Captain Parlin in the Civil War, Introduction

A few words on the origin of this work and how it is presented:  

 Captain William Davis Parlin, my great-great grandfather, was  born in Natick, Massachusetts in 1839 to a painting contractor named Asher Parlin.  Captain Parlin married Mary Miranda Brown in 1865 after serving honorably and heroically in the War Between the States.  He and his wife had four children, two sons who died of diphtheria at age 6 and age 3 within days of each other in 1873, and two daughters.  My great grandmother, Mary Winifred Parlin was born to the family in 1874.  She married my great grandather Charles Aubrey Eaton in 1895.  Charles A. (Doc) Eaton, D.D., born in 1869 in Nova Scotia, was the minister of the First Baptist Church in Natick when he met parishioner Mary Winifred Parlin, who was known as "Winnie."   

In 1903, Captain Parlin and his wife Mary decided to sell their hardware business in Natick (which had grown from a paint store business started by his father) and move to Cleveland, Ohio to live with the Eaton family.  Reverend Eaton had been appointed minister of Euclid Avenue Baptist Church which counted among its parishioners, John D. Rockefeller.   In 1909, Rev. Eaton, having been named pastor of Madison Avenue Baptist Church in New York City, purchased 400 acres in Watchung, N. J. and built a ten bedroom home there to house his family of six children, his wife Winifred Parlin Eaton and his in-laws, the Parlins.  Mary Parlin died there in 1913 and the Captain followed her in death in 1916. 

My great grandmother, Mary Winifred Parlin Eaton died in the house in Watchung in 1948, the year of my birth.  Reverend Eaton, who was by then a Congressman who had represented New Jersey in the House of Representatives for 24 years, died in 1953, whereupon his grandson, my father, inherited the house which was named Sunbright.  My father, Charles Aubrey Eaton III and my mother, Dorothy Potter Eaton, had five children at the time and eventually would raise nine children in the house at 201 Valley Road, Watchung.  I was the oldest of the nine children. 

My grandfather, Charles Aubrey Eaton, Jr, and his wife, Helen MacDonald Eaton built and lived successively in three separate houses within a few hundred yards of Sunbright after their marriage in 1926.  They kept Captain Parlin's papers and personal effects, which came into their possession upon the death of Congressman Eaton, in the attics of their houses. in the early 1980s, after the death of his father, my father came into possession of those items. The text of a few of the Captain's speeches on his Civil War service were among those papers. There was also other Civil War memorabilia like the Captain's kepi, his revolver and the .56 caliber bullet that was removed from his thigh in 1864. These items and the original speeches written in pencil on lined paper were donated by my father to the Watchung Historical Society in 2015.   

Starting around 2012 my father and I began to transcribe the speeches in print because Captain Parlin's penmanship was barely legible.  I became interested in some of the characters mentioned in the narrative which led to more research on battles and principal figures of the war.  At some point I decided to take the text of the speeches and related papers, expand the narrative and create a panorama of the theater of the Civil War in which the Captain had fought, which was  principally the one of the Army of the James under the command of Benjamin Butler.    

I have worked on this manuscript for over a decade from time to time and have finally realized that rather than attempt to have it published in book form for my family, I can self-publish it as a blog. It has been through several formats and it doesn't always look the way I want it to, but it's the best I can do for now.  

Here is how the narrative is organized and formatted:  when I am quoting the main speech of Captain Parlin to Massachusetts veterans in the year 1892 (and including quotations from two other speeches he delivered around that time) I use full margins and italicize the print. I also try and capture the layout of the original speech.  He frequently wrote individual sentences as paragraphs with double spacing between each paragraph.  He may have done that to create pauses in the speech which would allow listeners to process what he had just said.  

When I am adding content, analysis and historical context to further explain the speeches, I use full margins in normal print.  When I am quoting other authors, historians or newspaper accounts, I italicize the print and indent it more than I did when quoting Captain Parlin's speeches and related papers.   

Any corrections, clarifications or additions will be appreciated. 

 

                                                                    Doug Eaton                                                                                                     July 17, 2026