From: The Portrait and Biographical Review of Johnson, Massac,
Pope and Hardin Counties, Illinois.
Chicago Biographical Publishing Company  1893
Transcribed by Ginger Hayes

James K. Newton was born in Pope County, IL, October 25, 1845.
His father and mother were Isaac and Phoebe (Murphy) Newtown,
the former of Rhea County, TN, and the latter of the same state, but
it is believed not of the same county. The grandfather of James K. Newton
was Joseph Newton, of North Carolina, and the great-grandfather was 
John Newton, who, in company with his brother Isaac, came over the sea
from Englan about the year 1700. They settled in North Carolina, and were
wealthy people, owning large plantations, on which great numbers of slaves
were kept. At the age of sixteen years Joseph Newton went into the American
Army as a substitude and fought in the battle of Cowpens, and was also in
the
march of the Bloody Trail. He was in the Patriot army six years and nine
months,
but served in the Revolutionary War only three months. He married Ann
Stephens, of North Carolina, and they reared a large family. He was too old
to take part in the War of 1812, and died in either Williamson or Johnson
County,
IL, in 1842, at the ripe old age of eighty years, and his wife survived him

about five years, dying in Williamson County in 1847, at the age of
ninety-three.
An aunt of our subject, Sally Deason, was in the ninetieth year of her age
at
the time of her death.
James K. Newton was reared on the old homestead where Green B. Newton
now lives. His education, like that of his brother, was quite limited, but
he has
always been a great reader, and remembers what he reads, and in this way
he has acquired a considerable amount of knowledge. At the age of twenty-
three he took up the trade of gunsmith without instruction from anyone, but
though he has worked a great deal at his trade, yet he has been for the
most
part of his life a farmer. Hew was married first at the age of twenty years
to 
Miss Melissa C. Allmond, of Illinois. She bore him one son, William N., now

a fine workman as a silversmith at Vienna, Il, who has a wife and one son.
Mr. Newton was bereft of his companion shortly after marriage, and he was
united to Miss Juliette Fulkerson, of Pope County, a daughter of the Rev.
Richard Fulkerson, who bore him two sons, Thomas J., who at this writing
(1893) is twelve years of age, and Miles G., ten years old. Mrs Newton died
May 25, 1883, since which time our subject has been a widower, and has 
kept his little family all together. Mr. Newton is not a member of any
church,
and is entirely free from church creeds. Neither is he a member of any
society, and his a lover to the fullest degree of intellectual and
religious 
liberty. He votes the Democratic ticket, and for a livelihood carries on
farming
in a small way, and is a man of honesty, who has the respect of the entire
community.


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(© 1997 Ginger Hayes)