Benjamin Hardin Newton (1837-1873)

Benjamin Hardin Newton was born in 1837, probably in Big Creek Township in what was then Crawford County Arkansas. In 1851 this part of Crawford County, along the southern border of the Arkansas River, was annexed to Sebastian County. This part of Arkansas was opening up to settlement by whites as the government continued to move the eastern Indian tribes further west, into Indian Territory, which  would eventually become Oklahoma.

This detail of a map of Arkansas shows Fort Smith at the very western edge of the state, bordering Indian Territory. The map shows that Sebastian County has annexed that part of Crawford County south of the Arkansas River where Basil and his wife once lived. 

It seems from the census records that Benjamin and his sister Amelia and younger brothers David C. and Thomas A. grew up first in Big Creek Township -- which was called a Township but was not really a town at all but very wild -- and then in nearby Fort Smith, which was wild too, in a different way. Their father, Basil Newton, died sometime before 1850, and maybe their mother took them to live in Fort Smith after that. Or maybe the family was already living in Fort Smith when Basil died.

It's likely that their mother was a sister of James S. Edmondson, who was Amanda Caroline's father. We know this because Basil Edmondson Newton, Amanda and Benjamin's son, said so in a letter he wrote to his own daughter. The 1850 census shows a Mariah Campbell, seamstress, and the Newton children living in Fort Smith next door to Samuel Edmondson, who was probably another Edmondson brother. Old Thomas Edmondson, James S. Edmondson's father, had come out to northwestern Arkansas from Elbert County Georgia at some point, and his daughter may have come with him and met and married Basil Newton sometime in the early 1830s. So Amanda Caroline Edmondson and and Benjamin Hardin Newton were first cousins. It may seem strange to us, but it was not all that uncommon back then.

In the 1860 census, Maria Newton is still living next door to Samuel Edmondson's son James and his family. Samuel Edmondson has remarried and is living in another house not far away.  In 1860, the youngest Newton son, Thomas, was still at home, but sons David and Benjamin were not living with in the Newton household any longer.

I don't think this Mariah Campbell or Mariah Newton is the Edmondson sister who married Basil Newton and was the mother of Benjamin. There is a Mariah Edmondson who could well belong to that group of brothers and sisters, but she married someone else, in Georgia, and was still living in Georgia with her husband and children in 1850. So Mariah Campbell or Mariah Newton is more likely to have been Benjamin's step-mother. His mother probably died in the middle to late 1840s. We really don't know any more about her yet.

At some point in 1860, Benjamin began to work for the Butterfield Overland Express.  He later said that he had served as a ranger with Butterfield for eight months before the early part of 1861. Butterfield's route carried the mail and passengers from St. Louis to San Francisco. Fort Smith was a major hub along the route, which took a southerly route through Arizona. Since he said he worked on the Plains, he likely worked on the portion of the route from Fort Smith through Oklahoma and into Texas. What did a ranger do? I don't know -- ride shot-gun? It all sounds very wild westish. He was twenty three years old.

Butterfield Overland Mail Route