Eaton an American Hero

Mansfield once fermented a great, if not the greatest hero this country has ever known.

Yet, his childhood town never invokes his name. No schools are named for him; no town building carries his image.

I am talking about William Eaton.

Eaton was America’s “first” secret agent.

Sent by Thomas Jefferson on the first covert “enterprise” to the Barbary Coast. Eaton was to (among other things) free the marines and sailors of the Philadelphia and their bumbling Captain Bainbridge who had managed to strand his ship on the Kaliusa Reef. The sly Bashaw Yussef Karamanli and his men quickly made slaves of the American crew demanding a ransom for their freedom.

Jefferson also charged the feisty Eaton with secretly aiding the legitimate sovereign Hamet in attacking Tripoli.

Yes! Yes, folks that’s right! The words “from the shores of Tripoli” in the official hymn of the United State Marine Corps refers to our own Eaton’s decisive victory in the Battle of Derne in 1804!

His rescue mission was all the more notable because he did it over land and not by sea. The result of this ballsy and successful mission was the Marine Corps pledge-“Nerve leave a marine behind!”

One of his Dartmouth classmates once described Eaton as “odd, precise in his language-full of decision-sometimes a little morose…”

Of course, I thought, he was from Mansfield!

With all due respect to Coventry, and their native son and hero Nathan Hale, General William Eaton was a genuine hero and a rock star in his day.

Mansfield too should erect a statue to William Eaton or even name after the man who spent his childhood in Mansfield; ran away from home at 15 to join the Continental Army; and whose exploits were so admirable and so legendary as to be synonymous with what it means to be a United States Marine. However, short of that it would be satisfying if William Eaton were at least part of the Mansfield history curriculum.

While Eaton’s life was not impeccable, Mansfield children should grow up knowing that it was a Mansfield resident who inspired the American ideology that we never leave one of ours behind.