Newton, John
General and engineer, born Norfolk, Virginia, 1823; died New York, 1895. The son of General Thomas Newton, he graduated at the United States Military Academy, 1842, was commissioned major, 1861, distinguished himself in the Civil War, in 1865 was brevetted major-general of volunteers, brigadier-general and major-general of regulars. He was commissioned lieutenant-colonel of engineers in the regular service, 1865, superintended the work on the improvement of the Hudson River between Troy and New York, on the channel between New Jersey and Staten Island, the harbors on Lake Champlain, and removed the dangerous rocks in Hell Gate, the water-way between the East River and Long Island Sound. He was made commissioner of public works of New York, 1886, a post he resigned to become president of the Panama Railroad Company, 1888. Early in his life he entered the Catholic Church.
Fuente: New Catholic Dictionary
Newton, John
A soldier and engineer, born at Norfolk, Virginia, 24 August, 1823; died in New York City, 1 May, 1895. He was the son of General Thomas Newton and Margaret Jordan. In 1838 he was appointed from Virginia a cadet in the U. S. Military Academy, and graduated in 1842, standing second in a class that included Rosencrans, Pope, and Longstreet. Commissioned second lieutenant of engineers, he was engaged as assistant professor of engineering at West Point, and later in the construction of fortifications and other engineering projects along the coasts of the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico. Commissioned first lieutenant in 1852 and promoted captain in 1856, he was appointed chief engineer of the Utah Expedition in 1858. At the opening of the Civil War he was chief engineer of the Department of Pennsylvania, and afterwards held a similar position in the Department of the Shenandoah. Commissioned major on 6 August, 1861, he worked on the construction of the defences of Washington until March, 1862. He was commissioned on 23 Sept., 1861, brigadier-general of volunteers, and received command of a brigade engaged in the defence of the city. He served in the army of the Potomac under McClellan during the Peninsular Campaign, and distinguished himself by his heroic conduct in the actions of West Point, Gaines Mills, and Glendale. He led his brigade in the Maryland campaign, taking part in the forcing of Crampton Gap and in the battle of Antietam, and was for his gallant services brevetted lieutenant-colonel of regulars. He led a division at Fredericksburg in the storming of Marye Heights, and was rewarded on 20 March, 1863, with the rank of major-general of volunteers. He commanded divisions at Chancellorsville and Salem Heights, and, at the death of Reynolds on 2 July, 1863, was given command of the First Army Corps, which he led on the last two days of the battle of Gettysburg. On 3 July, 1863, for gallant service at Gettysburg, he was brevetted colonel of regulars. He engaged in the pursuit of the Confederate forces to Warrenton, Virginia, and towards the end of 1863 was active in the Rapidan Campaign. In May, 1864, he was transferred to the Army of the Cumberland, and commanded under General Thomas the Second Division, Fourth Corps. He fought in all the actions during the invasion of Georgia up to the capture of Atlanta. For his gallantry in this campaign, especially in the battle of Peach Tree Creek, he was brevetted on 13 March, 1865, major-general of volunteers and brigadier-general and major-general of regulars. He then took command of various districts in Florida until, in January, 1866, he was mustered out of the volunteer service.
Commissioned lieutenant-colonel of engineers in the regular service on 28 December, 1865, Newton was ordered in April, 1866, to New York City, where he thenceforth resided, engaged on the engineering labours that made his name famous. He was superintendent engineer of the construction of the defences on the Long Island side of the Narrows, of the improvements of the Hudson River, and of the fortifications at Sandy Hook. He was also one of the board of engineers deputed to carry out the modifications of the defences around New York City. The proposed enlargement of the Harlem River, and the improvements of the Hudson from Troy to New York, of the channel between New Jersey and Staten Island, and of the harbours on Lake Champlain were put under his charge. On 30 June, 1879, he was named colonel, and on 6 March, 1884, chief of engineers in the regular service with the rank of brigadier-general. Among Newton’s achievements, the most notable was the removal of the dangerous rocks in Hell Gate, the principal water-way between Long Island Sound and the East River. To accomplish this task successfully, required the solution of difficult engineering problems never before attempted, and the invention of new apparatus, notably a steam drilling machine, which has since been in general use. Newton carefully studied the problem, and the accuracy of his conclusions was shown by the exact correspondence of the results with the objects sought. Hallett’s Reef and Flood Rock, having been carefully mined under his directions, were destroyed by two great explosions (24 September, 1876; 10 October, 1885). This engineering feat excited the universal admiration of engineers, and many honours were conferred upon him. On Newton’s voluntary retirement from the service in 1886, Mayor Grace of New York, recognizing his superior skill, appointed him commissioner of public works on 28 Aug. This post he voluntarily resigned on 24 Nov., 1888. On 2 April, 1888, he accepted the presidency of the Panama Railroad Company, which position he filled until his death. In 1848 General Newton married Anna M. Starr of New London, Connecticut. In his early manhood he became, and until his death remained, an earnest and devout member of the Catholic Church.
———————————–
POWELL, List of Officers of the U. S. Army, 1776-1900; CULLUM, Biographical Register of the Officers and Graduates of the U. S. Military Academy; Appleton’s Encycl. Amer. Biog., s. v.; SMITH, In Memoriam of General John Newton (New York, 1895).
JOHN G. EWING. Transcribed by Douglas J. Potter Dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XICopyright © 1911 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, February 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Newton, John
once an infidel and libertine, a servant of slaves in Africa, as he wrote of himself in his epitaph, but afterwards an eminently pious and exemplary servant of God, was born in London, July 24,1725. He was devoted by his mother, who was a pious dissenter, to the Christian ministry, and his training to that end was begun when he was but four years old. But she died when he was scarcely seven years old, and, neglected by his father and stepmother, he forgot her instructions, fell into the company of idle and vicious boys, and soon learned their ways. Getting hold of lord Shaftesbury’s Characteristics, he was beguiled by its fair words. and gradually settled down a confirmed infidel. Having been accustomed to take voyages with his father, he at last devoted himself entirely to a seafaring life.
