Isaac Newton

Isaac Newton (March 31, 1800 – June 19, 1867) was an American agriculturalist who was the first United States Commissioner of Agriculture from 1862 to 1867.

Life and career Newton was born in Burlington County, New Jersey, on March 31, 1800, to Isaac and Mary Newton, a Quaker family of English descent. His father died when he was still a baby, and Newton grew up on his paternal grandfather's farm. He attended local schools but did not go to college. At the age of 21, he married Dorothy Birdsall and became the manager of a pair of adjacent farms in Delaware County, Pennsylvania. His entrepreneurial spirit led him to also open an ice cream and confectionery store in Philadelphia as a source of extra income.

The following year, when Congress established the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Newton was appointed the USDA's first commissioner. The appointment was controversial; at least one agricultural publication wrote a sarcastic and almost certainly unfair editorial headlined "Who is Isaac Newton?" alleging that he was illiterate. The more modern view is that he was "energetic and basically sound" in his ideas for the development of the brand-new department. Among other things, he was responsible for inaugurating the USDA's statistical services to collect and analyze agricultural data.