, Ohio, where one of his parishioners was John D. Rockefeller. They forged a life-long friendship. Charles urged the wealthy industrialist to understand that “the wealthy were stewards, not owners, of their wealth which was to be used for the benefit of mankind.”[viii] He influenced Rockefeller to become a philanthropist and to create the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research which later grew into the world-famous Rockefeller University. Cyrus took his uncle’s sermons to heart and became a life-long philanthropist, who funded conferences at Thinkers Lodge, helped rebuild Pugwash after its fires, financed the building of schools, and provided scholarships to assist many students to attend university.
Absorbed in the Josephine Mission that his church operated, Charles, said, “Only the very poorest of the people live in this neighborhood – girls who toil long hours in the cigar factories… men and women whose homes abound in most abject poverty. We try to reach them all, to lift them up.” Undoubtedly, Charles’ determination to assist these people had roots in his family’s struggles and poverty. The Baptist minister from Pugwash opposed the typical family pews and instigated open seating “resulting in the people from the poorest classes rubbing shoulders with the very rich.”[ix] His men’s club numbered over 600 members, Christians and non-Christians. In downtown Cleveland, he organized noonday meetings, where he used humor and slang as well as a band playing marches and waltzes, to welcome large crowds and expose them to the words of Christ.
His next ministry was at the Madison Avenue Church in New York City from 1909 to 1919. He was a forceful speaker with deep spiritual beliefs, and his priority was to help the community people in need. Adjacent to his church, he had a six-story building constructed and helped provide jobs, housing, recreational facilities and gardens to the people who lived in tenements and boarding houses. In 1916, “Dr. Eaton felt under obligation to … [address] the spilt awakening that had grown because of the war and some discussion was in the church concerning his opinions on this subject. He promptly resigned, but the church immediately called a meeting of all those who objected to his public activities, refused to accept his resignation and gave him absolute freedom to press his ideas.”[x] During his tenure as a minister in New York, he bought a dairy farm in Watchung, New Jersey. “Life at Sunbright Farm was lively and fulfilling. The milk house was built, and the dairy business was underway. Maintaining sixty-five cows, Sunbright Dairy turned out quality milk for the area. All of the six children helped with the work on the farm.”[xi]
From 1919 until 1924, Charles again worked as a journalist and became editor of Leslie’s Weekly.[xii]As head of the national service section of the Emergency Fleet Corporation, he was responsible to improve the morale of the shipyard workers. He inspired the workers to build large numbers of ships. Searching for “a larger ministry,” he ran for Congress and was elected in New Jersey to the House of Representatives. He served fourteen terms from 1924 until 1952 in New Jersey’s 4th district, helping navigate our country through the tumultuous years of the Great Depression and World War II.
Always, Charles put first the well-being of his parishioners, his New Jersey constituents, and the peoples devastated by World War II. He was chosen to be one of the signers of the original United Nations Charter, the international organization’s foundation treaty on June 26, 1945. A close advisor to President Roosevelt and Truman, he was instrumental in "shepherding" the Marshall Plan and the Truman Doctrine through the House of Representatives in his role as chairman of the United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs. “With a Democratic president and a Republican congress, the chairmanship was an especially powerful and influential post. He achieved the passage of every piece of legislation that he sponsored.”[xiii]
The Marshall Plan was intended to rebuild the economies and spirits of Western Europe devastated by the enormous loss of lives and massive destruction of World War II.[xiv] Marshall believed that in order to restore political stability, it was crucial to assist in the revitalization of national economies. Marshall also believed that political stability in Western Europe was crucial to containing the advances of communism in that region.
“Dr. Eaton believed that God was moving the world into a neighborhood of peace and justice. As a pastor and national leader, he asserted this belief in the inclusive love of God, which included all the world’s peoples. His signing of the Charter of the United Nations on behalf of the United States was a witness to this creed.”
Charles and his nephew Cyrus followed similar life paths, from their education to being mentored by John D. Rockefeller and becoming US citizens, to committing to their careers (albeit in different fields), and finally to focusing energy on peace activism and the betterment of humanity. These two men led parallel lives. Cyrus followed in his Uncle Charles’ footsteps and was encouraged and nurtured by him. Their dynamic careers were tempered by their common choice to settle on cattle farms that nourished their souls and by their passion for learning that energized their spirits.
They remained life-long friends, often spending time together at Thinkers Lodge, Acadia Farms, and Cyrus’s summer home in Deep Cove until Charles’ death in 1953 at the age of 85, twenty days after his retirement from the House of Representatives. Both men were uncompromising in their efforts to seek peace and end war.
[i]Prophet in the House: A Biography of Charles Aubrey Eaton by J. Ronald Miller, Community Church Press, Chicago, 1993, preface. (Ronald Miller, who served at Wilson Memorial Church for 45 years, took a year off from his work to research and write this book assisted by his wife, Loniie. Although he did not know Charles Eaton, he was friends with his children. He and his wife are stewards of many of Eaton’s letters, which is where Ronald gleaned much of his information and quotations. Mrs. Miller graciously gave me permission to use his book.
[ii]Prophet in the House by J. Ronald Miller, Community Church Press, Chicago, 1993, p. 11
[iii]Prophet in the House by J. Ronald Miller, Community Church Press, Chicago, 1993, p. 12 [iv] “A Canadian Who Speaks Out,” Beatrice Redpath, MacLean’s Magazine, August 1917 [v]Prophet in the House by J. Ronald Miller, Community Church Press, Chicago, 1993, pp. 35, 38, 46
[vi] “A Canadian Who Speaks Out,” Beatrice Redpath, MacLean’s Magazine, August 1917
[vii]For Troubled Hearts,” Charles Aubrey Eaton, The Poole Printing Co., 1920, Reprinted Forgotten Books, London, 2015
[viii]Prophet in the House by J. Ronald Miller, Community Church Press, Chicago, 1993, p.40
[ix]Prophet in the House by J. Ronald Miller, Community Church Press, Chicago, 1993, pp. 43, 44
[x] “A Canadian Who Speaks Out,” Beatrice Redpath, MacLean’s Magazine, August 1917
[xi]Prophet in the House by J. Ronald Miller, Community Church Press, Chicago, 1993, p. 50-52 xii Prophet in the House by J. Ronald Miller, Community Church Press, Chicago, 1993, Preface xiii The Marshall Plan, The George C. Marshall Foundation xiv Prophet in the House by J. Ronald Miller, Community Church Press, Chicago, 1993, Preface