Edward & Carrie Newport’s Children

By this marriage there were four children, namely; Mary, now Mrs. Dr. S. D. Otis, residing in Meriden; Herbert, who is a druggist in the same city; Belle, at present studying music in the conservatory of Xavier Scharwenka in Berlin, Germany; and Gussie, who is a home in Meriden.

Spalding, J. A. “Illustrated Popular Biography of Connecticut,” 1891. https://www.cga.ct.gov/hco/books/Illus_Pop_Biography_of_CT.pdf.

J. A. Spalding’s 1891 biography states Edward and Carrie had four children. However, they had six children in total. Sadly, they experienced the loss of two sons at a young age, in tragic circumstances. The writer mentions only the children who are alive during the year of publication. Who are the two missing? We will research each of the six children, starting from the firstborn, to answer that question.

Mary Caroline Newport, 1861-1954, born in Windsor Locks during the first year of the couple’s marriage, lives an exciting life from childhood. She embarks on a voyage with her family to Panama, crosses the isthmus by train, and then sets sail again to San Francisco. After spending a year on the opposite coast of her birthplace, she returns home on the inaugural cross-country railroad. Meriden becomes her permanent residence, where she attends school, marries a doctor, raises two sons, and observes the impact of both world wars from the vantage point of Main Street.

Benjamin A. Newport, 1864-1866, is also born in Windsor Locks, Connecticut, not long after his father returns home from serving with the 25th Connecticut Infantry Regiment. Edward began his residency with Dr. Pierson, Holyoke, Massachusetts, in 1865, suggesting that he and Carrie moved their family 20 miles south after Benjamin’s birth. Following a scalding incident, Benjamin tragically dies at the tender age of one year and seven months.1 His death and the course of events that unfold during those two years have a lasting impact on the family, changing them forever. Let’s take a side trip to examine their experiences.

One influence of the times was Dr. Abraham Jacobi. Dr. Jacobi, known as the father of pediatrics, was a German immigrant who arrived in the United States about the same time as Edward. Like Edward’s father, Augustus, he left Germany after the 1848 uprisings. His story may shed some light on the elder Newport’s political leanings, as well.

“Shortly thereafter, Jacobi joined the revolutionary movement in Germany …Later he was imprisoned at Bielefeld and Minden, where he was convicted of lese Majeste in 1853.

Upon release, Jacobi sailed to England, where he stayed with both Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.”

Source: Wikipedia contributors. “Abraham Jacobi.” Wikipedia, September 8, 2023. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Jacobi.

“Starting in 1861 at New York Medical College, he was a professor of childhood diseases. From 1867 to 1870, he was chair of the medical department of the City University of New York.”

ibid

Edward attended New York Medical College, which was formerly known as The New York Homeopathic Medical College, before the term “homeopathic” was dropped in 1936. Jacobi’s name does not appear in the 1867 or 1869 list of professors in Edward’s college yearbook, suggesting that Jacobi may have transitioned to the City University of New York. As a member of both the recently immigrated German community and the medical community, Edward surely attended lectures given by the respected doctor and shared the latest pediatric medical news with his wife. Carrie, having suffered such a heartbreaking loss with Benjamin, would be highly conscientious about taking preventive measures against infectious diseases to protect her children, even if it meant moving across the country to avoid outbreaks.

“Mrs. Newport was a native of Suffield in this state, and for some time resided in Holyoke, Mass., and removed from there to California, for her children’s health, …”

“The Meriden Daily Republican 04 Feb 1875, Page 2,” Newspapers.Com, n.d., https://www.newspapers.com/image/674774517/?terms=%22Mrs%20Dr%20newport%22&match=1.

Thanks to Jacobi, the study of obstetrics and pediatrics becomes its own discipline.

“The inaugural issue of the AMA’s American Journal of Obstetrics and Diseases of Women and Children in 1868, the first partially pediatric journal in the U.S., included an article on croup by Jacobi.”

source: Stanford T. Shulman, “The History of Pediatric Infectious Diseases,” Pediatric Research 55, no. 1 (January 1, 2004): 163–76, doi:10.1203/01.pdr.0000101756.93542.09.

Charles A. Newport, born in 1867, made the month-long journey to California with his family on ship to railroad to ship when he was just a baby. Unfortunately, Charles passes away of an unknown cause in Half Moon Bay in 1869 days before his second birthday. At the same time, Carrie has a newborn. Does Charles’ death and her inability to protect her children from harm, no matter where she lives, cause the return home to Connecticut?

Herbert E. Newport is that baby. Born in Half Moon Bay, California in 1869, he had a strong connection to the area throughout his life. Despite a lack of California records, his birthplace is noted in Connecticut with newspaper accounts and official documents. Bert pursued a career as a pharmacist and eventually returned to California with his wife, where he lived until his passing in 1927.

Clara Belle Newport, born in 1871, was a talented pianist and vocalist who grew up in Meriden, Connecticut. As a teenager, she traveled to Europe to further her studies and perform. During the late 19th century, she had the privilege of performing alongside renowned musician John Phillip Sousa and frequently visited Henry E. Steinway. Belle dedicated herself to her career in Europe during the early 1900s, captivating audiences with her mesmerizing contralto voice in prestigious concert halls. After World War I, she returned to the United States and shared her knowledge by teaching students in Michigan and Illinois. Clara Belle Newport never married and passed away in 1954.

Augusta Albertine Newport, born in 1873 and passed away in 1962, experienced a devastating loss at a very young age when her mother succumbed to a fever that affected their family. She lived an active social life and even journeyed to Europe during her teenage years alongside her father and stepmother, Ann. Later on, at 24, she entered marriage and dedicated herself to raising two children. Throughout her entire life, she lived in Meriden, where she became the last surviving Newport sister until the remarkable age of 89.

Notes for further research:

1. What does the initial “A” stand for in both Benjamin’s and Charles’ names?
2. What is Charles’s cause of death?
3. It seems Augustus Newport was a proponent of Karl Marx. Did he know Abraham Jacobi?

Notes:

• Here is why Edward is working with Dr. Pierson.

“Each candidate for graduation must be of good moral character-attained the age of twenty-one years, and have applied himself to the study of medicine for three years. He must have attended two courses of Medical Lectures, and have been, during that time the private pupil of a respectable practitioner of Medicine.”

Source: Ancestry.com. U.S., School Catalogs, 1765-1935 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2012.

• Edward does his medical thesis on Typhoid Fever. I believe he died of Typhoid Fever.
• Each of Edward’s children deserve their own biographical treatment.

Citations:

1. “Massachusetts, Death Records, 1841-1915,” Ancestry.Com, 2013, https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/person/tree/7824363/person/212025504724/facts.