The following is quoted from page 133 of his brother's 1965 book, "The Newlin Family: Ancestors and Descendants of John and Mary Pyle Newlin":
Harvey Newlin was born in Chatham County, North Carolina, and has lived most of his life in the adjacent county of Alamance. His main interests in life have been farming, dairying, the building of barns and dwelling houses, the Society of Friends and Genealogy. He is a Minister in the Society of Friends.
His work in genealogy has covered families which were among the early settlers of his section of Piedmont North Carolina and which later sent many of their members to help open up and settle the Middle West.
More than forty years ago he began collecting data on the Newlin family. Then he and the author decided to concentrate on the descendants of their first Newlin ancestors to come to North Carolina--John and Mary Pyle Newlin. More, by far, than anyone else, Harvey promoted this project. By numerous trips to the Middle West and by extensive correspondence he worked assiduously to stimulate interest in the collection of data and in support for the publication of this work.
He personally collected most of the data on the descendants of James and Deborah Lindley Newlin and has been responsible for much of the remainder. His hand of influence has been the collection of material for other branches of the family.
He was the author's main consultant and resource person through the years of preparation for this publication.
The following article, unknown date and newspaper, describes Harvey Newlin's many interests, and part of it is quoted as follows:
Harvey Newlin Has Combined Barn Building, Genealogy And History Into Active Career
By Jim Parker
Harvey Newlin is a man who should have three stories written about him.
He is well known in five North Carolina counties as a builder of barns, gambrel-roofed barns which are solid and reveal the sturdiness of the honest Quaker who built them.
He is famous as a genealogist, specializing in the families which settled the Snow Camp area two hundred years ago and which migrated west to Indiana and Illinois in the 1800's.
He is a well qualified local historian, probably knowing as much local history as any man in North Carolina.
Harvey Newlin lives near Center Methodist Church in what is now Alamance County. His farm lies in a strip of land which was taken from Chatham in the 1890's and given to Alamance. For years the section was known locally as "Oklahoma," but the use of that name has about disappeared.
Harvey Newlin was born in Chatham County, on a Hickory Mountain farm on the 19th day of July, 1888 or the 19th day of the seventh month, 1888, as he and his Quaker ways would have it. His father was a tenant on a farm belonging to the Lacy Alston family, but later bought a farm near the present Newlin home.
He was married to the former Nannie Guthrie slightly over 50 years ago, and he and his wife moved to their present home in 1913. He farmed for a number of years and then got into the dairy business, operating one of the first dairies in Alamance County. He is still a dairy operator.
He got into the barn building game by accident. His father had given him an old log house, which he moved to his farm and used for a barn. The roof of the building was about to cave in, and Newlin knew that he had to do something. He got Kerr Scott, then Alamance County agent, to obtain plans for a new barn. It happened to be a gambrel type. He built the barn and moved into his animals into it. Two hours later the roof of the old barn came down with a crash.
Neighbors saw the huge barn which Newlin had built and asked if he would be interested in building others. He was. All told, he and his sons built 153 before he retired a few years back.
"I told the boys that I would quit when I found that I was in the way. We started building pole barns several years ago, built the first in this section, and I found myself in the way of the tractor moving poles into location. So I quit and turned the barn building over to Burton, my son. He stays covered up with work now, but I've quit completely," he said.
Newlin-built barns can be seen all over Chatham County, in Alamance, Orange, and in two other counties in the state. According to those who own them, no better barn can be built.
Early in young manhood, Harvey Newlin became attracted to the Conservative Quaker group. His parents were Quakers and his wife came from Quaker stock also. There being no conservative congregation near his home, he journeyed to Woodland, where he joined the meeting there. He has been a loyal Conservative Quaker ever since, one of the few left in this part of the state.
His group does not believe in music in the churches. They have no hired ministers and members of the meeting preach if and when they feel they have something to say. Their doctrine is much the same as that of the old-time Quakers who settled their portion of Alamance and Chatham Counties.
Harvey Newlin and Nannie stick to the Quaker speech. They address you as "thee" and they stick to plain clothes, avoiding show or fanciness. Their home is modern, having all the comforts needed. There is a telephone...
The Newlins and members of their family and some 30 other persons attend West Grove Friends Meeting not too far from their home. Their meeting, plus Holly Spring near Ramseur, makes up the Western quarter of Conservative Friends in North Carolina. There are three meetings in the Eastern quarter and these five together constitute the conservative movement in this state. Yearly meetings are held at Woodland.
Harvey Newlin has always been interested in family history. He recalls that when he was but a boy he used to visit an old abandoned home which had belonged to John Braxton, an early settler who was one of his ancestors.
"I found an old Book of Common Prayer when I was rummaging around. I used to go through the house, wishing that I had the money and know-how to fix it up so that it could be saved....
During the past 40 years he has worked on the history of 12 families, all of them intertwined with his own family. Ask him about a Lindley, Guthrie, Braxton, Holladay, Hadley, Newlin, or Andrew and chances are that he'll tell you anything you want to know, including names and dates. He keeps elaborate records and is now whipping the Newlin records into shape for a book.
His younger brother, Dr. Algie Newlin, Guilford College history professor, is aiding him in the writing of the book, and his sister, Miss Elizabeth Newlin of Greensboro, a retired Southern Railway worker, is doing the typing. He has been working on the book for several years now and it will probably be several more before it is finished.
Over the years Harvey Newlin has become a recognized authority on certain families. He gets many requests for aid, particularly from anxious women who hope to prove that their ancestors fought in the American Revolution so that they can get into the Daughters of the American Revolution.
"I always tell these women that I'm sorry, but their Quaker ancestors were not people who would join an army since it was against their religion. Of course, this isn't true, because many Quakers fought, but that always gives them a start," he joked.
