John Albert Eastman

Background

Eastman was born in Strong, Maine. Until the age of eighteen worked on his father"s farm during the season, going to school during the winter.

Career

In December 1839, he entered the Charleston Academy in Charleston, Maine, and in September 1841, began the study of law in the office of Philip M. Stubbs, and continued until the fall of 1843, teaching during the winters in Strong and Kingfield. On September 14, 1843, he left Strong and went to Platteville, Wisconsin, arriving there October 5, and taught school during the following winter. In 1844, he went to Fond du Lac, selecting that place as his future home.

Eastman taught a "select school" in Fond du Lac with as many as twenty students from 1844-1845 until a public school was organized in 1846.

He describes himself as busy there. He is the postmaster, and there are nine mails a week.

In 1844, Eastman became the first "Register or Clerk" of the newly created Fond du Lac County Probate Court. On March 1, 1847, he was elected as a trustee as part of the first government for the newly-chartered village of Fond du Lac.

In 1848, he was defeated for county judge by John Bannister, and for state senator by Warren Chase, a Free Soiler.

In 1849, he was on the school board for Fond du Lac. He was the candidate of the Regular Democrats or "Hunker" faction of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, and defeated Lucas M. Miller the candidate of the "Union Democratic Party" (soon to join the Free Soil Party) faction. He was succeeded by Bertine Pinckney, a Whig.

In January 1847 Eastman was one of the seven commissioners appointed by a private act of the legislature to sell stock in the newly-chartered Sheboygan and Fond du Lac Railroad Company, along with other luminaries such as former governor Nathaniel Tallmadge, Moses South. Gibson and Benjamin F. Moore.

The railroad itself failed to materialize, due to a lack of enthusiasm (particularly on the Fond du Lac end). From March 1849 to May 1851, he was part-owner of the Fond du Lac Journal.

In the spring of 1864 he moved to Chicago, Illinois, at the same time as his father-in-law the former Congressman. In Chicago Eastman practiced law and "engaged.. in some commercial pursuits" until May 1873, when he moved to Benton Harbor, Michigan, where he practiced law until his death.

He was reported in the June 1895 American Lawyer as a "recent death", and was described as "a retired lawyer. aged 74 years.

He formerly practiced in Chicago.".

Achievements

• He reports that he is engaged to "a fine amiable little girl, not handsome nor "accomplished", but quiet, domestic, confiding" and that she thinks him "quite a fellow for a Yankee." Eastman had been postmaster since 1845, and was to remain postmaster until April 1849, when the new Whig presidential administration replaced him with a Whig.