"Commodore" (once a courtesy title for senior U.S. Navy Captains) Thomas Moore Newell (1782-1864) was a native of Savannah, Georgia, and a one time merchant who may have been involved with the Atlantic slave trade prior to the War of 1812. He later became a US Naval officer and a Georgia planter.
The Atlantic slave trade, an important factor in the economy of the old antebellum American South, continued legally until January 1, 1808, and did not effectively end even in 1820, when international treaty law came to equate the seaborne commerce in human beings with piracy.
Savannah's maritime proximity to Spanish East Florida made the port city an important destination for all kinds of commerce in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
From 1811 Thomas Moore Newell served, first, as a privateer captain (against the Spanish and British in Florida) and then as a United States Army officer prior to embarking in the United States Navy where he remained on the rolls for nearly 48 years. After serving in the defense of Savannah during the War of 1812 and in the campaigns against piracy in the Caribbean he attained the rank of Captain, U.S. Navy, and the courtesy title of "Commodore," only to resign his commission at the age of 78 following the secession of Georgia from the Union in 1861.
Already in retirement, the Commodore did not join or apply for a commission in the Confederate Navy.
His younger cousin and erstwhile brother-in-law, Commander Lloyd Bolton Newell (1804-1861 See below and Find a Grave Memorial No. 60747241), preferred suicide (in Philadelphia, Pa.) to leaving the US Navy.
Commodore Thomas Moore Newell's own son, Thomas Moore Newell Jr. (1844-1883), served as a private in company B of the 18th Georgia (Olmstead's) Battalion (Georgia State Troops - Provisional Confederate States Army).
The Commodore's Connecticut-born father, and Massachusetts-born grandfather, were both sea captains of the old colonial-era merchant marine who had previously borne the name of "Thomas Newell."
It was the father, Captain Thomas Newell (died 1810), who made Savannah his home port during the Revolutionary War, and it was there that the father eventually became a prominent sea captain, mercantile business partner, and property owner, marrying the future Commodore's mother, Rebecca Bolton (1756-1833).
The Boltons, who came to Savannah from Philadelphia and South Carolina, were an old Savannah family of highly respectable colonial notables and merchants. Their pre-colonial roots were in Great Britain and Switzerland.
The elder Captain Thomas Newell (father of the future U.S.Navy officer) was briefly detained by the French during the undeclared naval war of 1800, when his vessel, bound from Savannah for the Austro-Italian port of Venice, was seized by privateers.
Commodore Newell's father, this "elder" Thomas Newell of Savannah, was born in Connecticut in 1745 (or 1747 ?) and died in Savannah on September 15, 1810, just a few days after the death of his brother, the future Commodore's uncle, Gamaliel Newell, who also came from Connecticut and who expired in Savannah on September 12, 1810.
Fever epidemics were a hardship of the times, for Gamaliel Newell's 16 year-old daughter (and the future Commodore's cousin), Miss Mira Newell (1794-1810), also died in Savannah on October 3rd of that year.
The City records state that the elder "Captain" Thomas Newell left a widow (Rebecca Bolton Newell), and two sons, the future "Commodore" T.M. Newell (1782-1864), and his brother, Robert Newell (1784-1833). Robert Newell died in Savannah in November 1833 of heart disease.
By the early 1800s the Newells (Thomas and his brother Robert) had acquired important wharf and warehouse properties in the port of Savannah.
During 1811-1813 Thomas Moore Newell, already a seasoned ship's officer of the merchant marine, commanded the 3-gun American privateer schooner ATAS, of Savannah. No important prize captures were recorded or ajudicated.
Back in his home port of Savannah Thomas Moore Newell was commissioned a Captain (U.S. Army) of the company of "Sea Fencibles" to rank from August 1, 1813. Newell's company had the mission of repelling eventual British attacks against the port.
Captain Newell was then appointed a Sailing Master, the now obsolete equivalent of the present day rank of Lieutenant junior grade, U.S. Navy, to rank from September 11, 1813. Both Newell's Army and Navy appointments were credited to the state of Georgia.
Honorably discharged from the U.S. Army on August 1, 1814, Newell was advanced to the rank of Lieutenant, U.S. Navy, to rank from December 9, 1814.
Early in 1815 Lieutenant Newell was one of the commissioners sent to Bermuda to negociate the return of confiscated property and former slaves who had joined the British forces in the Chesapeake, Georgia's Sea Islands, and the Bahamas during 1813-1815.
Under terms of the Treaty of Ghent (1814), and in compliance with British law, the British Royal Navy simply refused to hand over the former slaves, who now had become British subjects and British naval and military personnel.
Together with their dependents, the American-born former slaves were shielded from the remonstrations of "Captain" Newell and Commissioner Thomas Spalding (1774-1851), both of whom hailed from the state of Georgia.
The newly freed British subjects were eventually discharged from the Royal Navy, the British Corps of Colonial Marines, and the West Indies regiments of the British Army to settle freely in Canada or in the British West Indies with their families.
American claims for their return to slavery, or for compensation to former American slave-owners remained a matter of international litigation until 1826.
During 1815-1820 Lieutenant Newell was active on shore duty as a timber agent and as a naval contractor.
During the early 1820s Lieutenant Newell served with Captains Robert and John D. Henley, then commanded the flotilla of shallow water barges in the Caribbean "Mosquito Fleet" under Commodore David Porter.
Assigned to the Mediterranean, Lieutenant Newell was for a short time in command of the armed schooner USS Porpoise. After duties ashore and afloat, often in Washington, DC, Newell was advanced to the rank of "Master Commandant" to rank from March 3, 1831.
Newell was for a time (1832-34) in command of the Sloop of War USS Saint Louis (again in the West Indies) before court-martial charges brought about his relief from that command and a two-year suspension from the active service for "ungentlemanly conduct".
In the meantime, Master Commandant Newell's widowed mother, Mrs Rebecca Bolton Newell (1756-1833) and his brother, Robert Newell, had passed away. A daughter died in 1834.
In 1838, by Act of Congress, the US Naval rank of "Master Commandant" was redesignated as "Commander" (its present form), and as such Commander Newell retained his seniority which dated from 1831.
