For more than thirty years Zeandale Township, Riley County, had been the chosen home of Lauren Newell, an old pioneer of this section and an honored veteran of the Civil war. Mr. Newell came to Kansas a youth of nineteen years, in search of material independence, and had done much in the way of making easier the paths of those who came later. After the close of the Civil war settlement in Kansas was rapid, but few found so much hardship as had faced young and old when they reached here in 1858. In his New England home Mr. Newell, with practical forethought, had learned a trade and hence was much better prepared to face the future than were hundreds of others who had turned to the West as a field of opportunity, with no tools to grasp the opportunities when they found them.
Lauren Newell was born August 4, 1838, at Southington, Connecticut. His parents were Cromwell and Lavina (Moore) Newell. In his native place the youth had school advantages and there learned the carpenter’s trade, at the age of nineteen years completing his apprenticeship and turning then to the West to make practical use of his knowledge. He found work at Topeka, Kansas, and was in that city when the Civil war was precipitated. In May, 1861, an echo, perhaps, from the old patriotic spirit that had inspired his New England ancestors to deeds of valor in the Revolutionary war, led him to enter military service in defense of the Union. He enlisted as a private in Company A, Second Kansas Infantry, which company was reorganized in the following December, and thereafter Mr. Newell served as a member of Company F, Second Kansas Cavalry, participating in many of the great battles of the war and being noted for his gallantry on many occasions. He was honorably discharged May 8, 1865. He is a valued member of the Grand Army post at Topeka.
Since coming to the great West, Mr. Newell had been mainly a resident of Kansas, although some years were spent in Colorado. He now lives in comfortable retirement on his Zeandale Township farm of eighty acres, not far distant from Manhattan, and is well known all through this county. He had been inflnential in many ways, as are solid and dependable men in a community, but had never been willing to acecpt political office.
In 1871 Mr. Newell was united in marriage with Miss Laura E. Mabie, and six children were born to them, namely: Laura May, Sherman B., Harriet N., Frank J., Ernest B. and Raymond F., Frank J. being deceased.