He recalled the case of one woman who was very anxious to determine if a certain ancestor had been in the Revolutionary army. Newlin told her that he had searched the colonial records and it was clear that her ancestor had been a Revolutionary soldier. It was also just as clear, he added, that he had deserted and gone over to the Tories within a few weeks after joining up. This ruined the lady's chances of making the DAR rolls.
Harvey Newlin had what was an ordinary public school education of his day, attending Green Hill school near his home and one quarter at Guilford College. He thinks that he is not well-educated, but a talk with him will convince you otherwise.
He is a keen historian and is considered an authority on local history, particularly that of the Revolutionary period. Over the years he has accumulated many valuable papers, books, and other historical items given to him by friends and people in this neighborhood.
For many years he has been visiting in Indiana, where many Quakers, descendants of Chatham County people, still live. He has traced the family lines...
One of his prized possessions is a letter written during the Civil War by an Indiana boy named Newlin. The letter was written from Goldsboro back home to his family in Indiana. The boy was a member of Sherman's army and he seemed to have no doubt that the Southerners were suffering from the ravages of war.
"If the citizens is not sick where our army has been I can't help but wonder why for they ruined everything. Everything is taken from them, only what little they have in the houses and that was not much for they had no cense and did not know how to keep it. Everything they had they hid in the ground. We found lots bakon buried," the letter read.
Perhaps the most interesting and certainly the most entertaining item in Newlin's collection is a letter written from Indiana back to North Carolina in 1860 by Ira Braxton. The letter was written to their uncle informing him that his brother (their father) was dead.
Ira Braxton's letter, here printed exactly as written, was a masterpice of advice to his nephews:
"Though I never saw youe, youe are my brother's children, now I want youe to conduct yourselves so that youe name may stand big amongst men now as your dead father is done and gone and can't give no advice. I will give youe mine, all tho I am old and all most blind. That is to shun all bad company for one bad horse will spoil a dozen colts, that is to shun all kinds of gambling such as horse racing, card playing or any other kind of gamblin, keep company with men in good credit and your names will soon stand by, be honest, deal justly with all men and all men will respect youe and God will respect youe.
"Now boys, if youe are all single yet I will teach youe how to chuse a good wife if your go to see a girl go some time when she is not looking for youe and stay until breakfast next morning and see if she gets up early and makes up the beds and sweeps the floor and brushes down the pot trimbels before she hangs up the pot, look on the shelves, mind that her shoes is not on slip shod and if there is no holes for stockeens heels and is she makes good coffee she will do. If youe should marry them try to both pull together for in one pulls back and one fored youe will soon get into the mire.
"But if youe do go to see a girl that lies in bed til the sun is up and then cals dady to fetch her some water to wash and runs to the glass to fix her hear and has a hoop on big enuf to go around a bacco hogset and chanes in her years long enough for drowing chains, let them slide, for that is nothing but pride, although I have my grandchildren that is so proud of there hoopes and chances that it seems the ground is not good enuf for them to walk on."
Harvey Newlin has had a great deal of fun with this letter and he enjoys reading it to groups when he talks about genealogy. But he had another Braxton document which is far more valuable to him. It is a listing, made by John Braxton, of the dates of birth of his 12 children. Braxton was the first of the family in this section and the list of his children was of invaluable aid to Newlin, who was trying to trace the family and had been able to find only five of the children's names.
The document was written in the late 1700's and was found some 30 years ago in a box full of old books in an attic of a Snow Camp home. It was given to Newlin by the late Simon Hadley, who was a descendant of Braxton'
Harvey Newlin spends all of his spare time working on his book on the Newlin family. But he is still available for questioning by people who want to tap his vast store of knowledge of family history. He enjoys talking about the past.
When he finishes the book on his family, he should begin immediately to put down in writing the tremendous store of knowledge which he has about the history of his section of the state. As it is now he is a walking history book, all of it interesting and probably a lot of which is unknown to professional historians.
The Newlins have five children, two girls and three boys. One of the boys, Alfred, lives near Silk Hope and Burton lives beside his father. The third, Harvey, is assisting superintendent of the Burlington City Schools. The daughters are Mrs. Coyt Bray of Fairmont and Mrs. Everette Hartley of Ohio.
Below is a memorial to Harvey Newlin prepared for the North Carolina Yearly Meeting of Friends (Conservative), Eighth Month, 1971.
HARVEY NEWLIN 1888-1970
A MEMORIAL
Harvey Newlin was a minister in the Society of Friends. The greatest glow of his witness to the Christ within came through his ministry of friendship. This was as natural to him as his humility and unselfishness. The door to his heart was never closed to anyone. He always had time for his friends. The fruits of his religious life, his knowledge, and his stock of fun and stories were always ready for anyone who came to him. Through the giving of himself, his cup was continually filled with a sense of joyous satisfaction.
All hearts grew warmer in the presence
Of one who, seeking not his own,
Gave freely for the love of giving
Nor reaped for self the harvest sown (Whittier)
A farm in Hickory Mountain Township, Chatham County, North Carolina, was the starting point in Harvey Newlin's life. He was born there the nineteenth of Seventh Month, 1888, the sixth, and middle child, in the family of James Nathaniel and Martha Elizabeth Newlin.
His public school experience was in crowded school rooms and short terms. These years were followed by study in the Preparatory Department of Guilford College. Then, under his own incentive, he began the practice of self-education by which he prepared himself for each new venture of his life.
As a young man he was physically strong and active, and he was blessed with a mind which was equally strong and imaginative. He enjoyed life and radiated that spirit wherever he went. Without trying to push himself into positions of leadership he promoted wholesome activities for young people. His influence was shown in the active part he took in a debating society which reached beyond the limits of the local school district. In baseball, his pitching and his work as a manager contributed to the success of a community team. He was one of the most active of the young people who, for several summers, produced dramas which were at the peak of community interest. Harvey never lost his spirit of youth, and his interest in children and young people continued throughout his life.