Promoted to Captain, U.S. Navy, to rank from January 28, 1840, the "Commodore" found himself back in Savannah for several years in a waiting orders status. He saw no active sea service as a US Naval Officer after 1844.
The 1850 and 1860 US Census for Chatham County, Georgia, show the Commodore and his family as Georgia planters.
Both Captain Thomas Moore Newell and his younger cousin (and former brother-in-law) Commander Lloyd Bolton Newell (who was by then a resident of Philadelphia, Pa.) were among the US Naval officers dropped from the service by an Act of Congress in September 1855.
Both were among the officers restored to the US Navy's inactive Reserve List in 1858 with their original ranks and seniority intact.
Commodore Thomas Moore Newell married twice.
On August 3, 1820, he married his first cousin, Miss Rebecca Foster Newell. Rebecca, born in Connecticut on April 27, 1802, was a daughter of Thomas Moore Newell's above-mentioned uncle, Captain Gamaliel Newell (1755-1810).
Though originally New Englanders, the Newells were friends and associates of the Boltons, Habershams, and were well known in Savannah's mercantile society.
Rebecca Newell's younger brother, Lloyd Bolton Newell (1804-1861 and mentioned above), was appointed from the State of Georgia as a Midshipman in the U.S. Navy during the same year (1820) as his sister's marriage. Cousins thus became brother-in-laws and brother officers as well.
During their five year marriage, Thomas Moore Newell and Rebecca F. Newell had one daughter, Susan ("Suzette") Rebecca Newell, who was born in Washington, DC, on December 3, 1825.
The baby girl's mother, who was Commodore Newell's first wife, died in the nation's capitol just a week later, on December 11, 1825.
Little Suzette survived, and in 1851 she became the second wife of another Savannah cousin, Richard Wylly Adams (1811-1898.) Years later, Mrs Richard Wylly ("Suzette" Newell-) Adams predeceased her husband, and died in Savannah on December 31, 1893 at the age of 68. The Commodore's oldest daughter was buried in Laurel Grove Cemetery (North) in January 1894. Suzette (Newell) Adams was the mother of a large family.
On May 27, 1830, still in Washington, DC, the now widowed Commodore Newell married still another Savannah cousin (on the Bolton side), Miss Hester ("Hetty") Rebecca Adams.
Hetty was an older sister of the above mentioned Richard Wylly Adams who would later marry her step-daughter.
Mrs "Hetty" Newell, born in Savannah on November 23, 1807, was still living in Savannah in 1883 with an $8.00/month pension as the widow of a former US Navy Captain. In addition to Suzette, the Commodore and "Hetty" raised six children together.
The children of "Commodore" Thomas Moore Newell (late Captain, U.S. Navy) and "Hetty" Adams Newell were:
(1.) Helen Georgia Newell (born in Washington, DC) on November 9, 1831. She died in her infancy, in Savannah, on April 14, 1834.
(2.) Miss Roberta Bolton Newell (May 1835 - ??) who never married and was still living (with her widowed sisters) in Savannah in 1900.
(3.) Helena ("Ella") Thomasene Newell (31 October 1838-3 December 1912) married a widower, Leonard Young Gibbs (1834-1898), in Savannah in September 1880. Leonard Y. Gibbs was confined at Point Lookout, Maryland, as a prisoner of war by the Federals during the Civil war. He later became a respected Savannah sales merchant.
(4.) Nannette Habersham Newell (February 1842-31 January 1925) married the Irish-born Savannah entrepreneur, James B. West (1838-1888), at the White Bluff Presbyterian Church in 1867. They did well and had a number of children, notably James Bolton West (1869-1925, Thomas Newell West (1872- ), and Estella Adams West. A widow by the time of the 1900 US Census for Chatham County Georgia, Nanette's household then included two of her surviving sisters, "Aunts" Roberta and Ella (above).
(5.) Thomas Moore Newell Jr (1844-1883) came next. He served in the Confederate Army and later became a Savannah merchant. The Savannah City directories of 1876-1883 show him employed by his brother-in-law, James B. West (above). He married Ella Josephine Turner (1852-1927) of Savannah. The Newells had a daughter, Josephine H (Habersham?) Newell, who was three years old in 1880, and a son named Thomas Moore Newell, who was born in 1882 and died in 1893 at the age of 10.
(6.) Mary Wylly Newell (25 August 1846-13 December 1916), was the youngest of the "Newell girls." In 1868 she married Lewis Tattnall Turner (1846-1903) who was the half-brother of her sister-in-law, Ella Josephine Turner (above). Lewis T. Turner, who had attended the Georgia Military Institute for a year, served as a Confederate Army officer during the Civil war and later became a reputable Savannah merchant and business partner in the cotton export trade. The Turner children included Mary Ella Turner, Lewis Newell Turner, Francis Muir Turner, and Gibson Turner.
The Newells figure prominently in the book "Ebb Tide: As Seen Through the Diary of Josephine Clay Habersham 1863," by Spencer Bidwell King Jr. , 1958, The University of Georgia Press, Athens, Georgia 30602 www.ugapress.org.
Paperback ISBN-13:978-0 8203-3447-9 and ISBN-10:0-8203-3447-2. as well as numerous other works on 19th century US Naval history and the history of North American Slavery, settlement, and commerce.
Commodore Newell's hand-written letter of resignation from the U.S. Navy was signed, dated, and posted to the Navy Department on March 14, 1861, in Savannah, Georgia.
The letter of resignation was received at the Navy Department in Washington, DC, and approved to become immediately effective on March 18, 1861.
Fort Sumter had not yet been fired upon, but there was no turning back.
The former "Commodore" (actually a Captain, which then was the highest rank in the United States Navy) Thomas Moore Newell had until then ranked 13th or 14th on the (US Navy Dept's) Navy List in terms of seniority among his peers. His 47 years on the rolls of the US Navy included: 7 years and 5 months spent at sea; 6 years and 5 months on shore or "other" duty; and a total of 32 years and 9 months unemployed or on a waiting orders status. He was last at sea as a US naval officer in October 1844.
Only one former U.S. Navy officer senior to him, Commodore (Captain) Lawrence Rousseau USN/CSN (1790-1866) of Louisiana, was destined to accept a commission in the Confederate Navy.
