Byron R. Newton Papers, 1832-1945 | Oberlin College Archives

Byron Rufus Newton (1861-1938), descendant of Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727), first Assistant to the United States Treasury, journalist, and a noted aviation expert, was born on 4 August 1861 in Wirt (Alleghany County), New York to Laurens C. and Irene (Scott) Newton. The son of a farmer from south central New York, Newton attended Friendship Academy in nearby Friendship, New York. His outside interests included playing the violin, golfing, and writing poetry. It appears the Newton family left their family-owned farm to move to 352 E. 65th Street in New York City about the time Byron attended the Oberlin College Preparatory School from 1882 to 1884.

While a junior preparatory student in the classical course at Oberlin, Newton was unable to predict that he would hold prestigious political posts later in life, having recorded in his daily journal that “politics are poison.” Oberlin was, for Newton, his first exposure to a geographically diverse student body that included women and minority students. Debates over the rights of women and minorities at Oberlin were a microcosm of the national political scene of which he would later play a central role in influencing American public opinion under Woodrow Wilson.

Newton began his career in journalism as editor of the Wellsville Daily Free Press (1885-1886), where Asahel Nichols Cole (1821-?,“Father of the Republican Party,” anti-slavery activist, and friend of Horace Greeley) had served as publisher and editor. At age 16 he published his first poem, “The Toad and the Sparrow,” which appeared in The Christian Observer on 24 April 1886. It was not until moving to Buffalo, New York around 1887 that Newton began to work as a reporter for the Buffalo Evening News. It was here his newspaper career took off. Five years later, Newton found himself as the newspaper’s assigned legislative correspondent in Washington D.C. and Albany, New York, both of which served as political capitols. This experience led Newton to develop his taste for politics and led to political connections (1892-1900). He also took on special assignments, such as covering the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago, and then the British-American Joint High Commission session (designed to resolve border disputes over the state of Alaska) held in Quebec, Canada, in 1898. In April and May of 1898, Newton served as war correspondent for the Associated Press. He traveled to Cuba to cover the harbor blockades of Havana and Santiago during the Spanish American War. Newton’s poem, “Roosevelt’s Dinner–1898” documents his encounter with Theodore Roosevelt while in Santiago. Apparently, he sent this poem to Roosevelt who responded with a letter inviting him to visit the Republican Headquarters. Just three years later, Newton held his first political post. He served as Secretary of the New York State Commission at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo and delivered his report to the New York State Legislature in January 1902.

Newton earned a name as a famous journalist and an aviation expert as a reporter for the New York Herald (1835-1924). He was one of the few reporters present to cover the first flight of Orville and Wilbur Wright at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina on 17 December 1903. Newton’s first-person account of the flight is found in his personal journal. In it, he wrote that the Wrights “established definitely for the first time that human flight was a reality and not an idle dream” and that he witnessed the taking of the “first actual photograph of a flying machine in the air reproduced in a newspaper.” Following his news accounts, Newton wrote an article for the American Magazine of Aeronautics called “Watching the Wright Brothers Fly.” Newton noted in his journal that after his coverage of the flight, the New York Herald promoted him to Aeronautic Editor, probably resulting in him being “the first man to take charge of a department devoted to that subject in America.” Over time, Newton befriended the Wright brothers and their sister, Katharine Wright (1874-1929).  She was an Oberlin College graduate of the class of 1898 and College Trustee (1924-1929).

Not content to simply write about aviation history, Newton’s strong interest also led him to become part of it. On 19 January 1910 in Los Angeles, California, Newton flew with French pilot Louis Paulhan (1884-1963) just before famous newspaper baron William Randolph Hearst. According to Newton’s diary, he believed himself to be the “first newspaper man in this country” and possibly “the first non-aviator in America to make an extended flight.” It came as no surprise that after this experience Newton left the newspaper industry to become involved in the field of aeronautics and the new sport of air racing. He served as secretary of the Executive Committee and Director of Publicity of the Aero Club of America at a salary of $150 a week, under General Manager Roger E. Tarbull, and later on served as Secretary to the Second International Air Meet on 23 October 1910 held at the Belmont Park Race Track in Belmont, New York. The meet hosted American and European fliers, such as British aviator Claude Grahame-White (1879-1959), who won the Gordon Bennett Cup. Newton met a number of other influential figures and aviation pioneers including Glenn H. Curtiss.

