Frederick Haynes Newell (March 5, 1862 – July 5, 1932) served as the first Director of the United States Reclamation Service. Born in Bradford, Pennsylvania, he graduated in 1885 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and after field experience in Colorado and other states was appointed on October 2, 1888, as Assistant Hydraulic Engineer of the United States Geological Survey, being the first aide designated under Major John Wesley Powell to investigate the extent to which the arid regions of the United States might be reclaimed by irrigation. He was subsequently appointed Chief of the Hydrographic Branch.

At the same time, he actively assisted Representative Francis G. Newlands (later Senator) of Nevada, George H. Maxwell of California, President of the National Irrigation Association, and others in the preparation and public presentation of various Congressional bills, one of which by the personal efforts of President Theodore Roosevelt became the Reclamation Act when signed by the latter on June 17, 1902. Immediately after that date Mr. Newell was appointed Chief Engineer under Charles D. Walcott, then Director of the U. S. Geological Survey. In 1907 Roosevelt appointed him as a member of the Inland Waterways Commission.

Early life

Newell was born on March 5, 1862, in Bradford, Pennsylvania, a small lumber and mining town to father, Augustus William Newell, and mother, Anna M. Haynes. His father was an early industrialist and real estate mogul in Bradford. Newell's mother and Newell's sibling died in child birth a year after Newell was born. Newell would spend his childhood and teenage years with extended relatives, living with his uncle in Newton, Connecticut prior to attending MIT.

Early career

After receiving his BA in Mining Engineering, Newell returned to Bradford to work for his father. Frederick described his father as "always sanguine, full of entrancing schemes...He was surveyor, engineer and general all around man . . . . He bought and sold coal and timber lands and went into various ventures, characteristic of the time and place. One of the functions of the Irrigation Survey was to undertake a systematic program of measuring streamflow in rivers across the western United States in order to determine how much land could be irrigated in each river basin. Newell was hired to develop the methods to be used to accomplish this and to train engineers to carry it out. This was done at a camp on the banks of the Rio Grande River at Embudo, New Mexico in the winter of 1888–9. This is the site of the Embudo Stream Gauging Station. It is now regarded as the birthplace of systematic streamgaging in the United States. Starting in the Spring of 1889 the hydrographers trained at Embudo fanned out to establish streamgages all across the Western US. Newell lead these efforts and created the convention of using the spelling "gage" (still in use in the Geological Survey as of 2022) rather than "gauge". <blockquote>"The pioneer work he performed in those early years in the Geological Survey has led to his having often been referred to as the 'father of systematic stream gaging' in [the US]"

Personal life

In 1877, his father, Augustus W. Newell, married his second wife Miss Phoebe Lewis. They begot Lewis, Henry Foster, and Augustus William Jr.

Frederick Haynes Newell married Effie Josephine Mackintosh April 3, 1890 in Milton, Massachusetts. Her father was John Sherman Mackintosh, the grandson of John Sherman and the great-grandson of American founding father Roger Sherman.

Newell died at his offices in Washington, D.C., on July 5, 1932. He was buried at Needham Cemetery in Massachusetts.

Legacy

In 2003 the USGS and Bureau of Reclamation jointly opened an office building in Boise, Idaho that was named for Newell, recognizing the important role he played in the development of these two bureaus within the Department of the Interior. Public Law 108-462 designated the building as the "F.H. Newell Building". It was signed into law on December 21, 2004. The building is located at 230 Collins Road, Boise, Idaho. The building features a number of energy efficiency features.

Books by Newell

  • Oil Well Drilling (1888)
  • Agriculture by Irrigation (1894)
  • Hydrography of the Arid Regions (1891)
  • The Public Lands of the United States (1895)
  • Irrigation in the United States (1902)
  • Hawaii, Its Natural Resources (1909)
  • Principles of Irrigation Engineering (1913)
  • Irrigation Management (1916)
  • Engineering as a Career (1916)
  • Water Resources, Present and Future Uses (1919)

References

  • Biography
  • Photo
  • F.H. Newell Federal Building; Boise, ID