According to the City burial records of Savannah, Georgia, this former U.S.Navy officer did not live to see Sherman's Army enter Savannah.
The Atlantic slave trade, an important factor in the economy of the old antebellum American South, continued legally until January 1, 1808, and did not effectively end even in 1820, when international treaty law came to equate the seaborne commerce in human beings with piracy.
Savannah's maritime proximity to Spanish East Florida made the port city an important destination for all kinds of commerce in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
From 1811 Thomas Moore Newell served, first, as a privateer captain (against the Spanish and British in Florida) and then as a United States Army officer prior to embarking in the United States Navy where he remained on the rolls for nearly 48 years. After serving in the defense of Savannah during the War of 1812 and in the campaigns against piracy in the Caribbean he attained the rank of Captain, U.S. Navy, and the courtesy title of "Commodore," only to resign his commission at the age of 78 following the secession of Georgia from the Union in 1861.
Already in retirement, the Commodore did not join or apply for a commission in the Confederate Navy.
His younger cousin and erstwhile brother-in-law, Commander Lloyd Bolton Newell (1804-1861 See below and Find a Grave Memorial No. 60747241), preferred suicide (in Philadelphia, Pa.) to leaving the US Navy.
Commodore Thomas Moore Newell's own son, Thomas Moore Newell Jr. (1844-1883), served as a private in company B of the 18th Georgia (Olmstead's) Battalion (Georgia State Troops - Provisional Confederate States Army).
The Commodore's Connecticut-born father, and Massachusetts-born grandfather, were both sea captains of the old colonial-era merchant marine who had previously borne the name of "Thomas Newell."
It was the father, Captain Thomas Newell (died 1810), who made Savannah his home port during the Revolutionary War, and it was there that the father eventually became a prominent sea captain, mercantile business partner, and property owner, marrying the future Commodore's mother, Rebecca Bolton (1756-1833).
The Boltons, who came to Savannah from Philadelphia and South Carolina, were an old Savannah family of highly respectable colonial notables and merchants. Their pre-colonial roots were in Great Britain and Switzerland.
The elder Captain Thomas Newell (father of the future U.S.Navy officer) was briefly detained by the French during the undeclared naval war of 1800, when his vessel, bound from Savannah for the Austro-Italian port of Venice, was seized by privateers.
Commodore Newell's father, this "elder" Thomas Newell of Savannah, was born in Connecticut in 1745 (or 1747 ?) and died in Savannah on September 15, 1810, just a few days after the death of his brother, the future Commodore's uncle, Gamaliel Newell, who also came from Connecticut and who expired in Savannah on September 12, 1810.
Fever epidemics were a hardship of the times, for Gamaliel Newell's 16 year-old daughter (and the future Commodore's cousin), Miss Mira Newell (1794-1810), also died in Savannah on October 3rd of that year.
The City records state that the elder "Captain" Thomas Newell left a widow (Rebecca Bolton Newell), and two sons, the future "Commodore" T.M. Newell (1782-1864), and his brother, Robert Newell (1784-1833). Robert Newell died in Savannah in November 1833 of heart disease.
By the early 1800s the Newells (Thomas and his brother Robert) had acquired important wharf and warehouse properties in the port of Savannah.
During 1811-1813 Thomas Moore Newell, already a seasoned ship's officer of the merchant marine, commanded the 3-gun American privateer schooner ATAS, of Savannah. No important prize captures were recorded or ajudicated.
Back in his home port of Savannah Thomas Moore Newell was commissioned a Captain (U.S. Army) of the company of "Sea Fencibles" to rank from August 1, 1813. Newell's company had the mission of repelling eventual British attacks against the port.
Captain Newell was then appointed a Sailing Master, the now obsolete equivalent of the present day rank of Lieutenant junior grade, U.S. Navy, to rank from September 11, 1813. Both Newell's Army and Navy appointments were credited to the state of Georgia.
Honorably discharged from the U.S. Army on August 1, 1814, Newell was advanced to the rank of Lieutenant, U.S. Navy, to rank from December 9, 1814.
Early in 1815 Lieutenant Newell was one of the commissioners sent to Bermuda to negociate the return of confiscated property and former slaves who had joined the British forces in the Chesapeake, Georgia's Sea Islands, and the Bahamas during 1813-1815.
Under terms of the Treaty of Ghent (1814), and in compliance with British law, the British Royal Navy simply refused to hand over the former slaves, who now had become British subjects and British naval and military personnel.
Together with their dependents, the American-born former slaves were shielded from the remonstrations of "Captain" Newell and Commissioner Thomas Spalding (1774-1851), both of whom hailed from the state of Georgia.
The newly freed British subjects were eventually discharged from the Royal Navy, the British Corps of Colonial Marines, and the West Indies regiments of the British Army to settle freely in Canada or in the British West Indies with their families.
American claims for their return to slavery, or for compensation to former American slave-owners remained a matter of international litigation until 1826.
During 1815-1820 Lieutenant Newell was active on shore duty as a timber agent and as a naval contractor.
During the early 1820s Lieutenant Newell served with Captains Robert and John D. Henley, then commanded the flotilla of shallow water barges in the Caribbean "Mosquito Fleet" under Commodore David Porter.
Assigned to the Mediterranean, Lieutenant Newell was for a short time in command of the armed schooner USS Porpoise. After duties ashore and afloat, often in Washington, DC, Newell was advanced to the rank of "Master Commandant" to rank from March 3, 1831.
Newell was for a time (1832-34) in command of the Sloop of War USS Saint Louis (again in the West Indies) before court-martial charges brought about his relief from that command and a two-year suspension from the active service for "ungentlemanly conduct".
In the meantime, Master Commandant Newell's widowed mother, Mrs Rebecca Bolton Newell (1756-1833) and his brother, Robert Newell, had passed away. A daughter died in 1834.
In 1838, by Act of Congress, the US Naval rank of "Master Commandant" was redesignated as "Commander" (its present form), and as such Commander Newell retained his seniority which dated from 1831.
Promoted to Captain, U.S. Navy, to rank from January 28, 1840, the "Commodore" found himself back in Savannah for several years in a waiting orders status. He saw no active sea service as a US Naval Officer after 1844.
