Francis G. Newlands

Francis Griffith Newlands (August 28, 1846 – December 24, 1917) was a United States Representative and Senator from Nevada and a member of the Democratic Party.[1]

Francis G. Newlands
United States senator from Nevada
In office March 4, 1903 – December 24, 1917
Preceded by	John P. Jones
Succeeded by	Charles B. Henderson
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Nevada's At-Large district
In office March 4, 1893 – March 3, 1903
Preceded by	Horace F. Bartine
Succeeded by	Clarence D. Van Duzer
Personal details
Born	Francis Griffith Newlands (1846-08-28)August 28, 1846 Natchez, Mississippi, U.S.
Died	December 24, 1917(1917-12-24) (aged 71) Washington, D.C., U.S.
Political party	Silver (1893–1903) Democratic (1903–1917)
Spouse(s)	Clara Adelaide Sharon, died birthing 4th child in 1882. Second wife: Edith McCallister married 1888
Residence	Reno, Nevada, U.S.
Profession	Attorney, Politician

A supporter of westward expansion, he helped pass the Newlands Reclamation Act of 1902, which created the Bureau of Reclamation and boosted the agricultural industry by building dams to support irrigation in the arid Western states.[2] An avowed white supremacist,[3][4][5] Senator Newlands argued publicly for racial restrictions on immigration and repealing the 15th Amendment.[2][6][7]

Newlands also founded the neighborhoods of Chevy Chase, Washington, D.C.; and Chevy Chase, Maryland.[8]

Early life

Newlands was born in Natchez, Mississippi, on August 28, 1846 (or 1848; sources differ). He was the fourth of five children born to Jessie and James Newlands, immigrants from Scotland.[7][9][10] His father, trained as a physician in Edinburgh, died in 1851.[7] Newlands was raised in Illinois and Washington, D.C.[9]

In 1867, he went to Yale University. In 1869, he graduated from Columbian College, which is now George Washington University Law School,[11] and was admitted to the bar in 1869.[7][12] In 1901, he received an honorary M.A. degree.[11]

Career

In 1870, Newlands moved to San Francisco, California. He married Clara Adelaide Sharon, the daughter of future Nevada senator William Sharon, in 1874.[7][10] They had three daughters.[9] Newlands helped William Sharon to reopen the Bank of California, and supervised the management of the Palace Hotel, San Francisco.[7] When Newlands’ wife died, he inherited the Sharon estate.[9] Newlands married Edith McAllister and moved to Nevada in 1888.[13]

Land developer

In the late 1880s, Newlands and his partners began to acquire farmland in northwestern Washington, D.C., and southern Montgomery County, Maryland, in order to develop a residential streetcar suburb for the nation's capital. On June 23, 1888, Newlands chartered the Rock Creek Railway for a single-track streetcar.[14] Two years later, Newlands and his partners purchased more than 1,700 acres and formed the Chevy Chase Land Company.[15][16] Between 1890 and 1892, the Land Company built two bridges, constructed five miles of road, and laid streetcar tracks along the road.[15] The Rock Creek Railway opened in 1892.[16] To supply the electricity to the streetcars, the company dammed Coquelin Run, a small tributary of Rock Creek, just east of Connecticut Avenue; the resulting Chevy Chase Lake supplied water for an electric generating plant. From 1894 to 1936, the Land Company operated an amusement park on the lake as a means to draw prospective buyers to the development and to keep the streetcars supplied with evening and weekend passengers.[17]

Newlands created the Chevy Chase Springs Hotel (later the Chevy Chase School for Girls, now the 4-H Youth Conference Center). Newlands ensured the community included schools, churches, country clubs, tree-lined streets, a water supply and a sewage system. Groceries and daily purchases were brought from Washington, D.C., on the railway at no charge to residents.[16]

In 1893, Newlands began to subdivide some property he inherited in Burlingame, California. He started with the Burlingame Country Club and five cottages. The following year, he added the Burlingame train station.[18][19]

U.S. Representative

Newlands represented Nevada in the United States House of Representatives from 1893 to 1903 as a member of the Silver Party. In 1898, he created the Newlands Resolution, which annexed the Republic of Hawaii, creating a new territory.[9] He supported a greater federal role in conservation and pushed for federal funding of western arid land irrigation projects.[9][20] He helped pass the Reclamation Act of 1902, also called the Newlands Act, which created what would become the Bureau of Reclamation.[9]

U.S. Senator

Newlands as a US Senator, c. 1914

Newlands entered the United States Senate in 1903 as a Democrat. He supported the protection of the National Forests under the United States Forest Service in 1905, and the creation of the National Park Service in 1916.[9] He was a member of the Senate subcommittee that investigated the 1912 sinking of RMS Titanic.[21] In 1916, he was the only Democratic senator to vote against the nomination of Louis Brandeis to the U.S. Supreme Court.[22]

Newlands held white supremacist beliefs and spoke publicly in favor of restricting the rights of African-Americans.[6][23][24]

He served until his death in Washington, D.C., on December 24, 1917. He died of heart failure in his home.[25]

Legacy

The Francis Griffith Newlands Memorial Fountain is in Chevy Chase Circle, a federal park that divides D.C. and Maryland. In 2014, a member of the Chevy Chase advisory neighborhood commission proposed a resolution calling for the removal of Newlands’ name from the fountain because of his white supremacist views on race, including his desire to remove the vote for African-Americans. Others believe that Chevy Chase should not alter the monument because the change would belittle Newlands' legislative accomplishments.[26][27]

Newlands' former mansion in Reno is one of six properties in Nevada designated as a National Historic Landmark.[28] Many notable people, including Barbara Hutton in 1935, stayed at the house while waiting for their divorce paperwork to be finalized by George Thatcher, a local divorce lawyer who purchased the home in 1920.

