Louise (Posey) Newton
By Robert Joseph Greene
Louise (Posey) Newton was born March 6, 1877. Her family came from a town called Stone Ridge in upstate New York. Her father was Willis Posey from Union, South Carolina and her mother was Jane (Snyder) Posey who was born in Hurley, NY. Her maternal grandparents were Calvin “Cal” Snyder and Blandina “Dinah” (Schoonmaker) Snyder. They were both listed as “coloured” but in one census Blandina was listed as a mulatto.
My great aunt (Maudester Newton who died at the age of 93 in 2004) said that one of the greatest sources of pride for her father was that Louise’s family “claimed” that they were never slaves. I have since proven this statement to be false but I had to go back to the 1760s to find the last slave relatives for this side of my family.
Recently, a group of genealogists has taken up researching her family and found many surprises. Louise’s great grandfather was a landowner (farmer) and one of the earliest known Black landowners in upstate New York.
Louise Posey Newton was one of eight living children. One interesting fact is that she independently joined the St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Brooklyn, New York. So, we see some independence in her personality.
My great grandmother came to King’s County (now Brooklyn) New York around 1894 with her sister. It was through a friend of the family that she got a job as a chambermaid for a wealthy White family. The friend was a cook with the same household.
One day, she was on the balcony beating carpets when my great grandfather (Hugh Newton) saw her. According to my great aunt, he was mesmerized by her beauty. He had never seen a black female with such long straight hair and a beautiful caramel complexion. He would later find out that she was well spoken and she could read, write, and do arithmetic. Quite an accomplishment for a person in the 1880s.
Back in those days (1880s), in some wealthy white neighborhoods in New York, Blacks weren’t allowed to walk on the main streets. They had to walk in the alleyways. So, Hugh asked Louise to come down and speak with him. She replied that wasn’t proper and she could talk to him from their present positions. Over time, a friendship grew. Like clockwork, Hugh knew exactly what time Louise went on the balcony to beat the carpets. In their conversations, Hugh would boast of his successes in business and share his hopes of a future with her.
When he found out that she attended a particular Episcopal Church, he “miraculously” started to attend the church. Finally, out of desperation, he asked her what would it take for them to have a date. She told him to come back the next day and she would find a solution. When Hugh left, Louise told the cook (family friend) about the situation and it was decided that the cook and her husband would chaperone her friend, my great grandmother, and great grandfather on their date.
Hugh was so happy that this arrangement was made. He wasn’t particularly happy that he had to pay for the meals of all three guests but those were the conditions of courtship in those days. In fact, he had to pay for all three for everything when they went out on dates.
Now, I am sure Hugh exulted his business successes to Louise. However, Hugh’s story was a unique rags to riches tale. Hugh was the personal butler to Mr. William H. Hazzard who was the president of the Brooklyn City Railroad Company. Mr. Hazzard’s second wife was from the infamous Rockefeller family of New York. However, prior to his position at the company, Mr. Hazzard was a very successful real estate magnet.
Mr. Hazzard taught Hugh Newton, my great grandfather, about business and sold him land in Harlem which he converted into successful rental properties.
By the time Hugh Newton was courting my great grandmother, he had already opened his first real estate business and acquired some discretionary income.
He was making a name for himself. However, he was a lonely bachelor.
Louise Posey was unaware of Hugh Newton’s discretionary income. She did not know any wealthy Afro-Americans. So, when he made a $25 donation to her church to impress her, she worried that he would starve himself. She also lectured him on doing good for good’s sake and not to impress someone. I think that her voice of reason made him fall in love with her more.
So, during one of their chaperoned dates, he tried to impress her by saying that he was going to attend a university in Massachusetts. He asked her if she would wait for him until he graduated to marry. She said that she would not wait and so he proposed to her then with a promise that she would never have to work again.
The idea of not pursuing a career was hard on Louise Posey because we think she had a dream of becoming a schoolteacher. I think that her chaperone’s saw an ideal “dream” situation here in the relationship between Hugh and Louise, but I don’t think Louise felt the same way.