The 1850 and 1860 US Census for Chatham County, Georgia, show the Commodore and his family as Georgia planters.
Both Captain Thomas Moore Newell and his younger cousin (and former brother-in-law) Commander Lloyd Bolton Newell (who was by then a resident of Philadelphia, Pa.) were among the US Naval officers dropped from the service by an Act of Congress in September 1855.
Both were among the officers restored to the US Navy's inactive Reserve List in 1858 with their original ranks and seniority intact.
Commodore Thomas Moore Newell married twice.
On August 3, 1820, he married his first cousin, Miss Rebecca Foster Newell. Rebecca, born in Connecticut on April 27, 1802, was a daughter of Thomas Moore Newell's above-mentioned uncle, Captain Gamaliel Newell (1755-1810).
Though originally New Englanders, the Newells were friends and associates of the Boltons, Habershams, and were well known in Savannah's mercantile society.
Rebecca Newell's younger brother, Lloyd Bolton Newell (1804-1861 and mentioned above), was appointed from the State of Georgia as a Midshipman in the U.S. Navy during the same year (1820) as his sister's marriage. Cousins thus became brother-in-laws and brother officers as well.
During their five year marriage, Thomas Moore Newell and Rebecca F. Newell had one daughter, Susan ("Suzette") Rebecca Newell, who was born in Washington, DC, on December 3, 1825.
The baby girl's mother, who was Commodore Newell's first wife, died in the nation's capitol just a week later, on December 11, 1825.
Little Suzette survived, and in 1851 she became the second wife of another Savannah cousin, Richard Wylly Adams (1811-1898.) Years later, Mrs Richard Wylly ("Suzette" Newell-) Adams predeceased her husband, and died in Savannah on December 31, 1893 at the age of 68. The Commodore's oldest daughter was buried in Laurel Grove Cemetery (North) in January 1894. Suzette (Newell) Adams was the mother of a large family.
On May 27, 1830, still in Washington, DC, the now widowed Commodore Newell married still another Savannah cousin (on the Bolton side), Miss Hester ("Hetty") Rebecca Adams.
Hetty was an older sister of the above mentioned Richard Wylly Adams who would later marry her step-daughter.
Mrs "Hetty" Newell, born in Savannah on November 23, 1807, was still living in Savannah in 1883 with an $8.00/month pension as the widow of a former US Navy Captain. In addition to Suzette, the Commodore and "Hetty" raised six children together.
The children of "Commodore" Thomas Moore Newell (late Captain, U.S. Navy) and "Hetty" Adams Newell were:
(1.) Helen Georgia Newell (born in Washington, DC) on November 9, 1831. She died in her infancy, in Savannah, on April 14, 1834.
(2.) Miss Roberta Bolton Newell (May 1835 - ??) who never married and was still living (with her widowed sisters) in Savannah in 1900.
(3.) Helena ("Ella") Thomasene Newell (31 October 1838-3 December 1912) married a widower, Leonard Young Gibbs (1834-1898), in Savannah in September 1880. Leonard Y. Gibbs was confined at Point Lookout, Maryland, as a prisoner of war by the Federals during the Civil war. He later became a respected Savannah sales merchant.
(4.) Nannette Habersham Newell (February 1842-31 January 1925) married the Irish-born Savannah entrepreneur, James B. West (1838-1888), at the White Bluff Presbyterian Church in 1867. They did well and had a number of children, notably James Bolton West (1869-1925, Thomas Newell West (1872- ), and Estella Adams West. A widow by the time of the 1900 US Census for Chatham County Georgia, Nanette's household then included two of her surviving sisters, "Aunts" Roberta and Ella (above).
(5.) Thomas Moore Newell Jr (1844-1883) came next. He served in the Confederate Army and later became a Savannah merchant. The Savannah City directories of 1876-1883 show him employed by his brother-in-law, James B. West (above). He married Ella Josephine Turner (1852-1927) of Savannah. The Newells had a daughter, Josephine H (Habersham?) Newell, who was three years old in 1880, and a son named Thomas Moore Newell, who was born in 1882 and died in 1893 at the age of 10.
(6.) Mary Wylly Newell (25 August 1846-13 December 1916), was the youngest of the "Newell girls." In 1868 she married Lewis Tattnall Turner (1846-1903) who was the half-brother of her sister-in-law, Ella Josephine Turner (above). Lewis T. Turner, who had attended the Georgia Military Institute for a year, served as a Confederate Army officer during the Civil war and later became a reputable Savannah merchant and business partner in the cotton export trade. The Turner children included Mary Ella Turner, Lewis Newell Turner, Francis Muir Turner, and Gibson Turner.
The Newells figure prominently in the book "Ebb Tide: As Seen Through the Diary of Josephine Clay Habersham 1863," by Spencer Bidwell King Jr. , 1958, The University of Georgia Press, Athens, Georgia 30602 www.ugapress.org.
Paperback ISBN-13:978-0 8203-3447-9 and ISBN-10:0-8203-3447-2. as well as numerous other works on 19th century US Naval history and the history of North American Slavery, settlement, and commerce.
Commodore Newell's hand-written letter of resignation from the U.S. Navy was signed, dated, and posted to the Navy Department on March 14, 1861, in Savannah, Georgia.
The letter of resignation was received at the Navy Department in Washington, DC, and approved to become immediately effective on March 18, 1861.
Fort Sumter had not yet been fired upon, but there was no turning back.
The former "Commodore" (actually a Captain, which then was the highest rank in the United States Navy) Thomas Moore Newell had until then ranked 13th or 14th on the (US Navy Dept's) Navy List in terms of seniority among his peers. His 47 years on the rolls of the US Navy included: 7 years and 5 months spent at sea; 6 years and 5 months on shore or "other" duty; and a total of 32 years and 9 months unemployed or on a waiting orders status. He was last at sea as a US naval officer in October 1844.
Only one former U.S. Navy officer senior to him, Commodore (Captain) Lawrence Rousseau USN/CSN (1790-1866) of Louisiana, was destined to accept a commission in the Confederate Navy.
According to the City burial records of Savannah, Georgia, this former U.S.Navy officer did not live to see Sherman's Army enter Savannah.