On the twentieth of Fourth Month, 1910, Harvey Newlin and Nannie Guthrie were married. They had known each other for more than a decade, having attended the same school and the same Friends Meeting. Under their care their five children were reared in a Quaker atmosphere. They were taught by word and example, that family life rises from unselfish and cooperative work, freely given, and that a spirit of love must bind all together and reach out to friends and relatives. They practiced and appreciated an orderly life.
Their children remember that life in the family was always in a definite religious spirit. There were daily Bible readings and worship, in which all participated. Twice each week they went as a family to meetings for worship, that each might find a closer union with the living Christ. The plain language was the language of the family. One of their rich experiences was in sharing their home and family life with visiting Friends who always found a welcome there. Some of these were extended visits, but short or extended they all left their afterglow on both the visited and the visitors.
Harvey and Nannie began life together with very limited material resources. They shared cheerfully the hard work and privations necessary for the family livelihood. The limited income from the small farm had to be supplemented. Before marriage Harvey had made one break from rural life when he worked for several months in a steel mill, but now he engaged in additional work which he found within reach of his home. He operated a blacksmith shop on a small scale, worked at a sawmill and cotton gin, and for several years was responsible for the maintenance of the local cooperative telephone system. While engaged in these different lines of work he made and maintained a reputation for reliability and for the quality of his work.
When he turned to dairying he found an outlet for his energies and for his imaginative mind, which led him farther in the development of his own interests and of those of the community. He introduced thoroughbred dairy cattle to the community, made use of the county agricultural agent and followed the best methods available in agriculture and dairying. By the time he was ready to relinquish the operation of his dairy farm it ranked with the best in the area.
Harvey's construction of a dairy barn, different in model and size, and much more efficient than those in general use at the time, created a demand from his neighbors for barns of this type. This proved to be the beginning of another of his fruitful enterprises. With a group of workers, made up of men living in the community, numerous barns were made in the surrounding area. This brought additional income to all who engaged in the work and made a great improvement in the appearance and efficiency of the farms affected. In all of this work the influence of a religious faith was obvious. Honesty and the superior quality of work, at a fair price, were never forgotten by the persons benefitted by it. This reputation was established in every community in which they worked.
Through the greater part of his life Harvey Newlin devoted much time and thought to the study of local history and the history of many of the families of long standing in the Cane Creek Valley. He had a prodigious memory and a marked gift in tracing family relationships. In these fields of interest he shared his great knowledge freely and in doing so reached the heart of everyone who came to him. Children in the local public school benefited from his knowledge of local history. His extensive research and tireless promotion were of major importance in the preparation and publication of a large volume on the history and genealogy of one branch of the Newlin family.
In the years preceding and during his early manhood, Harvey showed relatively little interest in religion, beyond regular attendance of meetings for worship in the accustomed family pattern. When he was about twenty years of age his discovery of the power and intimacy of the Inner Light in his own soul powerfully affected him. He never allowed himself to become estranged from it. At the beginning of what proved to be a long and treasured friendship, he wrote:
"...there is one thing in which we are all equal--we all have the Inner Light, and if we obey it, it will grow brighter, but if we turn aside from it and refuse to follow it our spiritual vision will grown dimmer."
This short message, to a new-found friend, has the character, force and simplicity, of his vocal ministry for worship.
When Chatham Friends Meeting was given the status of a Monthly Meeting, Harvey Newlin and Nannie Guthrie were two of the most active of the younger members. Nannie was the Assistant Clerk of the Monthly Meeting and Harvey was named to two of the important committees. To Harvey this was another vital interest, and in it he followed the lead of the same inquiring mind that guided him along other important paths of life. The idea that Quakerism was "primitive Christianity revived" took hold of him and guided his thought and spirit. After discovering that God can be felt in the heart of the individual, he became as persistent in his "practice of the presence of God" as he was in any other interest in life. In the practice of silent communion he found a mystic union which gave him inward peace and confidence.
When his first contact with Conservative Friends was made he was ready for it. A few months after his marriage he changed his affiliation to the North Carolina Yearly Meeting of Friends (Conservative). From that time on he devoted himself more completely to the search for a deeper understanding of the Quaker faith that he might become its effective witness. He did not seek spiritual growth as an end within itself. He wanted to be able to use every opportunity to spread the Truth and minister to the spiritual needs of those with whom he might have any association. The spirit and witness of his ministry were as much in evidence on weekdays as on any First Day. His Christian ministry reached many of those for whom he was doing construction work and a great number of others who sought his aid in their search for their family heritage. His influence on one of the latter is seen in the following tribute, given after a second visit with him. "Harvey Newlin was as near a saint as any man I have ever known." True ministry is the work of the Spirit and the occasion for it is where two or more are gathered together. Harvey's life is a living witness to this belief.
Harvey's adoption of the manner of dress and speech, once used by nearly all Friends, was neither a fad nor a fetish. These were symbols of a way of life to which he was fully committed, and the Spirit which prompted him to use them was the same as that which caused early Friends to adopt them. They were reminders of a commitment and he found in them ways of witnessing to the Quaker faith.
His life was a full life. It was shaped by his humility, imagination, energy, perseverance, and loyalty, and by his obedience to the ever-present Christ within. In a religious society which stresses humility, few were more humble than he. He sought the lowest seat in the face of the meeting and in all of his associations. A close friend said of him:
"I do not think I have ever been with a person so genuinely humble as Harvey, and in some way, perhaps this is why he reached into the hearts of so many people."
