Cyrus Stephen Eaton (1883-1979): Industrialist, Peace Activist, and Philanthropist

Audio of Cyrus Eaton Bio read by Cathy Eaton

Cyrus Stephens Eaton -- Bio by Cathy Eaton (August 15, 2017)
 
Cyrus Eaton was born on December 27, 1883, not far from here in Pugwash River, Nova Scotia.  He was my grandfather.
 
He became a wealthy industrialist, a generous philanthropist, and a passionate advocate for peace between communist and capitalist countries.  In the 1950s and 1960s, he hosted and funded the early Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs in his hometown of Pugwash, Nova Scotia and in other locations. In 1995, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded jointly to the Pugwash conferences and Joseph Rotblat.
 
Joseph Howe Eaton, Cyrus’s father, eventually owned three farms, a general store, and ran the local post office as well as a lumber business. However, in the early years, the family owned one farm and barely had the funds to pay one hired man.  Cyrus’s mother, Mary Adelia MacPherson, was a devout Baptist who encouraged her son to study for the ministry and to read widely in literature, history, religion and philosophy. Before Cyrus was born, the couple lost four children to diphtheria. Three sisters and a younger brother were born after him.
 
As a four-year-old, his father trusted Cyrus, the oldest surviving child, to drive a horse and wagon to Conns Mills in order to have the flour ground for his mother to bake bread. Cyrus, who weighed out flour, sugar and raisins, and counted change carefully, often waited upon customers in Joseph Eaton’s general store.  His father used to boast, “When Cyrus was six, I could leave him in the store for hours alone and he never failed my confidence.  His qualifications for big business are brains and absolute trustworthiness.” The family moved to Pugwash Junction.
 
His father also inadvertently provided his son with international reading material since one of his jobs at the post office was to sort newspapers from Boston, Providence and Halifax. Cyrus recalled, “By the time I was ten, I was pretty well experienced in business and world affairs – my father was postmaster and I used to read all the newspapers that came in to subscribers.”11
 
Cyrus, following in the path of his Uncle Charles Eaton just fifteen years older, attended a one-room schoolhouse under the instruction of Margaret King in Pugwash Junction, before studying at Amherst Academy in Amherst. For being top of his class in science, Cyrus was presented at graduation with complete works of Charles Darwin and Thomas Huxley, along with framed photographs of the authors, which now hang in the Cyrus Eaton room at Thinkers Lodge.  The evolutionist and the biologist undoubtedly sparked his interest in science and his desire to nurture the environment and prevent it from being irrevocably destroyed by atomic weapons.
 

He attended Woodstock College, a Baptist institution, in Toronto to complete high school and then majored in philosophy at McMaster University in Ontario. It was his intention to become a Baptist minister.  Cyrus paid for his education by clerking at a local department store. Enamored of debating, he frequently sat in on legislature sessions.
 
During one summer vacation, he traveled to visit his Uncle Charles Eaton, a Baptist minister, in Cleveland, Ohio.  One day he accompanied his uncle to the home of one of his uncle’s parishioners, John D. Rockefeller.  His wife asked Cyrus what his summer job was.  He proudly replied that he worked as a night clerk at a hotel pressing suits, washing clothes, and polishing shoes.  She was horrified and asked her husband if he could employ Cyrus.  For then on, he worked during his summer vacations for Rockefeller.  His responsibilities varied. He drove the buggy, caddied while Rockefeller played golf, acted as bodyguard, and even climbed a tree when no one else could rescue a cat. He also went door-to-door persuading customers that natural gas was cheaper than artificial gas and that having pipes installed to their homes would benefit them.
 
When Cyrus was deciding on a career, Rockefeller asked him how he could influence and assist more people – as a minister or as an industrialist.  Rockefeller advised Cyrus, “There is a tremendous opportunity to do good for mankind through business, possibly more than you could accomplish in any other field.”  Upon graduating, he spent a few months out west as a horse wrangler and cowpuncher on a farm in Northern Saskatchewan and then chose to work for Rockefeller.  At the same time he briefly served as lay pastor at the Lakewood Baptist Church in Cleveland.
 
In his mid-twenties, he began acquiring utility franchises in the prairies of Canada including the Brandon, Manitoba electricity plant.  The plant flourished, and he sold it at a profit journeying on his way to becoming a millionaire.
 
