My Genealogy Hound

Col. Thomas W. Newton, ex-postmaster of Little Rock, was born in 1843, on a farm now known as the Hobbs Place, about one mile from Little Rock. The first public position held by him was in the year 1858, when he was appointed rodman for the State civil engineer, George W, Hughes. In 1859-60 he served as delivery clerk at the Little Rock post-office under Postmaster T. J. Churchill, and in the latter year, though only seventeen years of age, he was appointed captain of Company B, Thirteenth Arkansas Militia. About one year later he entered the Confederate army as second lieutenant of a company known at that time as the “Bob Toombs’ Rifles’’ in Hindman’s Legion, and at Pittman’s Ferry, near Pocahontas, Ark., this legion was converted into two regiments known as the Second Arkansas and Third Confederate. Lieutenant Newton’s company entered the latter regiment under Col. John S. Marmaduke, and soon afterward was promoted, and served two years as captain of his company. When Gen. Marmaduke was transferred to the Trans-Mississippi department, Capt. Newton was promoted to the rank of major in the adjutant-general’s department, and assigned to duty as assistant-adjutant and inspector-general on Gen. Marmaduke’s staff, serving as such until the close of the war. Left penniless and with no profession in life, he began service as a steamboat pilot on the upper Arkansas River, between Little Rock and Fort Gibson, and followed this for one year as a licensed second-class pilot. In 1866, when Mr. Thomas H. Walker was elected clerk and recorder of Pulaski County, he tendered Maj. Newton the position of deputy clerk, which was accepted. In 1868 every Democrat was reconstructed out of office, and during the following year Maj. Newton turned his attention to farming. His operations in this direction were very successful, his plantation being one of the largest and finest on the Arkansas River. It is situated near the mouth of the Little Maumelle, about ten miles above the city, and composed of some of the most productive soil in Central Arkansas. In 1874 Maj. Newton was elected secretary of the Constitutional Convention, which framed the present constitution of the State, and in the same year was also elected secretary of the State senate, and in 1877 he was elected chief clerk of the house of representatives, and during the same year elected clerk and recorder of Pulaski County to fill the unexpired term of Mr. Thomas H. Walker, caused by that gentleman’s death. Maj. Newton was re-elected to this office in 1878, and again in 1880, and at the close of this term was asked to run for the office of circuit clerk, but declined to do so. In 1883 he was again elected clerk of the house of representatives, and also in 1885. One year previous to that he was appointed by the Democratic State convention as the presidential elector for the Fourth Congressional district, but the question being raised by the Democratic State central committee as to his eligibility on account of being clerk of the house of representatives, and therefore a member of that body, he generously withdrew. He was appointed post master of Little Rock by President Cleveland, and served three years and six months of his term, giving general satisfaction as a model postmaster to all parties. He was succeeded by Mr. R. A. Edgerton, whom he had previously succeeded himself. Maj. Newton is well and favorably known throughout the State, and has always been regarded as one of its most honorable and trustworthy men, an opinion that has been strengthened by his untarnished political career.