James M. Newell, Family Files

Submitted by Natalie Schutz [natalie.schutz@sbcglobal.net] July 24, 2009


Life Story of RevLife Story of Rev. James M. Newell, D.D. 
An Autobiography 
Born November 21, 1840
Died June 25, 1932 
Edited by Margy Henry 1977 
Published by Margy Henry
Escondido, California 92025 
  
An autobiography written for his children, Grandchildren and 
great-grand-children In July 1931 in his ninety-first year. 


RETROSPECT 

My family history 
This is the story of my life. At least some things I have lived through. But 
before I begin I should take a look at my ancestors. They lived a long time ago. 
I happen to be the youngest of my father’s family, and he was the youngest of my 
grandfather’s large family. So, if I take in only my grandfather, my story will 
be two hundred years long. 
  
He and my grandmother lived in what seems to me the far off times. They lived in 
the days of such people as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, the early 
Adamses and James Marshall. I have no knowledge that any of them helped to write 
the Declaration of Independence or led the Continental Armies. I have been told 
many of them were in those armies, and I have been solicited to join the Sons of 
the Revolution . 
  
I can judge my ancestors mostly by their times and their locality. My 
grandfather was of Scotch-Irish stock. His ancestors were school teachers in 
Londonderry, Ireland. 
  
My grandmother’s maiden name was Bently.   Her ancestors were from England by 
way of New England. For anything I know her parents may have been among those 
whom the poets way were singers ‘Amid the storms they sang, and the stars heard 
and the sea, and the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang with the anthem of 
the free.’ I have no assurance of that. I sometimes doubt a little if those 
folks sang that way, but they were people to remember. They may have had great 
faults but they surely had great virtues. 
  
My grandfather with his family climbed over the Allegheny Mountains and settled 
in Washington County, Pennsylvania. They were part of a large Scotch-Irish 
invasion that largely peopled western Pennsylvania. 
  
They landed in the woods among the Indians. Their first job was to pick out a 
farm. The land was cheap and dear. Cheap because they got it for nothing, dear 
because it had to be cleared of the big trees before they could even make a 
potato patch. Their first aim was, of course, to secure as much of it as the law 
allowed. The law said — start at sunrise and make as big a circuit as you can 
before sunset, and all you surround is yours. But on your day’s journey you must 
scalp trees near enough together so one could see from one scalped tree to the 
next. 
  
My grandfather enclosed, in that way, about three hundred acres of beautiful 
rolling land, a dense forest. There I can imagine him in Abraham Lincoln style, 
though a hundred years earlier, swinging his axe to fell his trees and clear a 
patch for a place to build his house. He was a little out of the common for 
pioneers of that day, for instead of building a log house like his neighbors, he 
made brick and built a brick house. The historian notes that it was the first 
brick house built in Washington County. 
  
He had a brother with him, unmarried, who has the credit, if it is a credit, of 
being a man of remarkable structure. This also history mentions. His great size 
may have made him a better target for Indians. In venturing out of the fort 
where the families were being protected to explore for the Indians, he was shot 
with a poisoned arrow and died. 
  
Tradition says that my great-grandfather had twelve sons. Some went south, some 
wandered through New England, some settled in New Jersey. Among the New Jersey 
descendants one became Governor; one a noted minister in New York. I know almost 
nothing of those who went to New England and to the south. No doubt Samuel 
Newell, one of the company of the haystack missionary band, was one of them. I 
have never heard of any of them being entirely non-entities. 
  
I am in the line of the western Pennsylvania Newells. My Scotch-Irish is 
modified by the fact that I had a New England grandmother. The Scotch-Irish, 
with the help of some Dutch, deserve most of the credit of making early western 
Pennsylvania. They were Presbyterians. The Dutch among them were Presbyterian 
too, though called Dutch Reformed. 
  
These people had carried from the old country with them some of the notorious 
pluck and daring that had led their ancestors to throw stools at the preacher if 
he went astray in doctrine or practice. Some of them got into this wooded 
country ahead of the preachers, and acquired some of the usual characteristics 
of the pioneer. They lived in the woods. Their food was wild turkey, deer, 
squirrels, pheasants and all manner of animals, and corn, pork and potatoes. 
Their clothing they made themselves from flax and wool. 
  
When I was a boy I was told this story by one of the settlers: In his father’s 
community of lumbermen they were at first without a preacher, and may have been 
without a Bible, as Bibles were scarce. In these circumstances they took 
forbidden liberties. They hunted their game on Sunday. Finally they decided to 
send to the old country for a minister, and while waiting for him they planned 
to build a church. 
  
It was a common custom, among Scotch people, to disagree, and this company of 
backwoodsmen fell into that habit.  They divided into two parties on the 
question of the location of the church. Argument failed to settle the matter and 
it seemed to them the only way to settle it was to select the best man on either 
side and have them fight it out. One best man won in the fight, of course, and 
that settled the matter of location and the church was built. 
  
My people were in a different locality and had no part and gained no glory in 
that contest. I have the impression that my ancestors, having lived in 
Philadelphia before they crossed the mountains, and having been associated with 
the Quakers, were of a somewhat milder type, but they, like all the rest, may 
have been involved in the Whiskey Rebellion. 
  
Those people thought they had good reason for that rebellion. There is almost 
nothing so easy to make as whiskey, and whiskey was about the only thing that 
could be sold for money. They needed money badly and naturally they went to 
producing the thing that would bring money. I am sure they were very moderate in 
their whiskey drinking.  But because they could get money for it, very many of 
them secured stills and went to making it. 
  
The poor government at Washington found out they were making money from whiskey 
and decided to tax it. The answer of these staunch people was this: this little 
bit of money is all we can get ─ we are willing to wear our homespun, eat our 
potatoes and corn, and hunt for our meat, but this little bit of money is very 
dear to us. Our daughters like English goods for one nice dress, especially on 
the wedding day. We are common people — we go to the house of God on the Sabbath 
Day. We would like to appear in some clothes made from English goods. There is 
no way for us to get these things, but with the whiskey money. We have no other. 
So they notified Mr. Washington that they would not pay the tax. The result was 
a war. Of course the armed soldiers won and the rebellion was put down. 
  
I won’t stop this story here. I want to say to the credit of my ancestors that 
later they found, as everybody finds, that the devil is in whiskey and they 
smashed up all their stills. If they had been brave in rebelling against the 
whiskey tax, they were braver yet when it came to rebelling against whiskey. 
After the Revolutionary War a wave of high religious sentiment swept through 
that country.  Many faults were carried away with it; among others the whiskey 
business. 
  
Great preachers came into that country in pioneer times. I know the names of 
some of them and am familiar with their history. Their influence became 
dominant. Churches sprang up all over the land, and with them many academies, 
and Jefferson College, the first college west of the Allegheny Mountains. 
  
One of these great preachers stood in my grandfather’s church as pastor for 
fifty years. They called him the ‘Silvertongued Marquis.’  His influence not 
only for religion but for intelligence and finer culture spread over the 
community for many miles in every direction. My grandfather’s family and the 
family of Dr. Marquis grew up in the same church and intermarried and the 
Marquises and the Newells, who became numerous in all that country, were 
intermingled by many marriages. I can truly say they were a fine group of people 
and helped in the making of a fine country. 


This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm

These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit 
or presentation by other organizations. Persons or organizations 
desiring to use this material for non-commercial purposes, MUST obtain 
the written consent of the contributor, OR the legal representative of 
the submitter. All persons donating to this site retain the rights to 
their own work.