Nathaniel Eaton - Another Nathaniel Eaton?

Another Nathaniel Eaton?

There is also evidence of another Nathaniel Eaton who lived in the town of Boston at the same time, across the street from Governor John Winthrop, but who spelled his name "Heaton".

His wife was also named Elizabeth, and there's some doubt whether the children that are listed in the colony's birth records at Boston are his children or Eaton's, since there are double listings for all of them spelling the name as "Eaton" and "Heaton". Further complicating the situation was a mysterious fire that destroyed the Cambridge town records in 1643.

Further, as Eaton had graduated from Franeker in 1633, and the Revs. John Cotton and Thomas Hooker, and others, had all decided to leave for the colonies in the same year, it is quite probable that the Nathaniel Heaton who immigrated in 1634 with Revs. Hutchinson and Hooker is the very same Nathaniel Eaton that was the first professor of Harvard College. (Cf. endnote 1, infra)

Lastly, since Eaton had no place else to go, and no records are found of him in England or Holland after 1634, the evidence is strong that they are the same person.