Background
Robert Newell was born on March 30, 1807 in Muskingum County, Ohio, United States. The names of his parents are not known.
Robert Newell was born on March 30, 1807 in Muskingum County, Ohio, United States. The names of his parents are not known.
Newell became a saddler's apprentice in Cincinnati. On March 17, 1829, he left St. Louis with a trapping party for the mountains, forming on the way a lasting friendship with a youth of nineteen, afterward well known, Joseph L. Meek. He remained a trapper for eleven years.
At some time he acquired the nickname of "Doc" (or "Doctor"), which ever afterward he bore. In 1840 he and Meek, with their Indian families, accompanied by two white men, started from Fort Hall for Oregon, taking with them three wagons. Newell and Meek settled near the present Hillsboro, in the Willamette Valley. Newell from the first actively interested himself in the affairs of the settlements and soon became a leader. In the meeting of May 2, 1843, which took the first effective steps toward the formation of a government, he was chosen a member of the legislative committee which drew up the constitution ratified on July 5.
Throughout the life of the Provisional Government he was a member of the House of Representatives, and for two sessions the speaker. In 1844 he removed to a place near Champoeg. About this time he built two keelboats, probably the first on the upper Willamette, and engaged in transportation.
In the winter of 1848-49 he joined the gold rush to California but returned in the fall of 1850, when he engaged in merchandizing. He commanded a company of scouts in the Indian troubles of 1855-56, and in 1860 he was elected to the state legislature.
The floods of December 1861 destroyed most of his property except his residence. He moved to Lapwai, Idaho, where for six years he served as an interpreter and a special commissioner at the army post and the Indian agency. He became agent on October 1, 1868. In July 1869 he was replaced as agent.
He moved to Lewiston, where died of heart disease.
Newell was a jester; he was sober, studious, prudent, and dependable.
In 1833 he married a Nez Percé woman. His Indian wife died in December 1845 and in 1846 he married Rebecca Newman. In June 1869 he married a Mrs. Ward. His second wife died in May 1867. His wife and several children of his second marriage survived him.