EATON — It looks like the quintessential American town, with its steepled white church, combination diner/country store and centerpiece inn overlooking the aptly named Crystal Lake.
It’s a place where a town official agrees to talk about a local controversy but insists on making eggplant parmesan for the occasion; where a reticent citizen who doesn’t want to be interviewed does so by “respectfully declining”; and where visitors to the Little White Church are reminded to check their politics at the door.
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(1) comment
A little history helps to round out this story of division in Eaton. Eaton and Madison were one town until the runup to the Civil War. During that period, mostly-democrat Eaton and mostly-Republican Madison-to-be were bitterly divided along party lines. The main issue was what to do about slavery and secessionism in the South. Democrats opposed war and favored letting the South go its way, the Republicans opposed slavery and wanted to preserve the Union. As antagonism mounted, residents in what would become Madison successfully demanded separation and independence from Eaton. The Lyman Mountain ridgeline caused a physical separation that had helped to aggravate the division. The resulting new boundary was drawn to include border area farms according to their party preferences at the time. Rhetorical question: They say past is prologue. Is Eaton lining itself up for another partition?
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