Arthur Wentworth Hamilton Eaton

Arthur Wentworth Eaton was born on 10 December 1849 in Kentville, Nova Scotia, to parents William Eaton and Anna Augusta Willoughby Hamilton. His father was a teacher, and a devout Baptist, while his mother was an Anglican. According to Eaton's own account, he "received his early classical and general training in the grammar schools of Kentville, from his father at home, and for a short time in the College Acadia] and Academy Horton] at Wolfville." During Eaton's time in Kentville, he attended St James' Church. ==Early career==

A descendent of New England Planters through his father and American loyalists through his mother, Eaton moved to New England in the summer of 1873. He studied at the Newton Theological Institution, a Baptist seminary in Massachusetts, graduating in 1876. He subsequently became ordained as a priest, spending a short time at a church in Maine. He later joined his younger brother Francis Herbert at Harvard University, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in 1880. He began a doctoral program at the university, but later withdrew. After withdrawing from Harvard, Eaton joined the ministry of the Protestant Episcopal Church. He was ordained as a deacon of the church in 1884, and a priest in 1885. Eaton's career as a pastor was short-lived, briefly serving parishes in New York City and Massachusetts, including the parish of Chestnut Hill near Boston, ==Academic career==

Eaton became employed at the Cutler School of New York in 1888 as a member of the English faculty, later becoming head of the school's English department. His first notable work was published the same year, titled The Heart of the Creeds: Historical Religion in the Light of Modern Thought. His first book of poetry was published a year later in 1889, titled Acadian Legends and Lyrics. The book was quite well-received. Eaton's third book, The Church of England in Nova Scotia and the Tory Clergy of the Revolution, was published in 1891. In 1904, Eaton received a Bachelor of Arts degree ad eundem from Dalhousie University. He received a Master of Arts from Dalhousie by thesis the same year. Eaton retired as head of the Cutler School's English faculty in 1907 and settled in Boston, where he continued researching and writing about the history of Nova Scotia. Published in 1910, The History of Kings County, Nova Scotia is regarded as Eaton's magnum opus. At 900 pages long, the book was Eaton's most significant historical work. Eaton was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1913. Members of the Royal Society were required to live in Canada, so Eaton returned to Nova Scotia and briefly settled in Truro. Here, he began compiling a history of Colchester County. Eaton resigned from the Royal Society of Canada after the society refused to publish the paper he presented at their annual meeting in May 1914. ==Later life and death==

Eaton suffered a paralytic stroke in 1929. His final notable publication was Acadian Ballads and Lyrics in Many Moods: Collected Poems of Arthur Wentworth Hamilton Eaton, dedicated to his distant cousin Cyrus Stephen Eaton. Eaton died in Boston on 11 July 1937, at the age of 87. He never married. Eaton's ashes were returned to Kentville, where a monument was erected in his memory at the Oak Grove Cemetery. ==Publications==

Books • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Books as editor • • • Articles • • • • Collection of 15 of Eaton's previously published articles. Genealogical works • • • • • • • • • ==Notes==