From Memorial and Genealogical Record of Dodge and Jefferson Counties, Wisconsin, publ. 
1894 - Page 75-76
 
S. M. EATON.  He whose name heads this sketch is the fortunate head of the Badger State 
Bottling Company, of Watertown, Wis., and is a man of prominence in the community in which he 
resides.  He has been continuously in business in this place since 1867, and is full of public spirit 
and progressive ideas.  His interests are identified with the town, in whose future his confidence 
is secure, and his long years of experience have made him a thoroughly practical manufacture, 
with intimate knowledge of his vast and important business, to which he has applied the best 
possible economic methods, the result being that a most finished product at the least possible 
cost is turned out.  Experience has taught him how to reduce expenses to a minimum, and also to 
manufacture an article which has no superior.  This wide-awake man of affairs owes his nativity to 
Kingston, Canada, where he was born December 26, 1832, to Almond and Orisa (HASKINS) 
EATON, natives of  the Green Mountain State, but who moved to Canada at an early day, thence 
to New York State and finally to Wisconsin, in 1842, locating at Whitewater.  In the vicinity of this 
place the father purchased a valuable tract of Government land, and as it was clothed with a rich 
growth of primeval forest, he began the laborious work of clearing and improving.  After years of 
hard toil he reduced the forest, got his land in an excellent state of cultivation and well improved 
with excellent farm buildings of all descriptions, and there made his home until his death, which 
occurred in his eighty-second year.  This worthy old pioneer and his wife reared three sons and 
one daughter to honorable manhood and womanhood: Saphreness M.; Caroline, wife of James 
FRYOR, of Jefferson County, Wis.; Rev. E. L., pastor of the Methodist Episcopal Church, of 
Milwaukee, Wis.; and Chauncey (deceased).  Mr. EATON traces his ancestry in this country back 
to the landing of the Pilgrims from the famous vessel "Mayflower," two brothers of that name 
being among the voyagers - Francis and Benjamin EATON - and a descendant of one of these 
attained the rank of general during the Revolutionary War.  On his father's farm, in this county, S. 
M. EATON, the immediate subject of this sketch, was reared, and remained until he attained his 
majority, having received the advantages of such schools as were in vogue in that day, and which 
were usually held in a primitive log structure.  He obtained a comprehensive knowledge of the 
"three R's," and as he was wise in his day and generation he made the most of such 
opportunities as came in his way, and later in the hard school of experience acquired a thorough 
knowledge of the business affairs of life.
 
After learning the carpenters' trade he worked at the calling for twelve years, but in 1865 he went 
to Fond du Lac and opened the first bottling works of that place, continuing with reasonable 
success until the fall of 1867, when he sold out and located in Watertown, here also establishing 
the first works of the kind, which he has operated with marked success ever since.  He built the 
first ice houses in the place and has supplied the city with ice ever since, putting up about 4,000 
tons each year.  His long continuance in business and the nature of it have given him an 
extended and very large acquaintance, and there are firms and individuals with which he has had 
dealings for nearly thirty years that are bound to him in ties of close friendship, as well as 
business, the marks of whose confidence gain deeper impress with added years.  A stanch 
Republican in politics, he has been alderman of the Fourth Ward four terms, and has been 
president of the City Council two terms.  he has many stanch friends among the ranks of the 
Democrat party, is well known throughout the county, and is a public-spirited citizen in all that the 
words imply.  In 1853 Mr. EATON led to the altar Miss Eleanor GREENE, by whom he had four 
children: Frank, who is associated with his father in the bottling works; Clarence C., editor of the 
Columbus Democrat; Mrs. Ella ABERLE, and Edward, who was for several years in the employ of 
the Michigan Central Railroad, and at the time of his death was chief freight agent.  Mr. EATON is 
a Knight Templar in the A.F. & A.M., and is a man whom to know is to honor.
 
Submitted by Carol