See William Eaton and the Soldiers and Sailors’ Monument full document PDF. See also, Sandwich and the Civil War, reprinted, with permission, from the Fall 2011 issue of The Acorn, Journal of the Sandwich Glass Museum.
101 years ago, the town of Sandwich celebrated a very special Memorial Day. On May 30, 1911 William Eaton, who started working in the B&S Glass Factory at the age of 8, donated a 30 foot Civil War Monument to the people of Sandwich. William was a boy of 12 when the war started and had, for 50 years, admired and appreciated those who fought for the Union. The memorial was erected next to the Town Hall on a piece of greenery that became known as Eaton Square. The Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument is still there today for all to see.
The dedication took place on a rainy day, but that did not dampen the spirit of the throngs of townspeople and visitors who turned out for the festivities. There was a parade lead by the band from the Keith Car & Mfg. Company and, the full crew of the Revenue Cutter Walter W. Gresham, Civil War veterans from the GAR, school children and a host of town officials. There was even a recital of Lincoln’s Address at Gettysburg. Patriotic speeches were given including one by the keynote speaker, John F. (Honey Fitz) Fitzgerald, the Mayor of Boston and the grandfather of President John F. Kennedy. Mayor Fitzgerald spoke of the custom of various nations honoring their great generals, but said the United States was the one nation to recognize the common soldier in granite.
During the years from 1861 to 1865, 386 men from Sandwich enlisted in military service. Approximately 100 of these were glass factory workers. Patriotic fervor was running high and Deming Jarves, the head of the glass factory, suspended the rents of any factory worker who enlisted in the war. Volunteers reduced the number of workers in the factory and glass production decreased. It would take years to rebuild the manpower at the factory. By the war’s end 54 Sandwich men had died on the battlefields or from wounds or diseases contracted while in service. Civil War Dead – Sandwich MA For a small town of 4,500 people, this represented a tremendous sacrifice. It was within this atmosphere that William Eaton spent his early teenage years at the glass factory in Sandwich and as head of his family household.