"Commodore" (once a courtesy title for senior U.S. Navy Captains) Thomas Moore Newell (1782-1864) was a native of Savannah, Georgia, and a one time merchant who may have been involved with the Atlantic slave trade prior to the War of 1812. He later became a US Naval officer and a Georgia planter.
The Atlantic slave trade, an important factor in the economy of the old antebellum American South, continued legally until January 1, 1808, and did not effectively end even in 1820, when international treaty law came to equate the seaborne commerce in human beings with piracy.
Savannah's maritime proximity to Spanish East Florida made the port city an important destination for all kinds of commerce in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
From 1811 Thomas Moore Newell served, first, as a privateer captain (against the Spanish and British in Florida) and then as a United States Army officer prior to embarking in the United States Navy where he remained on the rolls for nearly 48 years. After serving in the defense of Savannah during the War of 1812 and in the campaigns against piracy in the Caribbean he attained the rank of Captain, U.S. Navy, and the courtesy title of "Commodore," only to resign his commission at the age of 78 following the secession of Georgia from the Union in 1861.
Already in retirement, the Commodore did not join or apply for a commission in the Confederate Navy.
His younger cousin and erstwhile brother-in-law, Commander Lloyd Bolton Newell (1804-1861 See below and Find a Grave Memorial No. 60747241), preferred suicide (in Philadelphia, Pa.) to leaving the US Navy.
Commodore Thomas Moore Newell's own son, Thomas Moore Newell Jr. (1844-1883), served as a private in company B of the 18th Georgia (Olmstead's) Battalion (Georgia State Troops - Provisional Confederate States Army).
The Commodore's Connecticut-born father, and Massachusetts-born grandfather, were both sea captains of the old colonial-era merchant marine who had previously borne the name of "Thomas Newell."
It was the father, Captain Thomas Newell (died 1810), who made Savannah his home port during the Revolutionary War, and it was there that the father eventually became a prominent sea captain, mercantile business partner, and property owner, marrying the future Commodore's mother, Rebecca Bolton (1756-1833).
The Boltons, who came to Savannah from Philadelphia and South Carolina, were an old Savannah family of highly respectable colonial notables and merchants. Their pre-colonial roots were in Great Britain and Switzerland.
The elder Captain Thomas Newell (father of the future U.S.Navy officer) was briefly detained by the French during the undeclared naval war of 1800, when his vessel, bound from Savannah for the Austro-Italian port of Venice, was seized by privateers.
Commodore Newell's father, this "elder" Thomas Newell of Savannah, was born in Connecticut in 1745 (or 1747 ?) and died in Savannah on September 15, 1810, just a few days after the death of his brother, the future Commodore's uncle, Gamaliel Newell, who also came from Connecticut and who expired in Savannah on September 12, 1810.
Fever epidemics were a hardship of the times, for Gamaliel Newell's 16 year-old daughter (and the future Commodore's cousin), Miss Mira Newell (1794-1810), also died in Savannah on October 3rd of that year.
The City records state that the elder "Captain" Thomas Newell left a widow (Rebecca Bolton Newell), and two sons, the future "Commodore" T.M. Newell (1782-1864), and his brother, Robert Newell (1784-1833). Robert Newell died in Savannah in November 1833 of heart disease.
By the early 1800s the Newells (Thomas and his brother Robert) had acquired important wharf and warehouse properties in the port of Savannah.
During 1811-1813 Thomas Moore Newell, already a seasoned ship's officer of the merchant marine, commanded the 3-gun American privateer schooner ATAS, of Savannah. No important prize captures were recorded or ajudicated.
Back in his home port of Savannah Thomas Moore Newell was commissioned a Captain (U.S. Army) of the company of "Sea Fencibles" to rank from August 1, 1813. Newell's company had the mission of repelling eventual British attacks against the port.
Captain Newell was then appointed a Sailing Master, the now obsolete equivalent of the present day rank of Lieutenant junior grade, U.S. Navy, to rank from September 11, 1813. Both Newell's Army and Navy appointments were credited to the state of Georgia.
Honorably discharged from the U.S. Army on August 1, 1814, Newell was advanced to the rank of Lieutenant, U.S. Navy, to rank from December 9, 1814.
Early in 1815 Lieutenant Newell was one of the commissioners sent to Bermuda to negociate the return of confiscated property and former slaves who had joined the British forces in the Chesapeake, Georgia's Sea Islands, and the Bahamas during 1813-1815.
Under terms of the Treaty of Ghent (1814), and in compliance with British law, the British Royal Navy simply refused to hand over the former slaves, who now had become British subjects and British naval and military personnel.
Together with their dependents, the American-born former slaves were shielded from the remonstrations of "Captain" Newell and Commissioner Thomas Spalding (1774-1851), both of whom hailed from the state of Georgia.
The newly freed British subjects were eventually discharged from the Royal Navy, the British Corps of Colonial Marines, and the West Indies regiments of the British Army to settle freely in Canada or in the British West Indies with their families.
American claims for their return to slavery, or for compensation to former American slave-owners remained a matter of international litigation until 1826.
During 1815-1820 Lieutenant Newell was active on shore duty as a timber agent and as a naval contractor.
During the early 1820s Lieutenant Newell served with Captains Robert and John D. Henley, then commanded the flotilla of shallow water barges in the Caribbean "Mosquito Fleet" under Commodore David Porter.
Assigned to the Mediterranean, Lieutenant Newell was for a short time in command of the armed schooner USS Porpoise. After duties ashore and afloat, often in Washington, DC, Newell was advanced to the rank of "Master Commandant" to rank from March 3, 1831.
Newell was for a time (1832-34) in command of the Sloop of War USS Saint Louis (again in the West Indies) before court-martial charges brought about his relief from that command and a two-year suspension from the active service for "ungentlemanly conduct".
In the meantime, Master Commandant Newell's widowed mother, Mrs Rebecca Bolton Newell (1756-1833) and his brother, Robert Newell, had passed away. A daughter died in 1834.
In 1838, by Act of Congress, the US Naval rank of "Master Commandant" was redesignated as "Commander" (its present form), and as such Commander Newell retained his seniority which dated from 1831.