Louise Posey’s dreams were modest. She was learning how to cook meals for her family from the cook where she was employed. She had a dream of making her own wedding dress. She was a farm girl (at heart) and saw her life through hard work. However, Hugh’s dreams were loftier.
There were many issues that they had to contend with before they could married. For starters, Hugh Newton made Louise leave her Episcopal Church to join the Concord Baptist Church where he was a deacon.
When she shared with Hugh that when she was 15 years old, she had saved up her money to buy a sewing pattern for her dream dress, he told her that she was to get a $200 wedding dress from Abraham & Straus department store. A store-bought wedding dress was all the rage of the wealthy (NOTE: I actually have the top part of her wedding dress.)
Hugh Sherman Newton and Louise Anne Posey were married on April 16, 1902 in Brooklyn, New York. Their wedding was small. Their honeymoon was to Niagara Falls in upstate New York. Upon their return, Hugh surprised her as he had purchased their first house on 1621 Pacific Street in Brooklyn New York and hired a housekeeper/cook for her. The entire house was already furnished when she arrived. Again, I think it was a woman’s dream back then to furnish their own homes. She didn’t even get to pick her own house staff. It was already done.
Hugh had several real estate companies. The most notable was Brooks & Hughs Real Estate.
He was also the first Black man in his church to own a car. What was agreed upon by my grandmother and aunt was that Hugh didn’t know how to drive very well. In fact they dreaded it when their father would insist on driving his family in their new car.
Hugh Newton each day after breakfast left Louise to go to his office and would return at night. However, one day, he thought that he would surprise her and come home for lunch and that’s when he caught her! He caught her cleaning with the housekeeper!! He was furious.
The Newtons were one of the first Black families to move into the elite Bedford–Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, to the four-story brownstone at 105 Bainbridge Street.
It was rumoured that Hugh Newton was advised to make a donation to the local synagogue so that the religious leaders could give permission to Morris and Ester Kraus(e) to sell to the Newton family.
It was Jeanette Lattimer (daughter of famed inventor Lewis Lattimer) who partially helped the Newtons become part of the Black social elite of the Brooklyn Black upper-middle class.
Jeanette helped Louise adapt to her new Black wealth and her place in society. One thing that helped tremendously was Louise was allowed to cook meals and take them to the hospital for wounded soldiers. Louise learned how to deal with dignitaries, manage staff, and play games like bridge and croquet, and she was an accomplished seamstress who made clothes for her family. Louise was a knitter and she loved to crochet. She learned ballroom dancing and which jewelry was to be accessorized with which outfits. She learned modern fashion instead of dressing modestly. Soon Louise adjusted their new Black wealth and status as part of the Brooklyn blue-blood elite Black society.
The Newtons had two daughters: My grandmother (Desaderal Alto Newton) who would become the organist at Concord Baptist church and was the pianist for family hour on WNYC Radio in New York City; and my great aunt Maudester Newton, who was mentored by Dorothy Height. Ms. Newton would become a leader at the Black YWCA in Harlem; later the executive director of the Black YWCA in Detroit and the Executive Director of the Black YWCA in Philadelphia. When Maudester Newton retired in her nineties, she had pensions from three careers (YWCA, Hunter College SEEK program, and DC 37 Clerical workers Union where she was a counselor for clerical workers in NYC).
Partially through the Lattimers, Louise would go on to meet Eleanor Roosevelt as her husband was be part of her advisory committee to help African Americans be included in the programs under President Roosevelt’s New Deal initiative. Eleanor Roosevelt would again call upon the Newton family when the United Nations was having trouble housing the African diplomats due to housing discrimination of the 1950s and 1960s. My great Grandmother would welcome to her home a diplomat from Nigeria.
My mother described her grandmother as dignified, humble, quiet, kind, and religious. My mother’s middle name is Louise which was my grandmother’s homage to her own mother.
Robert Joseph Greene is a Canadian author (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Joseph_Greene) and the great grandson of Louise (Posey) Newton. He currently resides in Vancouver, BC, Canada.