Lt. Jonathan Eastman, Jr. (1781 - 1867)
Born and died in Concord (NH).
War veteran and area businessman.
Portrait by U.D. Tenney, 1887
Presented to the State by descendants, 1887.

Jonathan Eastman, Jr. served as a lieutenant, captain and paymaster during the War of 1812. He was in the 21st Regiment of U.S. Volunteers, commanded in 1814 by James Miller, and fought at Lundy's Lane and at Erie - battles for which Miller was brevetted brigadier general and honored by Congress with a gold medal.

As a member of the 21st Regiment Eastman would be expected to have been recognized in the histories of Concord, New Hampshire, but in neither N. Bruton's nor James Lyford's histories of the city (published in 1856 and 1903, respectively) is this the case. Jonathan Eastman Jr.'s father, Jonathan Senior, merits much more space in both histories than does the son. The father was a Revolutionary War veteran and by all accounts a strong personality. Our portrait of the son shows a man in a simple cloth coat of circa 1860, without heavily padded shoulders and with a walking stick which he holds prominently. Both the simple coat and the walking stick detract from the subject. The portrait is painted posthumously, more than twenty years after Mr. Eastman's death and probably from a photograph; this may also weaken the portrait. It seems fair to say that the son was overshadowed by his father in life, and that the histories of the city reflect this. Jonathan Eastman, Jr. served on the Concord schools committee. He was County Treasurer for ten years (1830 - 1839), and a director of the Sewall's Falls Lock and Canal Company, founded in 1833. He was a trustee of the New Hampshire Savings Bank, founded in 1830 and the most important bank in the city according to Bouton's 1856 History of Concord. Mr. Eastman Jr. played an important part in Concord's civic history for most if not all of his adult life, and his contributions were recorded by his contemporaries.

Location: First Floor, State House