Promoted to Captain, U.S. Navy, to rank from January 28, 1840, the "Commodore" found himself back in Savannah for several years in a waiting orders status. He saw no active sea service as a US Naval Officer after 1844.
The 1850 and 1860 US Census for Chatham County, Georgia, show the Commodore and his family as Georgia planters.
Both Captain Thomas Moore Newell and his younger cousin (and former brother-in-law) Commander Lloyd Bolton Newell (who was by then a resident of Philadelphia, Pa.) were among the US Naval officers dropped from the service by an Act of Congress in September 1855.
Both were among the officers restored to the US Navy's inactive Reserve List in 1858 with their original ranks and seniority intact.
Commodore Thomas Moore Newell married twice.
On August 3, 1820, he married his first cousin, Miss Rebecca Foster Newell. Rebecca, born in Connecticut on April 27, 1802, was a daughter of Thomas Moore Newell's above-mentioned uncle, Captain Gamaliel Newell (1755-1810).
Though originally New Englanders, the Newells were friends and associates of the Boltons, Habershams, and were well known in Savannah's mercantile society.
Rebecca Newell's younger brother, Lloyd Bolton Newell (1804-1861 and mentioned above), was appointed from the State of Georgia as a Midshipman in the U.S. Navy during the same year (1820) as his sister's marriage. Cousins thus became brother-in-laws and brother officers as well.
During their five year marriage, Thomas Moore Newell and Rebecca F. Newell had one daughter, Susan ("Suzette") Rebecca Newell, who was born in Washington, DC, on December 3, 1825.
The baby girl's mother, who was Commodore Newell's first wife, died in the nation's capitol just a week later, on December 11, 1825.
Little Suzette survived, and in 1851 she became the second wife of another Savannah cousin, Richard Wylly Adams (1811-1898.) Years later, Mrs Richard Wylly ("Suzette" Newell-) Adams predeceased her husband, and died in Savannah on December 31, 1893 at the age of 68. The Commodore's oldest daughter was buried in Laurel Grove Cemetery (North) in January 1894. Suzette (Newell) Adams was the mother of a large family.
On May 27, 1830, still in Washington, DC, the now widowed Commodore Newell married still another Savannah cousin (on the Bolton side), Miss Hester ("Hetty") Rebecca Adams.
Hetty was an older sister of the above mentioned Richard Wylly Adams who would later marry her step-daughter.
Mrs "Hetty" Newell, born in Savannah on November 23, 1807, was still living in Savannah in 1883 with an $8.00/month pension as the widow of a former US Navy Captain. In addition to Suzette, the Commodore and "Hetty" raised six children together.
The children of "Commodore" Thomas Moore Newell (late Captain, U.S. Navy) and "Hetty" Adams Newell were:
(1.) Helen Georgia Newell (born in Washington, DC) on November 9, 1831. She died in her infancy, in Savannah, on April 14, 1834.
(2.) Miss Roberta Bolton Newell (May 1835 - ??) who never married and was still living (with her widowed sisters) in Savannah in 1900.
(3.) Helena ("Ella") Thomasene Newell (31 October 1838-3 December 1912) married a widower, Leonard Young Gibbs (1834-1898), in Savannah in September 1880. Leonard Y. Gibbs was confined at Point Lookout, Maryland, as a prisoner of war by the Federals during the Civil war. He later became a respected Savannah sales merchant.
(4.) Nannette Habersham Newell (February 1842-31 January 1925) married the Irish-born Savannah entrepreneur, James B. West (1838-1888), at the White Bluff Presbyterian Church in 1867. They did well and had a number of children, notably James Bolton West (1869-1925, Thomas Newell West (1872- ), and Estella Adams West. A widow by the time of the 1900 US Census for Chatham County Georgia, Nanette's household then included two of her surviving sisters, "Aunts" Roberta and Ella (above).
(5.) Thomas Moore Newell Jr (1844-1883) came next. He served in the Confederate Army and later became a Savannah merchant. The Savannah City directories of 1876-1883 show him employed by his brother-in-law, James B. West (above). He married Ella Josephine Turner (1852-1927) of Savannah. The Newells had a daughter, Josephine H (Habersham?) Newell, who was three years old in 1880, and a son named Thomas Moore Newell, who was born in 1882 and died in 1893 at the age of 10.
(6.) Mary Wylly Newell (25 August 1846-13 December 1916), was the youngest of the "Newell girls." In 1868 she married Lewis Tattnall Turner (1846-1903) who was the half-brother of her sister-in-law, Ella Josephine Turner (above). Lewis T. Turner, who had attended the Georgia Military Institute for a year, served as a Confederate Army officer during the Civil war and later became a reputable Savannah merchant and business partner in the cotton export trade. The Turner children included Mary Ella Turner, Lewis Newell Turner, Francis Muir Turner, and Gibson Turner.
The Newells figure prominently in the book "Ebb Tide: As Seen Through the Diary of Josephine Clay Habersham 1863," by Spencer Bidwell King Jr. , 1958, The University of Georgia Press, Athens, Georgia 30602 www.ugapress.org.
Paperback ISBN-13:978-0 8203-3447-9 and ISBN-10:0-8203-3447-2. as well as numerous other works on 19th century US Naval history and the history of North American Slavery, settlement, and commerce.
Commodore Newell's hand-written letter of resignation from the U.S. Navy was signed, dated, and posted to the Navy Department on March 14, 1861, in Savannah, Georgia.
The letter of resignation was received at the Navy Department in Washington, DC, and approved to become immediately effective on March 18, 1861.
Fort Sumter had not yet been fired upon, but there was no turning back.
The former "Commodore" (actually a Captain, which then was the highest rank in the United States Navy) Thomas Moore Newell had until then ranked 13th or 14th on the (US Navy Dept's) Navy List in terms of seniority among his peers. His 47 years on the rolls of the US Navy included: 7 years and 5 months spent at sea; 6 years and 5 months on shore or "other" duty; and a total of 32 years and 9 months unemployed or on a waiting orders status. He was last at sea as a US naval officer in October 1844.
Only one former U.S. Navy officer senior to him, Commodore (Captain) Lawrence Rousseau USN/CSN (1790-1866) of Louisiana, was destined to accept a commission in the Confederate Navy.
