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William Augustus Newell (5 September 1817-8 August 1901) was a member of the US House of Representatives (W-NJ 2) from 4 March 1847 to 3 March 1851 (succeeding George Sykes and preceding Charles Skelton) and from 4 March 1865 to 3 March 1867 (succeeding George Middleton and preceding Charles Haight), Governor of New Jersey from 20 January 1857 to 17 January 1860 (succeeding Rodman M. Price and preceding Charles Smith Olden), and Governor of the Washington Territory from 1 November 1880 to 2 July 1884 (succeeding Elisha P. Ferry and preceding Watson C. Squire).

Biography[]

William Augustus Newell was born in Franklin, Ohio in 1817, and he was raised in New Brunswick, New Jersey from the age of 2. He became a medical practicioner in Manahawkin in 1839, and he later moved to Allentown. He served as a tax collector for Upper Freehold before serving in the US House of Representatives from 1847 to 1851 as a Whig, setting up a series of lighthouses between Sandy Hook and Cape May. Newell went on to serve as New Jersey's first Republican Governor from 1857 to 1860, urging lower taxes, balanced budgets, improvements in the school system, stricter naturalization procedures, restrictions on the suffrage of naturalized citizens, and improvements to education and life-saving systems, working hard to unite the Know Nothings and the liberal Republicans. He later attended the 1860 and 1864 Republican National Conventions and returned to the House from 1865 to 1867, but his anti-immigrant past and his arbitrary execution of an Irish immigrant led to him losing re-election to the House and failing to make a comeback in New Jersey politics. He went on to serve as Governor of the Washington Territory from 1880 to 1884, and he remained in Olympia, Washington for 14 years. He died back in Allentown, New Jersey in 1901 at the age of 83.

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