Newton

Newton, the county seat of Newton County, is at the junction of State Highway 87 and U.S. Highway 190, fifty miles northeast of Beaumont in the north central section of the county. Official settlement of the heavily timbered region was authorized in 1829, when Mexican authorities granted Lorenzo Manuel de Zavala an empresario contract that included much of Southeast Texas. In 1846 the Texas legislature gave the eastern half of Jasper County independent jurisdiction, and the newly organized Newton County was named in honor of John Newton, an American Revolutionary War veteran. Quicksand Creek and Burkeville, respectively, served as the Newton county seats until 1853. Disputed land titles at Burkeville led a local committee to lay out a new town and courthouse at the geographic center of the county. They called it Newton. Postal services appear to have been available to area residents for a few months in 1847, but a permanent post office did not open until 1853. Although a majority of electors voted to make Burkeville the county seat in 1855, the refusal of officials to move from the courthouse built by John Moore at Newton led the state legislature to reaffirm Newton's position the following year. In 1889 the W. H. Ford Male and Female College was chartered with Joseph F. Syler as president. The school later became the town's public high school. The population hovered between 150 and 200 throughout the 1880s and 1890s, when Newton had four general stores; saw, grist, and flour mills; and two or three hotels.

Adapted from the official Handbook of Texas, a state encyclopedia developed by the Texas State Historical Association (TSHA). It is an authoritative source of trusted historical records.