bws #15 02/09
THE CONNECTION BETWEEN
LINCOLN & OCEAN COUNTY
TOMS RIVER -- The Ocean County Board of Chosen Freeholders will mark the 200th anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln's
birth with a proclamation Wednesday honoring his memory and citing his connection to Ocean County's history by recalling
his relationship with Dr. William S. Newell (1817-1901).
The two men served in the U.S. Congress together from 1846-1848. They occupied adjoining seats in Congress and become
friends, rooming and boarding together.
Dr. Newell first practiced medicine in Stafford Township in a building that still stands. As a result of witnessing the
tragic shipwreck of the Austrian vessel, the Count Terasto, in 1839 in the surf at Long Beach Island, he introduced
legislation to establish a plan “…whereby dangerous navigation along the coast of New Jersey between Sandy Hook and Little
Egg Harbor may be furnished with additional safeguards to life and property…”
Then Congressman Lincoln supported the resolution, commenting “Newell, that is a good measure. I will help you. I am
something of a life saver myself, for I invented a scow that righted itself on the Mississippi sandbars.”
Consequently on Aug. 14, 1848, Newell and Lincoln were able to secure a $10,000 appropriation to set up the first federal
lifesaving system along the coast of what is now Ocean County. In 1861, President Lincoln appointed Dr. Newell to be
superintendent of the New Jersey Life Saving Service. The same year Mrs. Mary Todd Lincoln visited Long Branch and while
there witnessed a demonstration of the beach apparatus drill under the supervision of Dr. Newell. Newell held the
superintendent's position until he was reelected to Congress in 1864.
Through this legislation and the further efforts of Dr. William Newell, the United States Lifesaving Service (1872-1915)
was established and from that, in 1915, the United States Coast Guard evolved.
Dr. Newell went on to become New Jersey governor for three years from 1857-1860 under the 1844 New Jersey Constitution, was
appointed governor of the Washington Territory (1880), and held other elected and appointed positions including an
unsuccessful run for New Jersey governor against former General George B. McClellan in 1877.
Dr. Newell remained a lifelong friend of President Lincoln and his family. During the Civil War he was appointed family
physician to the Lincolns who credited him with saving the life of their son Thomas "Tad" Lincoln, who suffered from a case
of Typhoid Fever.
Those who want to learn more about Dr. Newell might enjoy a book written by the Reverend Lloyd R. Applegate, A Life of
Service: William Augustus Newell, published by the Ocean County Historical Society in 1994.
