EATON, THEOPHILUS (c. 1 S9o-1658), English colonial governor in America, born at Stony Stratford, Buckinghamshire, about 1 S9o, settled in London, where he joined the Puritan con gregation of the Rev. John Davenport. The pressure upon the Puritans increasing, Eaton, who had been one of the original patentees of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1629, determined to use his influence and fortune to establish an independent colony of which his pastor should be the head. He emigrated with Dav enport to Massachusetts, and in the following year (March 1638) he and Davenport founded New Haven. In Oct. 1639 a form of government was adopted, based on the Mosaic law, and Eaton was elected governor, a post which he continued to hold, first over New Haven alone, and after 1643 over the New Haven Colony or jurisdiction, until his death at New Haven, Jan. 7, 1658. He was prominent in the affairs of the New England Con federation, of which he was one of the founders (1643). In he and Davenport drew up the code of laws, popularly known as the "Connecticut Blue laws." A sketch of his life appears in Cotton Mather's Magnalia (London, 1 702) ; see also J. B. Moore's "Memoir of Theophilus Eaton" in the Collections of the New York Historical Society, second series, vol. ii. (New York, 1849) .