His loyalty to his friends and to his ideals was close akin to his loyalty to God. He was possessed by the determination to live in the power of the Inner Christ and to walk in the way of the early Friends. He once said that the main direction of his ministry was to witness to the Quaker faith and give what strength he could to the Conservative body of Friends. He lived as if directed by one of the prayers of the Quaker poet:
O spirit of the early day
So pure and strong and true,
Be with us in the narrow way
Our faithful fathers knew.
He was unfailing in his attendance of meetings for worship and discipline at West Grove Meeting. He had had a leading part in founding this Meeting, and he and his brother, Mahlon, were responsible for much of the vocal ministry and leadership in it. He was loyal to the Quarterly Meeting which he served as Clerk for ninenteen years. His attendance and active work in his Yearly Meeting were as regular as its sessions. In 1961 he was recorded as a minister in the Society of Friends.
Harvey Newlin was a familiar figure in most of the Conservative Yearly Meetings. He knew by name and sight many of the Friends in each of them. He felt that his presence in the sessions of their Meetings might give them encouragement and support, and he found strength and satisfaction in their fellowship. For many years in succession he made the long journey to Indiana to attend the session of the small Western Yearly Meeting. Next to his own he attended Ohio Yearly Meeting more often than any other. He felt so strongly that he belonged with Friends in these rather distant Conservative Yearly Meetings that he visited them many times regardless of cost or physical strain.
Nannie's death, in 1967, brought an end to a happy and fruitful companionship which had lasted for nearly fifty seven years. Harvey's last three years were without his beloved companion. His faith in God and the continued pursuit of some of his deep concerns and major interests helped to crowd out some of the loneliness. In this period came the realization of one of his aspirations for travel--a chance to see much of the western part of this Country. Soon after returning home his fatal illness struck him.
On the fifth of Sixth Month, 1970, Harvey Newlin's life on earth ended, at eighty-one years, ten months and sixteen days.
God calls our loved ones, but he lose not wholly
What he hath given:
They live on earth, in thought and deed,
As truly as in His Heaven. (Whittier)
They that trust in the Lord shall be as Mount Zion,
Which cannot be removed, but abideth forever. (Psalm 125)
Below is Harvey Newlin's obituary from an unidentified newspaper, probably the one which serves Burlington, North Carolina:
Mr. Newlin Is Claimed By Death
SNOW CAMP--Harvey Newlin, 81, of Rt. 1, Snow Camp, died in a Burlington hospital this morning at 1 o'clock after five months of declining health and one week of critical illness.
Mr. Newlin, who was a native of Chatham County, was the son of the late James N. and Martha Guthrie Newlin. He was married to the late Nancy (Nannie) Guthrie Newlin, who died in 1967. He lived most of his life in Alamance County.
Mr. Newlin was a minister in the Society of Friends. His primary interests in life were farming, dairying, constructing barns and homes, and the study of genealogy. He was a member of West Grove Friends Meeting.
Surviving are two daughters, Mrs. Mary Bray of Fairmont, and Mrs. Martha Hartley of North Lima, Ohio; three sons, Harvey R. Newlin of Burlington, Burton O. Newlin of Rt. 1, Snow Camp, and Alfred C. Newlin of Rt. 1, Siler City; four sisters, Mrs. Sarah Shaw and Mrs. Ila Braxton, both of Rt. 1, Snow Camp, Mrs. Mary Clark of Rt. 4, Siler City, and Miss Elizabeth Newlin of Guilford College; two brothers, Dr. A.I. Newlin of Guilford College, and Ira G. Newlin of Scarsdale, NY; 12 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.
Final rites will be held Sunday afternoon at 2:30 o'clock in a traditional "After the Order of the Friends" service at West Grove Friends Meeting. Burial will follow in the cemetery there.
The body will remain with Rich and Thompson Funeral Home in Graham until taken to West Grove Friends Meeting 30 minutes prior to the service.
The family will be at the funeral home Saturday from 7 to 9 o'clock. Visitation will begin at noon Saturday.
The family requests that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to a favorite charity in memory of Mr. Newlin.
Harvey Newlin was born in Chatham County, North Carolina, and has lived most of his life in the adjacent county of Alamance. His main interests in life have been farming, dairying, the building of barns and dwelling houses, the Society of Friends and Genealogy. He is a Minister in the Society of Friends.
His work in genealogy has covered families which were among the early settlers of his section of Piedmont North Carolina and which later sent many of their members to help open up and settle the Middle West.
More than forty years ago he began collecting data on the Newlin family. Then he and the author decided to concentrate on the descendants of their first Newlin ancestors to come to North Carolina--John and Mary Pyle Newlin. More, by far, than anyone else, Harvey promoted this project. By numerous trips to the Middle West and by extensive correspondence he worked assiduously to stimulate interest in the collection of data and in support for the publication of this work.
He personally collected most of the data on the descendants of James and Deborah Lindley Newlin and has been responsible for much of the remainder. His hand of influence has been the collection of material for other branches of the family.
He was the author's main consultant and resource person through the years of preparation for this publication.
The following article, unknown date and newspaper, describes Harvey Newlin's many interests, and part of it is quoted as follows:
Harvey Newlin Has Combined Barn Building, Genealogy And History Into Active Career
By Jim Parker
Harvey Newlin is a man who should have three stories written about him.
He is well known in five North Carolina counties as a builder of barns, gambrel-roofed barns which are solid and reveal the sturdiness of the honest Quaker who built them.
He is famous as a genealogist, specializing in the families which settled the Snow Camp area two hundred years ago and which migrated west to Indiana and Illinois in the 1800's.
He is a well qualified local historian, probably knowing as much local history as any man in North Carolina.
