SHEBOYGAN HISTORY

Enos Eastman, Page 633

ENOS EASTMAN, of Plymouth, Sheboygan County, Wis., is a well-known pioneer, the time of his arrival in Sheboygan having been may 13, 1849.  Mr. Eastman is a native of New York State and was born in the town of Ellisburgh, Jefferson County, October 27, 1821.  His father, Enos Eastman, Sr., son of Enoch Eastman, was born in the town of Rupert, Bennington County, Vt., August 20, 1786.

    The subject of this sketch is descended from an early New England family.  His great-grandfather was Jonathan Eastman, and the father of the latter, Roger Eastman, is supposed to have been the original American ancestor who emigrated from England in early Colonial times and settled in the colony of Connecticut.  Jonathan Eastman removed to Rupert, Vt., about 1761.  Enoch served as Captain in the Revolutionary War and took part in the famous battle of Bennington.

    Enos Eastman, Sr., the father of our subject, married Vashti Green, who was also born in the town of Rupert.  Her father was David Green.  In 1814 they removed to the State of New York, where the wife and mother died when her son Enos was about two years old.  He was the youngest of a family of six children, comprising four sons and two daughters.  The father afterward married Charity Woodard.  By the second marriage of the father, five children were born, three sons and two daughters.  Of the first family three brothers are living.  The eldest of these, Cyrus, was born in 1811, and resides in Jefferson County, N. Y.  La Fayette, born in 1819, resides in the town of Plymouth, Sheboygan County.  Austin, the eldest of the family, was born in 1809, and lived in Ellisburgh, N. Y., nearly all his life.  He passed away in 1890, in his eighty-first year, leaving two sons, who own and occupy the old homestead of their father.  Lamira, born in 1813, married Ebenezer Wood, and died in 1890, leaving a son and a daughter, both of whom live on the old home of their parents in the State of New York.  The next younger of the family was Orilla W., two never married, but lived on the old Eastman homestead till her death, in 1864, aged forty-nine.  Of the second family three are living.  Enoch R. died in 1889, at the age of sixty-three years; Charles B. lives on the old homestead of the father; William H. lives in his native town in New York State; Lois L. is the widow of Frank Todd, and resided for many years in Michigan, but is now a resident of Chicago; and Charity Elizabeth died at home, at the age of sixteen years.  The father of the family died at his homestead in May, 1865.

    The subject of this sketch grew to manhood in his native town, residing at home until he had attained his majority.  On January 11, 1844, he was married to Miss Miriam Carpenter, who was born in the town of Sandy Creek, Oswego County, N. Y., February 16, 1822.  Her parents were Asa and Louisa (Wood) Carpenter, the former a native of Connecticut, and the latter of Vermont.  The first of the Eastman family who removed West was La Fayette, who came permanently in 1848.  He, however, had visited Wisconsin previous to that time.  His report of the advantages that Sheboygan County possessed was perhaps the chief inducement that led his brother Enos to determine to remove to Wisconsin.  As already stated, he came in May, 1849, and purchased a quarter-section of land, adjoining the present village of Plymouth, paying $4.40 per acre.  Returning to his native State for his wife and their two children, he started on the return to Wisconsin in the August of the same year.  The family went to Buffalo in a one-horse wagon and there took the steamer "Niagara," and landed in Sheboygan after a passage of four days.  Mr. Eastman located with his family at once on their new place, which contained a small log house, built the previous year by his brother La Fayette, from whom he purchased the property.  Only about one acre had been cleared up.  The land was heavily timbered, and here Mr. Eastman labored hard for many years, converting the wild land into a beautiful farm, and eventually increasing his quarter-section to three hundred and forty acres.  The second year after his settlement, he built a frame house, and later a fine brick residence.  Mr. Eastman still owns his beautiful farm, which is numbered among the finest in the county.  He has been very successful and is surrounded with the comforts and blessings of life.

    The married life of Mr. and Mrs. Eastman has been blessed with six children, four of whom, two sons and two daughters, are living.  Vasti, the eldest, is the wife of Reuben Gardner, of Plymouth; Charlie D. and Enos E. are the sons; Lillie is the wife of Gustav W. Zerler, a merchant of Plymouth.  They lost their second and third children.  Sarah M., born in 1848, died in 1869; Mary Elizabeth, born in 1855, married Frank A. Warden, and died in 1882, leaving a son and a daughter.

    Mr. Eastman has ever been prominently identified with the development and growth of his county.  He has held various local offices, including that of Town Clerk and Chairman of the Board of Supervisors, etc.  In 1870 he was elected to the Assembly of Wisconsin, and to the State Senate in 1874.  In whatever position he has been called to fill he has discharged its duties faithfully and well.  Mr. Eastman was one of the chief promoters of the Plymouth Farmers' Fire Insurance Association, of which he was for many years a Director.  In his political relations, he has always affiliated with the Democratic party.  In his religious views, Mr. Eastman is independent and liberal.