Robert Newell

Robert "Doc" Newell (March 30, 1807 – November 24, 1869) was an American politician and fur trapper in the Oregon Country. He was a frontier doctor in what would become the U.S. state of Oregon. A native of Ohio, he served in the Provisional Government of Oregon and later was a member of the Oregon State Legislature. The Newell House Museum, his reconstructed former home on the French Prairie in Champoeg, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Early life Newell was born on March 30, 1807, in Zanesville, Ohio. In 1829, Newell joined William Sublette and his group on a party to trap beaver.

In 1840, he moved permanently to Oregon Country with his brother-in-law Joseph Meek. The vote passed 52 to 50 and a Provisional Legislature was created. Newell served in that body from 1843 until it was replaced with the Oregon Territorial Legislature in 1849, although he resigned during the final session. During the 1847 meeting of the group, Newell served as Speaker of the body.

Newell's first wife died in 1845 and was buried at Champoeg. Her gravesite is accessible to visitors at the current Champoeg State Heritage Area. He remarried in 1846 to Rebecca Newman. Most of Champoeg was wiped away during an 1861 flood, Newell almost bankrupted himself taking in victims of the flood. He fathered five children by his first wife, and eleven by his second wife. After his death, several Native American tribes granted him of land in what is now Lewiston, with the deed dated June 9, 1871.

Legacy

A replica of Robert Newell's 1852 Gothic Revival house is in Champoeg State Heritage Area. It is run as a house museum by the Oregon State Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution, who rebuilt the badly deteriorated house in time for the Oregon Centennial in 1959. The house retains some of the original architectural details, including some of the windows, doors, and door knobs.