Harvey Newlin lives near Center Methodist Church in what is now Alamance County. His farm lies in a strip of land which was taken from Chatham in the 1890's and given to Alamance. For years the section was known locally as "Oklahoma," but the use of that name has about disappeared.
Harvey Newlin was born in Chatham County, on a Hickory Mountain farm on the 19th day of July, 1888 or the 19th day of the seventh month, 1888, as he and his Quaker ways would have it. His father was a tenant on a farm belonging to the Lacy Alston family, but later bought a farm near the present Newlin home.
He was married to the former Nannie Guthrie slightly over 50 years ago, and he and his wife moved to their present home in 1913. He farmed for a number of years and then got into the dairy business, operating one of the first dairies in Alamance County. He is still a dairy operator.
He got into the barn building game by accident. His father had given him an old log house, which he moved to his farm and used for a barn. The roof of the building was about to cave in, and Newlin knew that he had to do something. He got Kerr Scott, then Alamance County agent, to obtain plans for a new barn. It happened to be a gambrel type. He built the barn and moved into his animals into it. Two hours later the roof of the old barn came down with a crash.
Neighbors saw the huge barn which Newlin had built and asked if he would be interested in building others. He was. All told, he and his sons built 153 before he retired a few years back.
"I told the boys that I would quit when I found that I was in the way. We started building pole barns several years ago, built the first in this section, and I found myself in the way of the tractor moving poles into location. So I quit and turned the barn building over to Burton, my son. He stays covered up with work now, but I've quit completely," he said.
Newlin-built barns can be seen all over Chatham County, in Alamance, Orange, and in two other counties in the state. According to those who own them, no better barn can be built.
Early in young manhood, Harvey Newlin became attracted to the Conservative Quaker group. His parents were Quakers and his wife came from Quaker stock also. There being no conservative congregation near his home, he journeyed to Woodland, where he joined the meeting there. He has been a loyal Conservative Quaker ever since, one of the few left in this part of the state.
His group does not believe in music in the churches. They have no hired ministers and members of the meeting preach if and when they feel they have something to say. Their doctrine is much the same as that of the old-time Quakers who settled their portion of Alamance and Chatham Counties.
Harvey Newlin and Nannie stick to the Quaker speech. They address you as "thee" and they stick to plain clothes, avoiding show or fanciness. Their home is modern, having all the comforts needed. There is a telephone...
The Newlins and members of their family and some 30 other persons attend West Grove Friends Meeting not too far from their home. Their meeting, plus Holly Spring near Ramseur, makes up the Western quarter of Conservative Friends in North Carolina. There are three meetings in the Eastern quarter and these five together constitute the conservative movement in this state. Yearly meetings are held at Woodland.
Harvey Newlin has always been interested in family history. He recalls that when he was but a boy he used to visit an old abandoned home which had belonged to John Braxton, an early settler who was one of his ancestors.
"I found an old Book of Common Prayer when I was rummaging around. I used to go through the house, wishing that I had the money and know-how to fix it up so that it could be saved....
During the past 40 years he has worked on the history of 12 families, all of them intertwined with his own family. Ask him about a Lindley, Guthrie, Braxton, Holladay, Hadley, Newlin, or Andrew and chances are that he'll tell you anything you want to know, including names and dates. He keeps elaborate records and is now whipping the Newlin records into shape for a book.
His younger brother, Dr. Algie Newlin, Guilford College history professor, is aiding him in the writing of the book, and his sister, Miss Elizabeth Newlin of Greensboro, a retired Southern Railway worker, is doing the typing. He has been working on the book for several years now and it will probably be several more before it is finished.
Over the years Harvey Newlin has become a recognized authority on certain families. He gets many requests for aid, particularly from anxious women who hope to prove that their ancestors fought in the American Revolution so that they can get into the Daughters of the American Revolution.
"I always tell these women that I'm sorry, but their Quaker ancestors were not people who would join an army since it was against their religion. Of course, this isn't true, because many Quakers fought, but that always gives them a start," he joked.
He recalled the case of one woman who was very anxious to determine if a certain ancestor had been in the Revolutionary army. Newlin told her that he had searched the colonial records and it was clear that her ancestor had been a Revolutionary soldier. It was also just as clear, he added, that he had deserted and gone over to the Tories within a few weeks after joining up. This ruined the lady's chances of making the DAR rolls.
Harvey Newlin had what was an ordinary public school education of his day, attending Green Hill school near his home and one quarter at Guilford College. He thinks that he is not well-educated, but a talk with him will convince you otherwise.
He is a keen historian and is considered an authority on local history, particularly that of the Revolutionary period. Over the years he has accumulated many valuable papers, books, and other historical items given to him by friends and people in this neighborhood.
For many years he has been visiting in Indiana, where many Quakers, descendants of Chatham County people, still live. He has traced the family lines...
One of his prized possessions is a letter written during the Civil War by an Indiana boy named Newlin. The letter was written from Goldsboro back home to his family in Indiana. The boy was a member of Sherman's army and he seemed to have no doubt that the Southerners were suffering from the ravages of war.
"If the citizens is not sick where our army has been I can't help but wonder why for they ruined everything. Everything is taken from them, only what little they have in the houses and that was not much for they had no cense and did not know how to keep it. Everything they had they hid in the ground. We found lots bakon buried," the letter read.
Perhaps the most interesting and certainly the most entertaining item in Newlin's collection is a letter written from Indiana back to North Carolina in 1860 by Ira Braxton. The letter was written to their uncle informing him that his brother (their father) was dead.
