On March 9, 1829, President Andrew Jackson defies Washington society matrons when his scandal-plagued appointee John Eaton takes the oath as his secretary of war.
Earlier that year, Eaton had married a former tavern maid with a supposedly lurid past. Margaret Peggy Eaton had been raised in a boardinghouse frequented by Washington politicians and became an astute observer of politics, as well as an accomplished musician and dancer. She charmed many of the boardinghouse’s tenants, including then-Senator Andrew Jackson and his friend John Eaton, and was suspected of having many illicit affairs before her first marriage. She was 23 and the wife of a Navy sailor when she first met Jackson and Eaton. Eaton enjoyed Margaret’s wit and intelligence and escorted her to social functions when her husband was at sea.
When Margaret’s first husband died unexpectedly, rumors abounded that he had committed suicide over his wife’s alleged affair with Eaton. Both Eaton and Margaret denied the affair, claiming to be nothing more than friends. In addition to Margaret’s sullied reputation, her passionate nature, flirtatiousness and outspokenness irked Washington’s society matrons at a time when those qualities were considered unseemly in women. When Eaton and Margaret married shortly after her first husband’s death, the ladies of Washington society ostracized the new couple.
