|
Newton Crain Blanchard
Newton Crain Blanchard
was the son of Carey H. and Frances Amelia Crain
Blanchard, born in Louisiana on January 29, 1849. He
grew up on Goldman Plantation, his father’s cotton
plantation, in Rapides Parish and studied in private
schools. 1 He attended Louisiana State Seminary of
Learning and was granted the L.L.B. degree in 1870. 2 He
began to practice law in Shreveport in 1871.
3
He resisted the reconstruction policy and was brought
before the court in New Orleans. He was charged with
intimidating blacks at the voting polls, but was found
not guilty.
4
Blanchard did,
however, put an end to the activities of black
politicians, permanently restoring white supremacy in
Caddo Parish.
5
He also helped overthrow the Carpetbag rule. 6
Blanchard worked with
Governors Louis A. Wiltz and Samuel Douglas McEnery. He
was elected as a representative of Caddo Parish to the
Louisiana State Constitutional Convention in 1879. In
1880 he was chosen as a representative of the Fourth
Louisiana District in the Forty-Seventh Congress and was
re-elected five times. He helped improve the levees and
flood control as a chairman of the Rivers and Harbors
Committee.7
On December 12 1893 he
married Emily Barret of Shreveport. She died on July
27, 1907, and he married Charlote Tracy of Baton Rouge
on January 20, 1919. He built a grand Victorian mansion,
which was demolished in 1935, on the corner of Common
and Cotton Street. 8
In 1893 President
Grover Cleveland pulled Edward Douglass White from his
Senate seat and appointed him to the United States
Supreme Court; in turn, Governor Murphy J. Foster sent
Blanchard to fill White’s unexpired Senate term. He
achieved tariff legislation that would help Louisiana’s
farming interests. He gave up his seat in the Senate in
1897 to become Associate Justice of the Louisiana
Supreme Court. He remained in the position until 1904
when he was elected governor.9
During his term a
state Department of Forestry, a Board of Charities and
Correction, a Reform School, and a Board of Equalization
were formed. Special school taxes went from $84,000 in
1903 to $3,481,275 by 1907. A State Board of Examiners
was formed for teachers, and a law was passed for school
libraries. The 21,000 volumes in the country schools
changed to 100,000 books within two years. State and
local taxes decreased with the Board of Equalization.
Two-thirds of what had once been in the hands of the
executive government was restored to the people through
popular vote: State Tax Collectors, parish assessors,
school board members, Supreme Court Justices, and the
Register of the State Land office were now elected into
office by the people.
10
A yellow fever epidemic in 1905 caused
Mississippi officials to establish a quarantine on
Louisiana. Governor Blanchard took this to Washington
and instructed Captain J. K. Bostick, the state’s naval
brigade commander, to prepare to defend the state’s
rights. The federal government intervened with the
United States Marine Hospital and ended the so-called
“shotgun quarantine.”
11
He died on July
22, 1922 and was buried in Greenwood Cemetery. 12
References
Back to Top
|
