Monday, January 11, 2010

Orin K. Newton

Orin K. Newton was born in 1844 in Lowell, Kent County, Michigan, the son of Charles (b. 1801) and Lucinda (b. 1801).

Massachusetts native Charles married New Yorker Lucinda sometime before 1834 probably in New York. His family moved to Michigan, probably from New York, sometime between 1834 and 1838, and by 1840 had probably settled in Kent County. By 1850 Orin was attending school with his older siblings and living with his family in Vergennes, Kent County, where his father owned and operated a large farm. In 1860 Orin was a farm laborer living with his mother and older brother Charles in Vergennes.

Orin stood 5’8” with gray eyes, brown hair and a light complexion and was 17 years old and probably still living with his family when he enlisted with the consent of the Justice of the Peace in Company K on May 13, 1861. He was shot in the left arm on August 29, 1862, at Second Bull Run, and subsequently sent to Columbian College hospital in Washington, DC, where he was reported to be doing well by early September. He may have been transferred to the hospital at Fort McHenry, Maryland, although he was discharged on November 17, 1862, at Washington, DC, for “a gunshot wound fracturing left humerus injuring brachial nerve, causing partial paralysis of the arm.”

It is not known if Orin returned to Michigan after he left the army.

In April of 1863 he applied for and received a pension (no. 16923).

He married Julia A.

By 1889 and 1890 Orin was living at 556 Herkimer in Brooklyn and working for a telephone company.

His widow was residing in New York in 1905 when she applied for and received a pension (no. 973763).

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