According to the City burial records of Savannah, Georgia, this former U.S.Navy officer did not live to see Sherman's Army enter Savannah.
The Atlantic slave trade, an important factor in the economy of the old antebellum American South, continued legally until January 1, 1808, and did not effectively end even in 1820, when international treaty law came to equate the seaborne commerce in human beings with piracy.
Savannah's maritime proximity to Spanish East Florida made the port city an important destination for all kinds of commerce in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
From 1811 Thomas Moore Newell served, first, as a privateer captain (against the Spanish and British in Florida) and then as a United States Army officer prior to embarking in the United States Navy where he remained on the rolls for nearly 48 years. After serving in the defense of Savannah during the War of 1812 and in the campaigns against piracy in the Caribbean he attained the rank of Captain, U.S. Navy, and the courtesy title of "Commodore," only to resign his commission at the age of 78 following the secession of Georgia from the Union in 1861.
Already in retirement, the Commodore did not join or apply for a commission in the Confederate Navy.
His younger cousin and erstwhile brother-in-law, Commander Lloyd Bolton Newell (1804-1861 See below and Find a Grave Memorial No. 60747241), preferred suicide (in Philadelphia, Pa.) to leaving the US Navy.
Commodore Thomas Moore Newell's own son, Thomas Moore Newell Jr. (1844-1883), served as a private in company B of the 18th Georgia (Olmstead's) Battalion (Georgia State Troops - Provisional Confederate States Army).
The Commodore's Connecticut-born father, and Massachusetts-born grandfather, were both sea captains of the old colonial-era merchant marine who had previously borne the name of "Thomas Newell."
It was the father, Captain Thomas Newell (died 1810), who made Savannah his home port during the Revolutionary War, and it was there that the father eventually became a prominent sea captain, mercantile business partner, and property owner, marrying the future Commodore's mother, Rebecca Bolton (1756-1833).
The Boltons, who came to Savannah from Philadelphia and South Carolina, were an old Savannah family of highly respectable colonial notables and merchants. Their pre-colonial roots were in Great Britain and Switzerland.
The elder Captain Thomas Newell (father of the future U.S.Navy officer) was briefly detained by the French during the undeclared naval war of 1800, when his vessel, bound from Savannah for the Austro-Italian port of Venice, was seized by privateers.
Commodore Newell's father, this "elder" Thomas Newell of Savannah, was born in Connecticut in 1745 (or 1747 ?) and died in Savannah on September 15, 1810, just a few days after the death of his brother, the future Commodore's uncle, Gamaliel Newell, who also came from Connecticut and who expired in Savannah on September 12, 1810.
Fever epidemics were a hardship of the times, for Gamaliel Newell's 16 year-old daughter (and the future Commodore's cousin), Miss Mira Newell (1794-1810), also died in Savannah on October 3rd of that year.
The City records state that the elder "Captain" Thomas Newell left a widow (Rebecca Bolton Newell), and two sons, the future "Commodore" T.M. Newell (1782-1864), and his brother, Robert Newell (1784-1833). Robert Newell died in Savannah in November 1833 of heart disease.
By the early 1800s the Newells (Thomas and his brother Robert) had acquired important wharf and warehouse properties in the port of Savannah.
During 1811-1813 Thomas Moore Newell, already a seasoned ship's officer of the merchant marine, commanded the 3-gun American privateer schooner ATAS, of Savannah. No important prize captures were recorded or ajudicated.
Back in his home port of Savannah Thomas Moore Newell was commissioned a Captain (U.S. Army) of the company of "Sea Fencibles" to rank from August 1, 1813. Newell's company had the mission of repelling eventual British attacks against the port.
Captain Newell was then appointed a Sailing Master, the now obsolete equivalent of the present day rank of Lieutenant junior grade, U.S. Navy, to rank from September 11, 1813. Both Newell's Army and Navy appointments were credited to the state of Georgia.
Honorably discharged from the U.S. Army on August 1, 1814, Newell was advanced to the rank of Lieutenant, U.S. Navy, to rank from December 9, 1814.
Early in 1815 Lieutenant Newell was one of the commissioners sent to Bermuda to negociate the return of confiscated property and former slaves who had joined the British forces in the Chesapeake, Georgia's Sea Islands, and the Bahamas during 1813-1815.
Under terms of the Treaty of Ghent (1814), and in compliance with British law, the British Royal Navy simply refused to hand over the former slaves, who now had become British subjects and British naval and military personnel.
Together with their dependents, the American-born former slaves were shielded from the remonstrations of "Captain" Newell and Commissioner Thomas Spalding (1774-1851), both of whom hailed from the state of Georgia.
The newly freed British subjects were eventually discharged from the Royal Navy, the British Corps of Colonial Marines, and the West Indies regiments of the British Army to settle freely in Canada or in the British West Indies with their families.
American claims for their return to slavery, or for compensation to former American slave-owners remained a matter of international litigation until 1826.
During 1815-1820 Lieutenant Newell was active on shore duty as a timber agent and as a naval contractor.
During the early 1820s Lieutenant Newell served with Captains Robert and John D. Henley, then commanded the flotilla of shallow water barges in the Caribbean "Mosquito Fleet" under Commodore David Porter.
Assigned to the Mediterranean, Lieutenant Newell was for a short time in command of the armed schooner USS Porpoise. After duties ashore and afloat, often in Washington, DC, Newell was advanced to the rank of "Master Commandant" to rank from March 3, 1831.
Newell was for a time (1832-34) in command of the Sloop of War USS Saint Louis (again in the West Indies) before court-martial charges brought about his relief from that command and a two-year suspension from the active service for "ungentlemanly conduct".
In the meantime, Master Commandant Newell's widowed mother, Mrs Rebecca Bolton Newell (1756-1833) and his brother, Robert Newell, had passed away. A daughter died in 1834.
In 1838, by Act of Congress, the US Naval rank of "Master Commandant" was redesignated as "Commander" (its present form), and as such Commander Newell retained his seniority which dated from 1831.
Promoted to Captain, U.S. Navy, to rank from January 28, 1840, the "Commodore" found himself back in Savannah for several years in a waiting orders status. He saw no active sea service as a US Naval Officer after 1844.
The 1850 and 1860 US Census for Chatham County, Georgia, show the Commodore and his family as Georgia planters.
