Pugwash Junction, known as the birthplace of Cyrus Eaton, is a Canadian rural community in Cumberland County, Nova Scotia.
The community was established in 1887 after the Oxford & New Glasgow Railway built its line along the north shore of Nova Scotia from the Intercolonial Railway (ICR) at Oxford Junction to Pictou. The short connecting line to Pugwash from the Oxford & New Glasgow was constructed between 1882-1890, first as part of the European & North American Railway project, and later by the Great American & European Short Line Railway Co. before being reorganized as the O&NG. The ICR took over the O&NG in the early 1890s and in later years it was operated as CN Rail's Oxford Subdivision, with the line from Pugwash Junction to Pugwash being the Pugwash Spur.
In an interview with Joseph Howe Eaton, Cyrus Eaton's father, a reporter who asked about Cyrus' character in early life was told that his son Cyrus, who got his first job as a water carrier for railway construction crews at age 6, always seemed to have a precocious understanding of business, and from an early age could be completely relied upon to take over clerking in the family's general store. If the story about the boy's first job is true, it would have occurred in the summer of 1890, when Cyrus was 6 ½. In an account of the early life of Charles Aubrey Eaton, Joseph Eaton's brother, published by Rev. Miller, mention is made of how the strong,capable young Charles, working to get himself through school, got a contract managing cat skinners clearing timber for the construction of a railway line from Pugwash Junction down to Pugwash, which is the spur line mentioned above. Charles had just graduated from Acadia College in the summer of 1890, so the question remains whether his contract with the railway extended this late, allowing these two threads to be joined, and whether, to humour his ambitious and precocious 6 year old nephew Cyrus, the large-hearted Charles had given him his first job. The character of the two people would seem to match the circumstances, even if the facts are a bit too sketchy to allow for a perfect dovetail, and they do fit into a pattern of friendship between the two for which there is ample evidence later on in the story.

A post or series of posts on the history of Cuban American relations leading up to the involvement with Fidel Castro.

Between the time of the United States' first involvement in Cuban affairs during the Spanish-American War in 1898 and Fidel Castro's successful revolution in 1956, there been an uninterrupted history of commercial intercourse between Americans and Cubans. Even before 1898, Americans had wrested commercial concessions from weak Spanish administrators to such properties as the iron ore mines built and eventually controlled by Frederick Woods for Bethlehem Steel. When Woods became the first American Administrator of the island under American rule in 190?, a pattern of American commercial dominance was established that continued to strengthen American dominance and multiply ties between the two countries until Castro's regime intervened and changed the pattern.

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In 1907, when Cyrus Eaton was supposedly a resident of Cleveland and an employee of the Rockefeller affiliate called the East Ohio Gas Company, the Edmonton Journal published in its pages a list of the delegates to a recent Alberta Liberal Party convention held in Calgary. On that list was the name Cyrus S. Eaton. How this could have come about was partly explained in a chapter in Tony Cashman's book, The Story of Edmonton. Cashman relates, based on contemporary newspaper accounts, how Eaton, as a bold twenty-three year old entrepreneur from Nova Scotia caused a pilot plant to be built in Edmonton to demonstrate the feasibility of using waste wheat straw, available locally in plentiful supply, to fuel the generation of electric power for street lights. Shortly after a successful trial of his system so impressed city fathers that it won him the Edmonton city electricity franchise, the young Eaton learned that the worthless commodity on which he based his planned venture had unfortunately undergone a rapid escalation in value in the eyes of its producers, the district farmers. They were now demanding so much for it that the whole venture unfortunately fell through, and Eaton.was given a powerful early lesson about market forces and about doing business in the natural resource sector in Alberta. Or anywhere, for that matter.        So what was Cyrus Eaton doing in Alberta so early in his own business career, and so early in the history of this new province in the Canadian confederation? His apparent interests and whereabouts can now be speculated about more confidently because, contrary to earlier accounts, there is no evidence that Eaton spent more than one of his summer vacations from McMaster working for Rockefeller at his estate in Cleveland. (footnote) And what about the rest of those summers? It is at least possible that after he had become acquainted, through his Uncle Charlie's good graces, with John D. and his cronies by performing the duties of a summer intern at Rockefeller's Cleveland estate, Forest Hill, doing routine office work and caddying for parties of retired millionaires on Rockefeller's private golf course, that like all young men with ambition, Cy got restless. While listening to the conversation of men with ownership interests across America and around the world, perhaps while assisting John D. with the administration of those interests, he would have learned that Rockefeller owned cattle operations in western Canada. Then he could well have profitably indulged what was a common yearning at the time, the desire for frontiers, the desire to see the west. In a speech he gave in his declining years, Eaton reminisced about summer vacations spent on a ranch in the Canadian west, and about the feeling of privilege he experienced from being present, in 1905, at the ceremonial inauguration of Alberta and Saskatchewan as the latest provinces to join Canadian confederation.  If he was present at the inauguration in 1905, and by 1907 had become a member and voting convention delegate for the newly formed party of power, the Alberta Liberal Party, it argues one of two things: either Cyrus was exceptionally adept for one of his years at benefiting from political connections to forward his business interests (remember the power plant) or he was seriously considering starting a new life in Alberta. Perhaps the truth is that both held sway, and that disappointment with the Edmonton franchise discouraged him permanently from a life at the frontier.        This anecdote illustrates a few related hallmarks of what would become Eaton's business style. He would be attracted to economical use of whatever means were available for reaching any business goal; he would be open to the use of unconventional methods for finding and exploiting opportunity; and he would be extremely risk averse. One that it doesn't illustrate is his savvy in predicting what the market would do.        Eaton was a farm boy himself, and had had plenty of opportunity to observe the ways of farmers, so it is surprising he did not foresee the effect his monopoly would have and make arrangements to secure a supply at a reasonable rate. He may have thought they would be glad to be rid of it for free. He may have underestimated the power and efficiency of prairie populism and the prairie grapevine. The fact that Eaton never mentioned the Edmonton experience may be Indirect evidence that he would prefer this incident from his apprenticeship be forgotten.

It seemed in no way inevitable that Carl Stokes, a black lawyer with extensive trench experience in Cleveland  liberal politics, and Cyrus Eaton, who had his pick of the finest lawyers in the country, would join forces. Yet when Eaton was sued by Cleveland Trust, one of the nation's largest financial institutions, over his allegations that the company was voting some of its trust shares illegally, and thereby exercising influences it did not rightfully possess over corporate decision making, he sought out Stokes for his legal services. In his book, Promises of Power: a political autobiography, Stokes relates how he received a call out of the blue one morning in 196? from Cyrus Eaton, requesting an interview. When he showed up at Eaton's offices on the top floor of Terminal Tower, it led to Stokes being hired to represent Eaton and getting from him, as a consequence, a privileged inside look at the higher realms of Cleveland politics and American finance. It also led a friendship that both men would remember with pride. So why did Eaton choose to hire Stokes, whose legal expertise lay in another direction?

Beginnings

I have begun this blog primarily to record the product and progress of my research into the career of Cyrus Stephen Eaton, businessman and humanitarian, born 1883 in Nova Scotia, Canada, died 1979 in Cleveland, Ohio, USA. If any reader wishes to comment on its content, please do so via email, and I will respond. 

I will strive to post regularly. There is at present, August 23, 2013, a considerable backlog of material on hand to be  organized into digestible chunks, and the frequency of posts will depend on how much time I find to devote to the task.