See also

• National Irrigation Congress
• List of United States Congress members who died in office (1900–49)

References

1. NPS: Newlands
2. "My Nevada 5: Admired and Reviled Politicians". University of Nevada, Las Vegas. October 23, 2014. Retrieved October 6, 2015.
3. Turque, Bill (December 26, 2014). "In Chevy Chase, a conundrum spouts from fountain named after a racist senator". Washington, D.C. The Washington Post. Retrieved October 6, 2015.
4. Merleaux, April (2015). Sugar and Civilization: American Empire and the Cultural Politics of Sweetness. UNC Press Books. p. 32. ISBN 9781469622521.
5. Lancaster, Angela, CCHS President. Mary Sheehan, Board Member. Gail Sansbury, Director, Archive and Research Center (December 4, 2014). "Letter, CCHS to Gary Thompson" (PDF). Chevy Chase Historical Society. Retrieved February 13, 2015.CS1 maint: uses authors parameter (link)
6. Newlands, Francis G. (1909). "A Western View of the Race Question". Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 34 (2): 49–51. doi:10.1177/000271620903400207.
7. William D. Rowley (1996). Reclaiming the Arid West: The Career of Francis G. Newlands. Indiana University Press.
8. The Papers of Frederick Law Olmsted: The Last Great Projects, 1890–1895. JHU Press. January 20, 2015.
9. "Newlands, Francis Griffith". Encyclopedia of American Environmental History. 3.
10. Mark Walston (May 2010). "Call it Ishpiming". Bethesda Magazine. Retrieved October 6, 2015.
11. "Administrative Information". Sterling Memorial Library. Retrieved October 6, 2015.
12. Atwood, Albert W. Francis G. Newlands: A Builder of the Nation. 1969
13. Daily Alta California, Volume 42, Number 14249, 9 September 1888
14. Stephen A. Hansen (2011). Kalorama Triangle: The History of a Capital Neighborhood. The History Press.
15. Margery L. Elfin; Paul K. Williams (2006). Forest Hills. Arcadia Publishing.
16. Lisa Fadden (July 2, 2012). "The History of Chevy Chase Lake". Chevy Chase Lake. Retrieved October 6, 2015.
17. "Home | Chevy Chase Historical Society". www.chevychasehistory.org. Retrieved 2018-10-22.
18. "Explore the History of Burlingame". City of Burlingame. Archived from the original on June 6, 2017. Retrieved October 6, 2015.
19. "SF Bay Area 1893–1929". Timelines. Retrieved October 6, 2015.
20. Richard O. Davies (1999). The Maverick Spirit: Building the New Nevada. University of Nevada Press.
21. Titanic Inquiry Project
22. Confirm Brandeis by Vote of 47 to 22, The New York Times, June 2, 1916
23. Fisher, Marc. "Chevy Chase, 1916: For Everyman, a New Lot in Life," Washington Post, February 15, 1999
24. Gary, Frank Boyd (1909). "The Immigration Commission and the Immigration Problem". U.S. Government Printing Office. p. 23. Retrieved February 23, 2015. This pamphlet, consisting mostly of a transcript of a speech by Gary, includes an extract of a statement given by Newlands on February 7, 1909, to the Washington Post that includes the "race of children" assertion.
25. "Newlands Dead of Heart Attack". The New York Times. December 25, 1917. Retrieved October 6, 2015.
26. "NEWLANDS, Francis: Fountain at Chevy Chase Circle in Washington, D.C." D.C. Memorials. Retrieved October 6, 2015.
27. Aaron Kraut (December 9, 2014). "D.C. Group Tables Discussion of Newlands' Name On Chevy Chase Fountain". Bethesda Magazine. Retrieved October 6, 2015.
28. "Senator Francis G. Newlands House". U.S. National Park Service. Retrieved 3 August 2011.

External links

• Francis Griffith Newlands papers MS 371 Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library.

• United States Congress. "Francis G. Newlands (id: N000069)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
• Francis G. Newlands, late a senator from Nevada, Memorial addresses delivered in the House of Representatives and Senate frontispiece 1920

Party political offices
New office	Democratic nominee for U.S. Senator from Nevada (Class 3) 1914	Succeeded by Charles Henderson
U.S. House of Representatives
Preceded by Horace F. Bartine	Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Nevada's at-large congressional district 1893–1903	Succeeded by Clarence D. Van Duzer
U.S. Senate
Preceded by John P. Jones	U.S. senator (Class 3) from Nevada 1903–1917 Served alongside: William M. Stewart, George S. Nixon, William A. Massey, Key Pittman	Succeeded by Charles B. Henderson
Political offices
Preceded by Moses E. Clapp Minnesota	Chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Interstate Commerce 1913–1917	Succeeded by Ellison D. Smith South Carolina