Ira Braxton's letter, here printed exactly as written, was a masterpice of advice to his nephews:
"Though I never saw youe, youe are my brother's children, now I want youe to conduct yourselves so that youe name may stand big amongst men now as your dead father is done and gone and can't give no advice. I will give youe mine, all tho I am old and all most blind. That is to shun all bad company for one bad horse will spoil a dozen colts, that is to shun all kinds of gambling such as horse racing, card playing or any other kind of gamblin, keep company with men in good credit and your names will soon stand by, be honest, deal justly with all men and all men will respect youe and God will respect youe.
"Now boys, if youe are all single yet I will teach youe how to chuse a good wife if your go to see a girl go some time when she is not looking for youe and stay until breakfast next morning and see if she gets up early and makes up the beds and sweeps the floor and brushes down the pot trimbels before she hangs up the pot, look on the shelves, mind that her shoes is not on slip shod and if there is no holes for stockeens heels and is she makes good coffee she will do. If youe should marry them try to both pull together for in one pulls back and one fored youe will soon get into the mire.
"But if youe do go to see a girl that lies in bed til the sun is up and then cals dady to fetch her some water to wash and runs to the glass to fix her hear and has a hoop on big enuf to go around a bacco hogset and chanes in her years long enough for drowing chains, let them slide, for that is nothing but pride, although I have my grandchildren that is so proud of there hoopes and chances that it seems the ground is not good enuf for them to walk on."
Harvey Newlin has had a great deal of fun with this letter and he enjoys reading it to groups when he talks about genealogy. But he had another Braxton document which is far more valuable to him. It is a listing, made by John Braxton, of the dates of birth of his 12 children. Braxton was the first of the family in this section and the list of his children was of invaluable aid to Newlin, who was trying to trace the family and had been able to find only five of the children's names.
The document was written in the late 1700's and was found some 30 years ago in a box full of old books in an attic of a Snow Camp home. It was given to Newlin by the late Simon Hadley, who was a descendant of Braxton'
Harvey Newlin spends all of his spare time working on his book on the Newlin family. But he is still available for questioning by people who want to tap his vast store of knowledge of family history. He enjoys talking about the past.
When he finishes the book on his family, he should begin immediately to put down in writing the tremendous store of knowledge which he has about the history of his section of the state. As it is now he is a walking history book, all of it interesting and probably a lot of which is unknown to professional historians.
The Newlins have five children, two girls and three boys. One of the boys, Alfred, lives near Silk Hope and Burton lives beside his father. The third, Harvey, is assisting superintendent of the Burlington City Schools. The daughters are Mrs. Coyt Bray of Fairmont and Mrs. Everette Hartley of Ohio.
Below is a memorial to Harvey Newlin prepared for the North Carolina Yearly Meeting of Friends (Conservative), Eighth Month, 1971.
HARVEY NEWLIN 1888-1970
A MEMORIAL
Harvey Newlin was a minister in the Society of Friends. The greatest glow of his witness to the Christ within came through his ministry of friendship. This was as natural to him as his humility and unselfishness. The door to his heart was never closed to anyone. He always had time for his friends. The fruits of his religious life, his knowledge, and his stock of fun and stories were always ready for anyone who came to him. Through the giving of himself, his cup was continually filled with a sense of joyous satisfaction.
All hearts grew warmer in the presence
Of one who, seeking not his own,
Gave freely for the love of giving
Nor reaped for self the harvest sown (Whittier)
A farm in Hickory Mountain Township, Chatham County, North Carolina, was the starting point in Harvey Newlin's life. He was born there the nineteenth of Seventh Month, 1888, the sixth, and middle child, in the family of James Nathaniel and Martha Elizabeth Newlin.
His public school experience was in crowded school rooms and short terms. These years were followed by study in the Preparatory Department of Guilford College. Then, under his own incentive, he began the practice of self-education by which he prepared himself for each new venture of his life.
As a young man he was physically strong and active, and he was blessed with a mind which was equally strong and imaginative. He enjoyed life and radiated that spirit wherever he went. Without trying to push himself into positions of leadership he promoted wholesome activities for young people. His influence was shown in the active part he took in a debating society which reached beyond the limits of the local school district. In baseball, his pitching and his work as a manager contributed to the success of a community team. He was one of the most active of the young people who, for several summers, produced dramas which were at the peak of community interest. Harvey never lost his spirit of youth, and his interest in children and young people continued throughout his life.
On the twentieth of Fourth Month, 1910, Harvey Newlin and Nannie Guthrie were married. They had known each other for more than a decade, having attended the same school and the same Friends Meeting. Under their care their five children were reared in a Quaker atmosphere. They were taught by word and example, that family life rises from unselfish and cooperative work, freely given, and that a spirit of love must bind all together and reach out to friends and relatives. They practiced and appreciated an orderly life.
Their children remember that life in the family was always in a definite religious spirit. There were daily Bible readings and worship, in which all participated. Twice each week they went as a family to meetings for worship, that each might find a closer union with the living Christ. The plain language was the language of the family. One of their rich experiences was in sharing their home and family life with visiting Friends who always found a welcome there. Some of these were extended visits, but short or extended they all left their afterglow on both the visited and the visitors.
Harvey and Nannie began life together with very limited material resources. They shared cheerfully the hard work and privations necessary for the family livelihood. The limited income from the small farm had to be supplemented. Before marriage Harvey had made one break from rural life when he worked for several months in a steel mill, but now he engaged in additional work which he found within reach of his home. He operated a blacksmith shop on a small scale, worked at a sawmill and cotton gin, and for several years was responsible for the maintenance of the local cooperative telephone system. While engaged in these different lines of work he made and maintained a reputation for reliability and for the quality of his work.
When he turned to dairying he found an outlet for his energies and for his imaginative mind, which led him farther in the development of his own interests and of those of the community. He introduced thoroughbred dairy cattle to the community, made use of the county agricultural agent and followed the best methods available in agriculture and dairying. By the time he was ready to relinquish the operation of his dairy farm it ranked with the best in the area.
