Francis Griffith Newlands (August 28, 1846 - December 24, 1917) was a United States Representative and Senator from Nevada. 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. Newlands also founded the neighborhoods of Chevy Chase, Washington, D.C.; and Chevy Chase, Maryland.
A Democrat and an avowed white supremacist, Senator Newlands argued publicly for racial restrictions on immigration and repealing the 15th Amendment.
Video Francis G. Newlands
Early life
Newlands was born in Natchez, Mississippi, on August 28, 1846, to Jessie and James Newlands, immigrants from Scotland. Sources vary as to whether Newlands was born in 1846 or 1848. Newlands was the fourth of five children. His father, trained as a physician in Edinburgh, died in 1851. Newlands was raised in Illinois and Washington, D.C.
In 1867, he went to Yale University. In 1869, he graduated from Columbian College, which is now George Washington University Law School. He was admitted to the bar in 1869. In 1901, he received an honorary M.A. degree.
Maps Francis G. Newlands
Career
In 1870, Newlands moved to San Francisco, California. He married Clara Adelaide Sharon, the daughter of Nevada senator William Sharon, in 1874. They had three daughters. Newlands helped William Sharon to reopen the Bank of California, and supervised the management of the Palace Hotel, San Francisco. When Newlands' wife died, he inherited the Sharon estate. Newlands married Edith McAllister and moved to Nevada in 1888.
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. Newlands and his partners purchased over 1,700 acres and formed the Chevy Chase Land Company in 1890. Between 1890 and 1892, the Land Company built two bridges, constructed five miles of road, and laid streetcar tracks along the road. The Rock Creek Railway opened in 1892.
Newlands created the Chevy Chase Springs Hotel (later the Chevy Chase School for Girls, now the 4-H Youth Conference Center), and a lake which powered an electric generating plant for the railway. Chevy Chase Lake was created by damming Coquelin Run. In 1894, an amusement park was created on the lake. Newlands ensured the community included schools, churches, country clubs, an infrastructure featuring 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.
In 1893, Newlands began to subdivide the San Francisco property in Burlingame, California, he inherited, beginning with the Burlingame Country Club and five cottages. The following year, he added the Burlingame train station.
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. He supported a greater federal role in conservation and pushed for federal funding of western arid land irrigation projects. He helped pass the Reclamation Act of 1902, also called the Newlands Act, which created what would become the Bureau of Reclamation.
U.S. Senator
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. He was a member of the Senate subcommittee that investigated the 1912 sinking of RMS Titanic. In 1916, he was the only Democratic senator to vote against the nomination of Louis Brandeis to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Newlands held white supremacist beliefs and spoke publicly in favor of restricting the rights of African-Americans.
He served until his death in Washington, D.C., on December 24, 1917. He died of heart failure in his home.
Legacy
The Francis Griffith Newlands Memorial Fountain in Chevy Chase Circle, a federal park that divides D.C. and Maryland, honors his achievements in irrigation. 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 views on race. Others believe that Chevy Chase should not alter the monument because the change would belittle Newlands' legislative accomplishments.
Newlands' former mansion in Reno is one of six properties in Nevada designated as a National Historic Landmark. 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
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
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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