Joseph married 1st on 15 Dec 1825, to Mary Eversull (1802-1829); she died in childbirth with their third child.
1. Henry Smith Van Eaton 1826-1898; Confederate soldier
2. Isabel Van Eaton 1827-1909; married Benjamin Carleton Berry 1823-1894; Union soldier
3. Mary Van Eaton 1829- ; married John Ayer

Joseph married 2nd on 18 April 1832, to Catherine H. Abbott (1807-1882); 3 children:
1. Martha A. "Matt" Van Eaton 1833-1857); married Newton "Newt" Runyon
2. Flavel Hunt Van Eaton 1834-1901; Union soldier---a surgeon with the rank of Major
3. Luranah Amelia "Lou" Van Eaton 1838-1880; married Thomas Stribling Berry 1841-1880; Union soldier

Joseph's two sons--Henry & Flavel--both served in the Civil War---but on opposite sides! Henry was quartermaster to General John C. Pemberton at the siege of Vicksburg; while at the same time his brother-in-law Benjamin C. Berry was a captain in General U.S. Grant's besieging Union army. Henry's other brother-in-law Thomas S. Berry was a Union lieutenant, wounded at the battle of Brice's Crossroads at Guntown, Mississippi, and held prisoner by the Confederates for 11 months.

The Berry brothers married Van Eaton half-sisters: Benjamin to Isabel in 1848, and Thomas to Luranah---called Lou---on August 29, 1865, after the war ended. Thomas Berry became a Methodist minister, and was president of Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa, when he died February 10, 1880. His widow Lou died the same year on December 29. Their two orphaned young daughters, Hattie Belle and Mary Lou were raised by the girls' cousin William Henry Berry and his wife Alice, who also raised the orphaned children of William's sister Martha Berry Hunt: Marion, William, and Anna, after widow Mattie died in 1899.

In 1925, Frank Carleton Lang (born 1859) wrote of his grandfather Joseph Van Eaton: "He used to tell me about going to Cincinnati to market--to sell produce and lay in supplies, etc. I know he told me once of going with someone else & as their road ran along the river bank & he was a great swimmer he took off his cloths and swam three miles down the river then caught the wagon put on his cloths & went on into town....
he was a very devout christian man, and was everlastingly working at it. I can see him yet--at a revival meeting walking down the isle clapping his hands saying glory hallelujah & Glory to God, and his great big hands sounded like two boxes coming together. Those were the days that almost made a kid's hair stand on end to see the old timers get to shouting & it made him think also if he did not get-at-that some time he would sure be burned with fire and brimstone forever." (Frank C. Lang was killed about 1940 on an Idaho mountain road when a camping trailer broke loose and crushed him.)