Francis G. Newlands

Infobox Senator
name = Francis G. Newlands


jr/sr =United States Senator
state=Nevada
party =Democratic
term_start = March 4, 1903
term_end = December 24, 1917
alongside =
preceded = John P. Jones
succeeded = Charles B. Henderson
office2=Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Nevada's At-Large district
term_start2=March 4, 1893
term_end2=March 3, 1903
predecessor2=Horace F. Bartine
successor2=Clarence D. Van Duzer
date of birth = birth date|1848|8|28
place of birth = Natchez, Mississippi
dead = dead
date of death = death date and age|1917|12|24|1848|8|28
place of death=Washington, D.C.
residence= Reno
spouse = Clara Adelaide Sharon
profession=Attorney, Politician
religion=

Francis Griffith Newlands was born in Natchez, Adams County, Mississippi, on August 28, 1848, the son of James Birney Newlands (Scotland – Quincy, Adams County, Illinois, 1851) and wife Jessie Barland (Scotland – living in 1867), who married secondly Ebenezer Moore, Mayor of Quincy, Adams County, Illinois, who died in October, 1866.

He studied at Yale University and the Columbian College Law School (now the George Washington University Law School), Washington, D.C. and was admitted to the bar in 1869. He moved to San Francisco, California in 1870 and came to work for William Sharon, one of the discoverers of the Comstock Lode in Virginia City, Storey County, Nevada, who later also became Newlands's father-in-law, through the marriage in San Francisco, California, on November 19, 1874 to his daughter Clara Adelaide Sharon (San Francisco, California, 1854 – San Francisco, California, February 17, 1882). Their daughter Frances Newlands (San Francisco, California, November 21, 1880 – Berlin, August 21, 1907) married at Washington, D.C., May 6, 1905 Leopold Waldemar von Bredow (Bredow bei Nauen, October 31, 1875 – Lausanne, October 1, 1933), and they were the maternal grandparents of Chris Strachwitz. [http://www.wargs.com/noble/strachwitz.html Ancestry of Chris Strachwitz]

In 1888 he moved to Nevada to serve Sharon's interests and continued to practice law. He served as a Democratic Representative for Nevada between 1893 and 1903.

While a congressman, he wrote the Newlands Resolution, which was an act of the United States Congress to annex the Republic of Hawai'i and create the Territory of Hawai'i.

It was approved on July 4, 1898 and signed on July 7 by President of the United States William McKinley. Newlands became well known for his support of irrigation, land reclamation as well as free silver. Newlands is most famous for the 1902 Newlands Reclamation Act, which funded irrigation projects throughout much of the American West.

Later he became a Democratic United States Senator for Nevada in 1903 and served until his death at Washington, D.C. on December 24, 1917.

Newlands's former mansion in Reno would later become a local landmark. Many famous people, such as Barbara Hutton in 1935, stayed at the house while awaiting their divorce paperwork to be finalized by George Thatcher, a local lawyer who had purchased the building.

In the late 1880s, Newlands and his partners began the aggressive acquisition of farmland in northwestern Washington, D.C. and southern Montgomery County, Maryland, for the purpose of developing a residential streetcar suburb for Washington, D.C.. (See Washington streetcars.) They founded the Chevy Chase Land Company in 1890, and its eventual holdings are now known as Chevy Chase, Washington, D.C. and Chevy Chase, Maryland.

References

* [http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/travel/nevada/sen.htm NPS: Newlands]