In Cleveland, after marrying Margaret Pearl House, he became a naturalized US citizen in 1913, and they raised seven children. The family moved to Northfield, Ohio, where he bred shorthorn cattle while pursuing a career as an industrialist.  The farm was his sanctuary.  By 1928, the couple was divorced.  Margaret became a painter and even piloted an airplane.  Cyrus was a strict father and encouraged his children to spend time outdoors and participate in sports.  Always, he was an avid reader of poetry, Shakespeare, history, religion, and philosophy. He didn’t watch television or drive a car. Daily, he walked miles. He played tennis, cross country skied, and rode horses.
 
Cyrus built a utility empire in gas and electricity and a steel empire as well as having significant investment holdings in rubber, coal, railways, and iron ore.  He fiercely campaigned against Wall Street.  A gifted speaker and writer, he often presented his ideas in speeches or in magazine articles.
 
After the devastating fires in Pugwash in 1918 and 1929, Cyrus returned to Pugwash and assisted in the rebuilding of the town.  He hired local residents to cart away the debris of the burnt Empress Hotel and the adjoining warehouses and shops.  He hoped to revitalize the economy in his hometown.  He bought the land and donated it as a park to the local residents.  Festivities for the Gathering of the Clans on Canada Day and for Harbourfest occur there. Families picnic, villagers enjoy ice cream, and children play on the playground. At that time, Cyrus hired Andrew Cobb, a renown Halifax architect, to design the Margaret King School, named after his beloved teacher.  The school had a science room, an industrial art classroom, classrooms for the primary grades and upper grades, an art room, a gymnasium, and even indoor plumbing and electricity.  This was eight years before the community got electric power.  One student who attended Margaret King School said, “science (class) was instrumental in introducing to me course work that helped me in my nursing studies.” She said, “My impression was that the school got dropped down from heaven and I had that feeling that it didn’t really belong in our poor community.  It made me appreciative of Cyrus Eaton who spared nothing in dollars and care so that we could have this beautiful, complete school.” Many of the graduates went on to become teachers, engineers, nurses, and scientists.  At the same time, he bought Pineo Lodge and the Frank Allan Lobster Canning Factory next door.
 
In 1928, he built a summer home in Deep Cove, Nova Scotia, where he, his children, and later his grandchildren, spent many summers.  In 1949, he hosted an educational conference in Deep Cove.  In 1955, he turned Pineo Lodge, the building you are standing in, to a retreat where scholars, scientists, and educators could convene. In 1955, after Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein with nine other scientists, wrote the Russell-Einstein Manifesto, charging nuclear scientists to take responsibility for building a path toward nuclear non-proliferation, Cyrus invited the scientists to hold their conference in Pugwash, a place where they would be free to share their ideas without governmental interference.
 
Cyrus married Anne Eaton in 1957, and together, they advocated for peace between Capitalist and Communist Countries.  Anne worked for equal rights of women and for equal rights of African Americans.  Together, they hosted conferences on science, education, the Islamic Culture, China, and India.
 
Cyrus and Anne traveled to the Soviet Union, where he became friends with Nikita Khrushchev, to Eastern Europe, to Chile, and to Cuba where he met leaders to encourage cooperative engagement between the countries.  He believed that sharing ideas about agriculture, education, business, and the arts would lead to understanding between the peoples and governments of countries on both side of the Iron Curtain.  Throughout his life, he corresponded with educators, scientists, philosophers, farmers, and world leaders – sharing ideas, asking questions, and promoting commitment to nuclear disarmament and world peace.
 
Cyrus Eaton was a complicated man with vision, wealth, and determination that allowed him to build financial empires and that inspired him to seek peaceful means of co-existing.  He believed one man could make a difference. He loved nature and physical exercise.  He was an ardent conservationist. He would want you to enjoy this peaceful spot on the Northumberland Strait and to take with you when you leave the determination to positively impact the people you encounter and to strive to make the world a safer, healthier place.
 
In 1960 Cyrus Eaton was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize. In 1979, Cyrus and Anne Eaton were jointly awarded the Canadian Federation Peace Award. In 1979 Cyrus Eaton died  at ninety-five years of age.  He was buried in a meadow overlooking Mahone Bay.
 
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