John Henry Eaton

John Henry Eaton 1790-1856, U.S. Senator (1818-29) and Secretary of War (1829-31), b. Halifax co., N.C. After being admitted to the bar, he practiced in Franklin, Tenn., and married Myra Lewis, a ward of Andrew Jackson. Eaton remained close to Jackson and completed (1817) the biography of Jackson begun by John Reid. He was appointed (1818) to the Senate to fill a vacancy and defended Jackson's earlier activities in Florida. Twice elected (1821, 1826) to the Senate, Eaton resigned in 1829 to enter the cabinet. The refusal of Washington society to accept Eaton's second wife (see Margaret O'Neill ) helped to disrupt Jackson's cabinet and led to Eaton's resignation. He was governor (1834-36) of Florida, then was minister (1836-40) to Spain. His refusal to support Van Buren ended his political career.

Tower, John Henry (1885–1955) U.S. naval officer and aviator. Born in Rome, Georgia, John Henry Tower graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1906. In 1911 he became only the third naval officer to qualify as a pilot. During his first ten years as an aviator he set up naval air stations, held key staff positions in Washington, and commanded the flight of three Navy-Curtis seaplanes that tried to fly the Atlantic in May 1919. He later served as captain of the carriers Langley and Saratoga, and by 1939 was a rear admiral and chief of the Bureau of Aeronautics. He oversaw a massive buildup in the naval air arm before becoming a vice admiral and commander of the Air Force, Pacific Fleet in 1942. Two years later he became deputy to Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, commander of Pacific Ocean Areas and Pacific Fleet. Tower then commanded Task Force 38 and the Fifth Fleet before reaching the rank of full admiral and succeeding Admiral Raymond Spruance as the theater commander. Tower retired from the navy in 1947, serving as vice-president of Pan-American World Airways until 1953.

Newman, John Henry (1801–90) British theologian. He was a leading figure in the Oxford Movement, a group of people who in the 1830s attempted to reform the Church of England by restoring the high-church traditions, and became a prominent convert (1845) to Roman Catholicism. The publication in 1841 of Tract 90, which argued that the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England could be reconciled with Roman Catholic doctrine, caused a major scandal. In 1846 he went to Rome, where he was ordained priest. A gifted writer, in 1864 he published Apologia pro Vita Sua, a justification of his spiritual evolution. He was created cardinal in 1879. His cause for beatification is being examined in Rome.