Christopher Eaton, subject of this week’s article, was a Revolutionary War soldier and ancestor of the Eaton family that was established in the late 1700’s in the area that later became Pinnacle, then spreading into other parts of Stokes, Surry and Forsyth counties in the 1800’s. Eaton’s pension application and file comprise more than fifty pages and reveals some of the obstacles encountered in proving Revolutionary service.
Eaton’s first application, on Nov. 14, 1832, was made before the Surry County Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions. He states that he enlisted in 1777 in Surry where he was living with “one Gray Bynum to whom I was bound.” The practice of apprenticeship or “binding out” is frequently encountered in the 1700’s and 1800’s as a means of providing homes for children who were either orphaned or whose parents were unable to properly care for them. The apprenticeship agreements usually required the child to be taught skills and a trade, and during that time they would be housed, fed and clothed, and would eventually be released with some property, such as a horse, suits of clothing or a bed and furniture. They were required to serve until a specific age, usually the age of majority. We find the reason for Eaton’s binding out in the testimony of one of his advocates, Joseph Banner, who stated that he “knew him at the time he was an orphan boy Bound to a certain Capt. Gray Bynum.” So, Christopher Eaton’s early life was as an orphan under apprenticeship.
Christopher Eaton’s age is one point of dispute. In one instance he says he was born in 1756. However, on June 15, 1836, he states his age as “seventy six years the 7th day of September next,” which would calculate to a birthdate of Sept. 7, 1760. When evaluating his year of birth by examining his age on the 1790-1830 censuses, his birth would have occurred 1761-1765. The 1760 date appears to be the closest to the truth. If he had been born 1756, his term of apprenticeship should have been finished in 1777, the year he enlisted…