Benjamin Solomon Newman was born in the northeastern part of Franklin County, Mississippi, probably in the general area of the Solomon Newman Plantation Home. Later, when his father, Samuel M. Newman, acquired a farm in Section 3, T7N, R3E, which bordered Middle Fork Creek at the Jefferson County Line, it was here that he spent his years growing into manhood.
According to family accounts, it was during his teenage years that Ben Newman suffered an accident which left him crippled in his left knee for the balance of his lifetime. Accounts indicate that he was working on his father's farm on a particular day, chopping wood with an axe, when somehow the axe, striking a glancing blow, then hit Ben in the area of his left knee. It caused a terrible wound and resulted in the loss of a considerable amount of blood. After the wound had healed, the knee could no longer flex properly, and Ben also suffered an antipathy to the sight of blood. Consequently, his ambition which he had held to study medicine and become a physician, was then lost. Furthermore, at the beginning of the American Civil War when the young men of the South were answering the call for military duty for the Confederacy, enthusiastically enlisting in Southern regiments and returning home on leave in their smart-looking uniforms, Ben was unable to qualify for military duty because of his disability. He probably felt an acute sense of alienation as he saw his father and brother, Joseph, going off to serve in the cause of the Confederate States.
Late in the night of August 12th 1903, Benjamin S. Newman passed away in his home with his children at his bedside. He was buried next to his wife in the cemetery at McNair, Jefferson County, Mississippi.