Harvey's construction of a dairy barn, different in model and size, and much more efficient than those in general use at the time, created a demand from his neighbors for barns of this type. This proved to be the beginning of another of his fruitful enterprises. With a group of workers, made up of men living in the community, numerous barns were made in the surrounding area. This brought additional income to all who engaged in the work and made a great improvement in the appearance and efficiency of the farms affected. In all of this work the influence of a religious faith was obvious. Honesty and the superior quality of work, at a fair price, were never forgotten by the persons benefitted by it. This reputation was established in every community in which they worked.
Through the greater part of his life Harvey Newlin devoted much time and thought to the study of local history and the history of many of the families of long standing in the Cane Creek Valley. He had a prodigious memory and a marked gift in tracing family relationships. In these fields of interest he shared his great knowledge freely and in doing so reached the heart of everyone who came to him. Children in the local public school benefited from his knowledge of local history. His extensive research and tireless promotion were of major importance in the preparation and publication of a large volume on the history and genealogy of one branch of the Newlin family.
In the years preceding and during his early manhood, Harvey showed relatively little interest in religion, beyond regular attendance of meetings for worship in the accustomed family pattern. When he was about twenty years of age his discovery of the power and intimacy of the Inner Light in his own soul powerfully affected him. He never allowed himself to become estranged from it. At the beginning of what proved to be a long and treasured friendship, he wrote:
"...there is one thing in which we are all equal--we all have the Inner Light, and if we obey it, it will grow brighter, but if we turn aside from it and refuse to follow it our spiritual vision will grown dimmer."
This short message, to a new-found friend, has the character, force and simplicity, of his vocal ministry for worship.
When Chatham Friends Meeting was given the status of a Monthly Meeting, Harvey Newlin and Nannie Guthrie were two of the most active of the younger members. Nannie was the Assistant Clerk of the Monthly Meeting and Harvey was named to two of the important committees. To Harvey this was another vital interest, and in it he followed the lead of the same inquiring mind that guided him along other important paths of life. The idea that Quakerism was "primitive Christianity revived" took hold of him and guided his thought and spirit. After discovering that God can be felt in the heart of the individual, he became as persistent in his "practice of the presence of God" as he was in any other interest in life. In the practice of silent communion he found a mystic union which gave him inward peace and confidence.
When his first contact with Conservative Friends was made he was ready for it. A few months after his marriage he changed his affiliation to the North Carolina Yearly Meeting of Friends (Conservative). From that time on he devoted himself more completely to the search for a deeper understanding of the Quaker faith that he might become its effective witness. He did not seek spiritual growth as an end within itself. He wanted to be able to use every opportunity to spread the Truth and minister to the spiritual needs of those with whom he might have any association. The spirit and witness of his ministry were as much in evidence on weekdays as on any First Day. His Christian ministry reached many of those for whom he was doing construction work and a great number of others who sought his aid in their search for their family heritage. His influence on one of the latter is seen in the following tribute, given after a second visit with him. "Harvey Newlin was as near a saint as any man I have ever known." True ministry is the work of the Spirit and the occasion for it is where two or more are gathered together. Harvey's life is a living witness to this belief.
Harvey's adoption of the manner of dress and speech, once used by nearly all Friends, was neither a fad nor a fetish. These were symbols of a way of life to which he was fully committed, and the Spirit which prompted him to use them was the same as that which caused early Friends to adopt them. They were reminders of a commitment and he found in them ways of witnessing to the Quaker faith.
His life was a full life. It was shaped by his humility, imagination, energy, perseverance, and loyalty, and by his obedience to the ever-present Christ within. In a religious society which stresses humility, few were more humble than he. He sought the lowest seat in the face of the meeting and in all of his associations. A close friend said of him:
"I do not think I have ever been with a person so genuinely humble as Harvey, and in some way, perhaps this is why he reached into the hearts of so many people."
His loyalty to his friends and to his ideals was close akin to his loyalty to God. He was possessed by the determination to live in the power of the Inner Christ and to walk in the way of the early Friends. He once said that the main direction of his ministry was to witness to the Quaker faith and give what strength he could to the Conservative body of Friends. He lived as if directed by one of the prayers of the Quaker poet:
O spirit of the early day
So pure and strong and true,
Be with us in the narrow way
Our faithful fathers knew.
He was unfailing in his attendance of meetings for worship and discipline at West Grove Meeting. He had had a leading part in founding this Meeting, and he and his brother, Mahlon, were responsible for much of the vocal ministry and leadership in it. He was loyal to the Quarterly Meeting which he served as Clerk for ninenteen years. His attendance and active work in his Yearly Meeting were as regular as its sessions. In 1961 he was recorded as a minister in the Society of Friends.
Harvey Newlin was a familiar figure in most of the Conservative Yearly Meetings. He knew by name and sight many of the Friends in each of them. He felt that his presence in the sessions of their Meetings might give them encouragement and support, and he found strength and satisfaction in their fellowship. For many years in succession he made the long journey to Indiana to attend the session of the small Western Yearly Meeting. Next to his own he attended Ohio Yearly Meeting more often than any other. He felt so strongly that he belonged with Friends in these rather distant Conservative Yearly Meetings that he visited them many times regardless of cost or physical strain.
Nannie's death, in 1967, brought an end to a happy and fruitful companionship which had lasted for nearly fifty seven years. Harvey's last three years were without his beloved companion. His faith in God and the continued pursuit of some of his deep concerns and major interests helped to crowd out some of the loneliness. In this period came the realization of one of his aspirations for travel--a chance to see much of the western part of this Country. Soon after returning home his fatal illness struck him.
