| Notes |
- History of Summers County (1908), pp. 165, 231, 232, 773, and 774:
[Major Cyrus Newlyn died on the 20th of April, 1876, at the Wickham House. He was a New Yorker, then residing at Union, and came to Hinton to attend court, and died very suddenly. He was buried in the old cemetery, but there is no mark to indicate his last resting-place. He was a brilliant lawyer. He came from the North in Reconstruction days to practice his profession at a time when the lawyer in this region of the South could not practice by reason of the test oaths.]
[Nathaniel Harrison was a native of Virginia, connected by descent with the family of that ancient and honorable title, which has produced Presidents of the United States, generals of its armies and statesmen of great sagacity, loyalty, honor and renown. He was educated at the University of Virginia ; a lawyer of accomplishment; a most polished and ornate orator, distinguished and even handsome in appearance, but Satan had set his mark upon him. After failing to secure a place on the staff of General Chapman during the war, he went to Richmond, squandered his patrimony in tobacco speculation and dissipation, and when the result of the Civil War could be plainly seen and the life of the Confederacy was drawing to a close and trembling in defeat, he was an adventure- of fortune; returning to Monroe County, a dangerous and embittered man, he secured the circuit judgeship by protestations of loyalty to the Federal cause, and administered the duties of that high office in the manner herein described, a description of which we are unable in language to do justice.
It was he who went to Philadelphia, selected and induced an educated and finished lawyer. Major Cyrus Newlin, who was then living in that town, to come to his circuit, locate at Union and enter the practice of his profession. Newlin was a thoroughly educated, smart, bright lawyer, without- principle or honor—a typical carpet-bagger. His family were of the wealthiest in the country, his mother having died while traveling on the continent of Europe. He located at Union, and at once entered into a copartnership with the judge (Harrison) in Mercer, Monroe and Greenbrier Counties. He instituted and prosecuted suits for damages against the old soldiers of the Confederacy and others who had taken no part therein, for offenses alleged to have been committed during hostilities. Harrison, as judge, tried the cases, determining arbitrarily in favor of Newlin and his clients and against those in opposition. It was currently reported that the income of Harrison at one time was $20,000.00 a year from this source.
Newlin was also dissipated and dissolute, and his ill-gotten fees passed through his hands as sands through a sieve. He took an active part in politics, and stopped at nothing to further and secure his purposes and ends and to further the interests of his party and to retain it in power, and his influence was very great over the ignorant and uneducated, many of whom had been thrust into power during the days of the reconstruction. He continued to practice after the overthrow and disappearance of his corrupt ally, until soon after the formation of Summers County, while at Hinton for the purpose of attending court, he was stricken with paralysis one evening, carried to his room in the Wickham House, and there died the next day at two o'clock, and was buried in the old thicket on the hillside near where the old peddler had been murdered, and which was converted into a graveyard, the first in Hinton, but which is now open to the commons and generally desecrated, although there are many people buried at that place. There is nothing to mark the grave of this brilliant, though misguided man, and there is not a human being at this day can point out his grave, and no mortal eye to tell in what spot of the earth his remains rest. Forgotten and neglected, he has passed from the affairs of men.]
[Gen. A. A. Chapman, lawyer, dropped dead at the railway track in Hinton, from apoplexy, en route to Charleston, about 1877, and Major Cyrus Newlan, a New Yorker, located at Union, died of heart disease while attending court in Hinton some few years after the formation of the county, lie was a very bright man, but dissipated, and was called a "carpet bagger." He is buried in Hinton, but nothing to show his last resting place.]
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1838 - 1876 (38 years)