Newton entered the national political scene as William G. McAdoo’s (1863-1941) secretary in 1910. In a short time, Newton had elevated himself to Woodrow Wilson’s publicity director during the National Democratic Campaign of 1912. In his journals, Newton notes that “Probably no work of my life has ever taken a deeper hold upon my interest than my association (of the last 14 months) with the presidential campaign for Woodrow Wilson and certainly no period of my life’s activities has ever brought a greater measure of anguish and concern.” This concern was due to his association with William Frank McCombs (1875-1921) about whom Newton wrote he held differing professional opinions.  McCombs, who had served as Chairman of the Democratic National Committee in 1911 and later authored Making Woodrow Wilson President (New York, 1921), eventually involved Newton in a political scandal.

Notwithstanding, given Newton’s distinguished career as an aviation expert, President Wilson appointed him as a founding member of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA).  “The NACA was created by President Woodrow Wilson in an effort to organize American aeronautical research and to ‘direct and conduct research and experimentation in aeronautics, with a view to their practical solution.’ ” (from the NACA charter).  The NACA was chartered on 23 April 1915 and operated from 1917 until 1958 when it was replaced by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). After serving with NACA, Newton was subsequently appointed editor of the serial U.S. Air Services which operated from 1919 through 1956 in Washington D.C.

Newton’s service to his party resulted in personal advancement. He became the private secretary to McAdoo and, subsequently, was appointed the first Assistant Secretary of the United States Treasury on 1 October 1913. In this position, which paid only $5,000 annually, Newton gained a reputation for saving money and fighting political “pork” projects. His efforts led to the defeat of projects designed to build post offices, saving the federal treasury in excess of $40 million in pork money during the Great Depression. Following this position, he received several patronage appointments in the state of New York. He served as Collector of Customs for the Port of New York (1917-1921), and he represented the city against the St. Lawrence ship canal project and the anthracite coal operators (1923-1926). In 1933 Newton assumed the position of director of the fusion ticket against Tammany Hall, which ultimately led to reducing this powerful political entity to a county organization during the presidential administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Further, he was instrumental in the broad-coalition election of Mayor Fiorello Henry LaGuardia (1882-1947) under the crusade against government corruption and inefficiency. LaGuardia rewarded the politically nimble Newton through an appointment to the Board of Taxes and Assessments for the Borough of Queens, New York at an annual salary of $12,000.

Newton married Winifred Cattle on 3 October 1900 and they had three children: Irene, John C., and Margaret C. Newton. None of the children attended Oberlin College. Byron R. Newton died of a stroke at age 76 on 20 March 1938 while residing at 218-15 Fortieth Avenue, Bayside, Queens, New York, and is buried in Flushing Cemetery.

Sources Consulted

Baker Papers.

Era Magazine, v. 12, pp. 485-86, Nov. 1903.

Link, Arthur S. The Papers of Woodrow Wilson. Vol. 68. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1993,  page 388.

McAdoo, W.G. Crowded Years.

McAdoo Papers. Letter from Byron R. Newton to McAdoo, 31 July 1915.

McCombs, William F. Making Woodrow Wilson President. New York: Fairview Publishing Co., 1921.

Mott, Frank Luther. A History of American Magazines, 1741-1930. p. 13, 337.

Newton, Byron R. Oberlin College Archives Alumni Records (Student) File.

Newton, Byron R. “Watching the Wright Brother’s Fly,” American Magazine of Aeronautics. June 1908.

Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society. Vol. 129.2 (June 1985), pp. 173-210.

Scientific Notes and News. Science. New Series. Vol. 41. No. 1060 (23 Apr. 1915) pp. 604-7.

Who Was Who in America: Volume 1, 1897-1942. (Chicago, 1943).

Wright Brothers National Memorial. 6 December 2005.

http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/hh/34/hh34n.htm