2nd great-grandfather of Patricia Galloway

Private       Co. E      21st MI Infantry

Dates of Service:  12 Aug 1862 - 21 Jan 1863

Private       10th MI Infantry

Dates of Service:  15 Mar 1865 - 15 May 1865

William A. Newson, a native of England, was born about 1822. No record has been found prior to 1850 when William's family, including his wife Emily and two sons James and Horace, were living in Galen, Wayne Co., New York, where William worked as a shoemaker. His wife, Emily M. Harrison, the daughter of Silas and Rhoda Stewart Harrison, was born in New York, March 31, 1822. Two daughters, Rachel and Caroline Ida, were born in New York before the family relocated to Grand Rapids, Kent Co., Michigan, in 1851, eventually settling in Alaska, Kent Co., where another brother, Shadrach, was born in 1860. William continued to work as a shoemaker. 

At the age of 40, William, along with his sons James W. (aged 19) and Horace S. (aged 18) enlisted in Co. E, Twenty-first Infantry on August 11, 1862. They mustered in on September 3, 1862, at Brownville, Michigan, (now known as Alaska) which is located 16 miles from Grand Rapids, Michigan. William was discharged for disability at Nashville, Tennessee, January 21, 1863. (His son James died in Nashville of typhoid fever February 17, 1863.) On March 15, 1865, William was drafted to the 10th Michigan Infantry Regiment and served to the end of war, being discharged at Hart's Island, New York Harbor, on May 15, 1865. He returned to Caledonia, Michigan, where he succumbed to inflammation of the stomach at the age of 47 in September, 1869.

His widow Emily survived her husband for almost 46 years, dying March 25, 1915, at the age of 92 and is buried in Alaska, Michigan.

SOURCES: Compiled from Federal Census Records, 10th and 21st Regiments of Michigan Infantry records, Fold3, CW veteran headstone applications, findagrave.

GRAVESITE: Alaska Cemetery, Alaska, Kent, MI

Written by Dorotha Piechocki, February 2020