Before he was of age he deserted his ship, was brought back to Plymouth as a felon, kept in irons, degraded from his office as midshipman, and publicly whipped. But sin and severe punishment only hardened him the more. While on a voyage he obtained leave to exchange into a vessel bound for the African coast. His purpose, as he afterwards declared, was to be free to sin. He left the ship and lived on the island of Plantains, where he became at last the almost hopeless slave of a slave- trader, who engaged him in the meanest drudgery of his infamous traffic. He was mocked by his master’s wife an abandoned woman kept almost naked, and half starved. Upon writing to his father, arrangements were made for his return. The voyage homeward was tedious, and from very weariness he read Stanhope’s Thomas a Kempis, and the thought flashed through his mind, What if these things should be true? That very night a terrible storm fell on them; death raged around the sinking ship, and then it was, as he says, I began to pray. I could not utter the prayer of faith; I could not draw near to a reconciled God, and call him Father. My prayer was like the cry of the ravens, which yet the Lord does not disdain to hear.
They escaped the storm, but only to face the danger, by the failure of their provisions, of a more terrible death by starvation. The New Testament now became his constant study; he was especially struck by the parable of the prodigal son, and did not fail to see its similarity to his own case. I continued, he says, much in prayer; I saw that the Lord had interfered so far to save me, and I hoped he would do more … I saw by the way pointed out in the Gospel that God might declare not his mercy only, but his justice also, in the pardon of sin on account of the obedience and sufferings of Jesus Christ… Thus, to all appearance, I was a new man. He reached home in safety, and the change in his life proved real and permanent. For four years longer he engaged in the slave-trade. which he did not then regard as an unlawful occupation; but his eves being afterwards opened, he did all that he could to expose its cruelties. For eight years he was tide-surveyor at Liverpool. In 1758 he began to attempt to preach, but his efforts were so little successful that he confined himself to a meeting on Sundays with his friends in his own house. He gave himself to careful study, and in 1764, when he was in his thirty-ninth year, he entered upon a regular ministry.
He obtained the curacy of Olney, where he remained nearly sixteen years. Here he came into most intimate association with the suffering poet Cowper, and together they produced the Olney Hymns. They were written for the use of his congregation, the greater number by himself. In 1779 Newton became rector of St. Mary Woolnoth, London; there he became generally known, and his Christian usefulness was very great. He died Dec. 21, 1807. His power was not merely in the pulpit, but in conversation and in his correspondence. Several of his works consist of letters; they are rich in Christian experience, and admirable for their clearness and simplicity. His principal works, besides the Olney Hymns, were a volume of Sermons (1760), before he took orders: his Narrative (published in 1764): a volume of Sermons (1767): Omnicron’s Letters (1774): Review of Ecclesiastical History (1769): Cardiphonia, or Utterances of the Heart (1781): The Christian Character Exemplified (1791): and Letters to a Wife (1793). In 1786 he published Messiah, being fifty discourses on the Scripture passages in the oratorio of that name. His Letters to Rev. William Bull were published in 1847. While the story of Newton’s life will always be prized by the Church as affording a marked instance of the power of the grace of God, and will never fail to encourage hope for the most abandoned; and while others of his works are of interest and value, for John Newton was a man of real originality, and his habits of observation were eminently philosophical, yet it is principally in his hymns that he will continue to live in the memory and affection of Christians.
On the score of usefulness in this department, judged by the numbers that are found in our best collections, he stands among the first half-dozen hymn-writers of our language. On the score of excellence so high a place could not be given him, although some of our best hymns are from his heart and pen. Among them is that beautiful hymn of experience, Sweet was the time when first I felt; and this one, I asked the Lord that I might grow. This hymn of love to the Savior, How sweet the name of Jesus sounds, is his; and this one of worship, Come, my soul, thy slit prepare. The author of these and of others as good will always hold a high place among the poets of the sanctuary and the closet. In the preface to the Olney Hymns, which were published in 1779, he disclaims all pretensions to being a poet, and only claims the mediocrity of talent which might qualify him for usefulness to the weak and poor of his flock. He further states that his hymns are the fruit and expression of his own experience. It is this that gives a personal interest and an evident reality to his hymns quite peculiar to them, and is an important element in their value. We trace in them the indications of his former wayward and miserable course, and at the same time we find in them the expression of the mind and heart of the matured Christian, and of the Christian minister in the midst of his activity, anxiety, and success. He himself has stated his own views of what hymns should be that are designed for use in public worship, in which the poor and unlearned join as well as the rich and cultivated. Perspicuity, simplicity, and ease should be chiefly attended to, and the imagery and coloring of poetry, if admitted at all, should be indulged very sparingly, and with great judgment. His own hymns are fit illustrations of these views. He wrote not so much as the poet as the Christian, who must give expression to his own fresh, rich, and abundant experiences, and his hymns will doubtless be used while similar experiences in others demand similar expression. See Works of John Newton, with Memoirs of his Life, by Richard Cecil (Phila. 1831; 2d ed. N.Y. 1874, 2 vols. 8vo); Autobiography and Narrative of John Newton (Lond. 1869); Edinb. Rev. 63:1857; 67. 278; Meth. Quar. Rev. Jan. 1874, p. 162; Lond. Quar. Rev. 31:26 sq.; Bickersteth, Christian Student, p. 321,444; Darling, Cyclop. Bibliog. 2:2185; Christophers, Hynmnwriters and their Hymns; Miller’s Singers and Songs of the Church.