Thomas C. Newton; Morehouse Parish, Louisiana

Submitted by Mike Miller

Thanks! Mike, for all the hard work and information
you contribute to the Morehouse Parish Archives.


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Thomas C. Newton.  On being admitted to the bar in 1909,
Thomas C. Newton enrolled himself in a profession which has
been signally honored by members of the Newton family for
three generations.  No name is held in higher repute in the
bar and the citizenship of Northern Louisiana.

His grandfather was Daniel Newton, one of the famous lawyers
and notable characters of Louisiana in ante bellum days and
afterwards.  Daniel Newton was born in North Carolina, and as
a youth moved to Mississippi, where he studied law with and
was associated in law practice with Greenleaf Davidson, 
Mississippi's greatest criminal lawyer.  Coming to Louisiana
in the '40s, Daniel Newton first located in St. Helena 
Parish, and in the early '5Os removed to Bastrop, parish seat
of Morehouse Parish, in Northern Louisiana.  There he built
up his great fame as a lawyer and founded a firm of lawyers
with which three generations of the family have continued
without interruption to the present day, nearly 
three-quarters of a century.  At Bastrop, Daniel Newton took
into partnership William Terrell Hall, who married one of his
daughters, as did also Captain Halls brother, Bolton Hall,
who was the father of Luther Egbert Hall, governor of
Louisiana.  The firm Of Newton & Hall continued forty years.

The father of Thomas C. Newton was the late Cherubusco Newton,
who was born at Greensburg, St. Helena Parish, May 15, 1848,
and died at Monroe, May 26, 1910, having earned a
distinguished career as a stateman as well as a lawyer.  He
was given a good academic education, taught school and read
law under his father, Daniel Newton, at Bastrop, was admitted
to the bar in 1870. and engaged in practice there with his
father.  He was associated with Col. William J. Hall, William
T. Hall, until the latter's death in 1884.  He remained at
Bastrop until 1890, when he removed to Monroe, which city has
since been the seat of the Newton attorneys.  Cherubusco
Newton was elected a member of the State Senate in 1879,
serving four years, and in 1885 declined an appointment as
judge.  In 1886 he was elected a member of the Fiftieth
Congress, serving one term.  Cherubusco Newton married Amanda
Cason, daughter of John T. and Sarah (Boatner) Cason, of East
Feliciana Parish.  She was related to the late Congressman
Boatner of Monroe, father of Judge Mark Boatner, now on the
bench at New Orleans.

Thomas C. Newton, son of Cherubusco and Amanda (Cason) Newton,
was born at Bastrop in 1886, and has lived at Monroe since he
was four years of age.  He was educated in the Louisiana
State University, completed the course of the school of 
economics and commerce at Washington and Lee University at
Lexington, Virginia, and studied law under his father at
Monroe.  He was admitted to the bar in 1909, and has since
been in active practice as a member of the firm Newton,
Garrett & Newton, his partners being his brother, Sterling M.
Newton, assistant district attorney for the Fourth Judicial
District of Louisiana, and David I. Garrett, district
attorney for the same judicial district.

A History of Louisiana, (vol. 2), pp. 230-231, by Henry E.
Chambers.  Published by The American Historical Society,
Inc., Chicago and New York, 1925.