Both Captain Thomas Moore Newell and his younger cousin (and former brother-in-law) Commander Lloyd Bolton Newell (who was by then a resident of Philadelphia, Pa.) were among the US Naval officers dropped from the service by an Act of Congress in September 1855.
Both were among the officers restored to the US Navy's inactive Reserve List in 1858 with their original ranks and seniority intact.
Commodore Thomas Moore Newell married twice.
On August 3, 1820, he married his first cousin, Miss Rebecca Foster Newell. Rebecca, born in Connecticut on April 27, 1802, was a daughter of Thomas Moore Newell's above-mentioned uncle, Captain Gamaliel Newell (1755-1810).
Though originally New Englanders, the Newells were friends and associates of the Boltons, Habershams, and were well known in Savannah's mercantile society.
Rebecca Newell's younger brother, Lloyd Bolton Newell (1804-1861 and mentioned above), was appointed from the State of Georgia as a Midshipman in the U.S. Navy during the same year (1820) as his sister's marriage. Cousins thus became brother-in-laws and brother officers as well.
During their five year marriage, Thomas Moore Newell and Rebecca F. Newell had one daughter, Susan ("Suzette") Rebecca Newell, who was born in Washington, DC, on December 3, 1825.
The baby girl's mother, who was Commodore Newell's first wife, died in the nation's capitol just a week later, on December 11, 1825.
Little Suzette survived, and in 1851 she became the second wife of another Savannah cousin, Richard Wylly Adams (1811-1898.) Years later, Mrs Richard Wylly ("Suzette" Newell-) Adams predeceased her husband, and died in Savannah on December 31, 1893 at the age of 68. The Commodore's oldest daughter was buried in Laurel Grove Cemetery (North) in January 1894. Suzette (Newell) Adams was the mother of a large family.
On May 27, 1830, still in Washington, DC, the now widowed Commodore Newell married still another Savannah cousin (on the Bolton side), Miss Hester ("Hetty") Rebecca Adams.
Hetty was an older sister of the above mentioned Richard Wylly Adams who would later marry her step-daughter.
Mrs "Hetty" Newell, born in Savannah on November 23, 1807, was still living in Savannah in 1883 with an $8.00/month pension as the widow of a former US Navy Captain. In addition to Suzette, the Commodore and "Hetty" raised six children together.
The children of "Commodore" Thomas Moore Newell (late Captain, U.S. Navy) and "Hetty" Adams Newell were:
(1.) Helen Georgia Newell (born in Washington, DC) on November 9, 1831. She died in her infancy, in Savannah, on April 14, 1834.
(2.) Miss Roberta Bolton Newell (May 1835 - ??) who never married and was still living (with her widowed sisters) in Savannah in 1900.
(3.) Helena ("Ella") Thomasene Newell (31 October 1838-3 December 1912) married a widower, Leonard Young Gibbs (1834-1898), in Savannah in September 1880. Leonard Y. Gibbs was confined at Point Lookout, Maryland, as a prisoner of war by the Federals during the Civil war. He later became a respected Savannah sales merchant.
(4.) Nannette Habersham Newell (February 1842-31 January 1925) married the Irish-born Savannah entrepreneur, James B. West (1838-1888), at the White Bluff Presbyterian Church in 1867. They did well and had a number of children, notably James Bolton West (1869-1925, Thomas Newell West (1872- ), and Estella Adams West. A widow by the time of the 1900 US Census for Chatham County Georgia, Nanette's household then included two of her surviving sisters, "Aunts" Roberta and Ella (above).
(5.) Thomas Moore Newell Jr (1844-1883) came next. He served in the Confederate Army and later became a Savannah merchant. The Savannah City directories of 1876-1883 show him employed by his brother-in-law, James B. West (above). He married Ella Josephine Turner (1852-1927) of Savannah. The Newells had a daughter, Josephine H (Habersham?) Newell, who was three years old in 1880, and a son named Thomas Moore Newell, who was born in 1882 and died in 1893 at the age of 10.
(6.) Mary Wylly Newell (25 August 1846-13 December 1916), was the youngest of the "Newell girls." In 1868 she married Lewis Tattnall Turner (1846-1903) who was the half-brother of her sister-in-law, Ella Josephine Turner (above). Lewis T. Turner, who had attended the Georgia Military Institute for a year, served as a Confederate Army officer during the Civil war and later became a reputable Savannah merchant and business partner in the cotton export trade. The Turner children included Mary Ella Turner, Lewis Newell Turner, Francis Muir Turner, and Gibson Turner.
The Newells figure prominently in the book "Ebb Tide: As Seen Through the Diary of Josephine Clay Habersham 1863," by Spencer Bidwell King Jr. , 1958, The University of Georgia Press, Athens, Georgia 30602 www.ugapress.org.
Paperback ISBN-13:978-0 8203-3447-9 and ISBN-10:0-8203-3447-2. as well as numerous other works on 19th century US Naval history and the history of North American Slavery, settlement, and commerce.
Commodore Newell's hand-written letter of resignation from the U.S. Navy was signed, dated, and posted to the Navy Department on March 14, 1861, in Savannah, Georgia.
The letter of resignation was received at the Navy Department in Washington, DC, and approved to become immediately effective on March 18, 1861.
Fort Sumter had not yet been fired upon, but there was no turning back.
The former "Commodore" (actually a Captain, which then was the highest rank in the United States Navy) Thomas Moore Newell had until then ranked 13th or 14th on the (US Navy Dept's) Navy List in terms of seniority among his peers. His 47 years on the rolls of the US Navy included: 7 years and 5 months spent at sea; 6 years and 5 months on shore or "other" duty; and a total of 32 years and 9 months unemployed or on a waiting orders status. He was last at sea as a US naval officer in October 1844.
Only one former U.S. Navy officer senior to him, Commodore (Captain) Lawrence Rousseau USN/CSN (1790-1866) of Louisiana, was destined to accept a commission in the Confederate Navy.
According to the City burial records of Savannah, Georgia, this former U.S.Navy officer did not live to see Sherman's Army enter Savannah.
Family Members
Advertisement
Records on Ancestry
Sponsored by Ancestry
Advertisement
