Newton is a city in Newton County, Texas, United States. The population was 2,459 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Newton County.
Both Newton County and its county seat, Newton, were named after John Newton, a supposed hero of the American Revolutionary War. However, John Newton's heroics are said to be a product of Parson Weems, who also fictionalized the story of George Washington and the cherry tree. In 1853, disputes led to the building of a courthouse and town in the county's geographical center instead of in Burkeville, a community 11 miles north northeast of Newton. A second courthouse in Newton, a Second Empire style structure, was built in 1902-03 with bricks from nearby Caney Creek, according to a Texas Historical Commission marker. The town was incorporated in 1935 and remains the only incorporated city in the county. The town's public school began when the W.H. Ford Male and Female College was chartered in 1889. The site of the college later became the Powell Hotel and now serves as a museum and houses the city's chamber of commerce. The growth of the city during the first half of the 20th century was largely due to the dominant timber industry in East Texas. The town had at least one newspaper prior to 1920s. The county courthouse, a focal point of a city square that featured extensive Christmas lighting in the early 1990s, was severely damaged by a fire in August 2000. Various funding and other problems pushed back the time frame for the restoration of the edifice for several years. Completion of the rebuilding is estimated to be sometime in 2008. Although almost 80 miles from the Gulf of Mexico, Newton suffered extensive damage in September 2005 from Hurricane Rita. The National Weather Service estimated wind gusts in the vicinity of Newton to be between 80 mph to 100 mph. Some residents were without electricity for at least one month.
Texas (i/ˈtɛksəs/) (Alibamu: Teksi ) is the second most populous and the second most extensive of the 50 United States, and the most extensive state of the 48 contiguous United States. The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in East Texas. Located in the South Central United States, Texas shares an international border with the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León, and Tamaulipas to the south, and borders the US states of New Mexico to the west, Oklahoma to the north, Arkansas to the northeast, and Louisiana to the east. Texas has an area of 268,820 square miles (696,200 km2), and a growing population of 25.7 million residents.
During the Spanish colonial rule, the area was officially known as the Nuevo Reino de Filipinas: La Provincia de Texas. Antonio Margil de Jesús was known to be the first person to use the name in a letter to the Viceroy of Mexico in July 20, 1716. The name was not popularly used in daily speech but often appeared in legal documents until the end of the 1800s.
Frances Elaine Newton (April 12, 1965 – September 14, 2005) was executed by lethal injection in the state of Texas for the April 7, 1987 murder of her husband, Adrian, 23, her son, Alton, 7, and daughter, Farrah, 21 months.
All three victims were shot with a .25 caliber pistol which belonged to a man that Newton had at the time been seeing. Newton claimed that an illegal drug trade/drug dealer killed the three. The Houston police presented evidence that Newton's husband was a drug dealer and was in debt to his supplier. Newton maintained her innocence from her first interrogation in 1987 until her execution in 2005. However, three weeks before the slayings, Newton had purchased life insurance policies on her husband, her daughter, and herself. These were each worth $50,000. She named herself as beneficiary on her husband's and daughter's policies. Newton claimed she forged her husband's signature to prevent him from discovering that money had been set aside to pay the premiums. Newton was also found to have placed a paper bag containing the murder weapon in a relative's home shortly after the murders. Prosecutors cited these facts as the basis for her motive.
Ryan Gibbons (born March 13, 1983 in Marshfield, Massachusetts) is an American football offensive lineman who is currently a free agent. He was signed by the Jacksonville Jaguars as an undrafted free agent in 2006. He played college football at Northeastern.
Gibbons has also been a member of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Chicago Bears and Dallas Cowboys.
Gibbons attended Marshfield High School (Marshfield, Massachusetts) and was a letterman in football and golf. In football, he was named the team's Most Improved Lineman as a senior. Ryan Gibbons graduated from Marshfield High School in 2001.
Cameron Jerrell Newton (born May 11, 1989) is an American football quarterback for the San Diego Chargers of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football for the Auburn Tigers and was drafted as the first overall pick by the Panthers in the 2011 NFL Draft. He is the third player to be awarded the Heisman Trophy, win a national championship, and be the first overall pick in the NFL draft all in the same one-year span, joining Leon Hart (1950), and Angelo Bertelli (1944).
Newton is the son of Cecil Newton, Sr., who was cut as a safety from the pre-season rosters of the 1983Dallas Cowboys and 1984Buffalo Bills, and he is the younger brother of Cecil Newton, Jr., a center who currently plays for the Baltimore Ravens.
Newton was initially a member of the Florida Gators before transferring to Blinn College, where his team won a national junior college football championship. Newton was then recruited by head coach Gene Chizik of Auburn University and transferred once more. He became just the third player in major college football history to both rush and pass for 20 or more touchdowns in a single season. His performance earned him the Heisman Trophy as the most outstanding college football player, and he led Auburn to their second national championship in school history, despite controversy concerning his eligibility. In his NFL debut, Newton became the first rookie quarterback in NFL history to throw for 400 yards in his NFL regular-season opener, breaking Peyton Manning's rookie record.