On the fifth of Sixth Month, 1970, Harvey Newlin's life on earth ended, at eighty-one years, ten months and sixteen days.
God calls our loved ones, but he lose not wholly
What he hath given:
They live on earth, in thought and deed,
As truly as in His Heaven. (Whittier)
They that trust in the Lord shall be as Mount Zion,
Which cannot be removed, but abideth forever. (Psalm 125)
Below is Harvey Newlin's obituary from an unidentified newspaper, probably the one which serves Burlington, North Carolina:
Mr. Newlin Is Claimed By Death
SNOW CAMP--Harvey Newlin, 81, of Rt. 1, Snow Camp, died in a Burlington hospital this morning at 1 o'clock after five months of declining health and one week of critical illness.
Mr. Newlin, who was a native of Chatham County, was the son of the late James N. and Martha Guthrie Newlin. He was married to the late Nancy (Nannie) Guthrie Newlin, who died in 1967. He lived most of his life in Alamance County.
Mr. Newlin was a minister in the Society of Friends. His primary interests in life were farming, dairying, constructing barns and homes, and the study of genealogy. He was a member of West Grove Friends Meeting.
Surviving are two daughters, Mrs. Mary Bray of Fairmont, and Mrs. Martha Hartley of North Lima, Ohio; three sons, Harvey R. Newlin of Burlington, Burton O. Newlin of Rt. 1, Snow Camp, and Alfred C. Newlin of Rt. 1, Siler City; four sisters, Mrs. Sarah Shaw and Mrs. Ila Braxton, both of Rt. 1, Snow Camp, Mrs. Mary Clark of Rt. 4, Siler City, and Miss Elizabeth Newlin of Guilford College; two brothers, Dr. A.I. Newlin of Guilford College, and Ira G. Newlin of Scarsdale, NY; 12 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.
Final rites will be held Sunday afternoon at 2:30 o'clock in a traditional "After the Order of the Friends" service at West Grove Friends Meeting. Burial will follow in the cemetery there.
The body will remain with Rich and Thompson Funeral Home in Graham until taken to West Grove Friends Meeting 30 minutes prior to the service.
The family will be at the funeral home Saturday from 7 to 9 o'clock. Visitation will begin at noon Saturday.
The family requests that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to a favorite charity in memory of Mr. Newlin.
The following is quoted from page 133 of his brother's 1965 book, "The Newlin Family: Ancestors and Descendants of John and Mary Pyle Newlin":
Harvey Newlin was born in Chatham County, North Carolina, and has lived most of his life in the adjacent county of Alamance. His main interests in life have been farming, dairying, the building of barns and dwelling houses, the Society of Friends and Genealogy. He is a Minister in the Society of Friends.
His work in genealogy has covered families which were among the early settlers of his section of Piedmont North Carolina and which later sent many of their members to help open up and settle the Middle West.
More than forty years ago he began collecting data on the Newlin family. Then he and the author decided to concentrate on the descendants of their first Newlin ancestors to come to North Carolina--John and Mary Pyle Newlin. More, by far, than anyone else, Harvey promoted this project. By numerous trips to the Middle West and by extensive correspondence he worked assiduously to stimulate interest in the collection of data and in support for the publication of this work.
He personally collected most of the data on the descendants of James and Deborah Lindley Newlin and has been responsible for much of the remainder. His hand of influence has been the collection of material for other branches of the family.
He was the author's main consultant and resource person through the years of preparation for this publication.
The following article, unknown date and newspaper, describes Harvey Newlin's many interests, and part of it is quoted as follows:
Harvey Newlin Has Combined Barn Building, Genealogy And History Into Active Career
By Jim Parker
Harvey Newlin is a man who should have three stories written about him.
He is well known in five North Carolina counties as a builder of barns, gambrel-roofed barns which are solid and reveal the sturdiness of the honest Quaker who built them.
He is famous as a genealogist, specializing in the families which settled the Snow Camp area two hundred years ago and which migrated west to Indiana and Illinois in the 1800's.
He is a well qualified local historian, probably knowing as much local history as any man in North Carolina.
Harvey Newlin lives near Center Methodist Church in what is now Alamance County. His farm lies in a strip of land which was taken from Chatham in the 1890's and given to Alamance. For years the section was known locally as "Oklahoma," but the use of that name has about disappeared.
Harvey Newlin was born in Chatham County, on a Hickory Mountain farm on the 19th day of July, 1888 or the 19th day of the seventh month, 1888, as he and his Quaker ways would have it. His father was a tenant on a farm belonging to the Lacy Alston family, but later bought a farm near the present Newlin home.
He was married to the former Nannie Guthrie slightly over 50 years ago, and he and his wife moved to their present home in 1913. He farmed for a number of years and then got into the dairy business, operating one of the first dairies in Alamance County. He is still a dairy operator.
He got into the barn building game by accident. His father had given him an old log house, which he moved to his farm and used for a barn. The roof of the building was about to cave in, and Newlin knew that he had to do something. He got Kerr Scott, then Alamance County agent, to obtain plans for a new barn. It happened to be a gambrel type. He built the barn and moved into his animals into it. Two hours later the roof of the old barn came down with a crash.
Neighbors saw the huge barn which Newlin had built and asked if he would be interested in building others. He was. All told, he and his sons built 153 before he retired a few years back.
"I told the boys that I would quit when I found that I was in the way. We started building pole barns several years ago, built the first in this section, and I found myself in the way of the tractor moving poles into location. So I quit and turned the barn building over to Burton, my son. He stays covered up with work now, but I've quit completely," he said.
Newlin-built barns can be seen all over Chatham County, in Alamance, Orange, and in two other counties in the state. According to those who own them, no better barn can be built.
Early in young manhood, Harvey Newlin became attracted to the Conservative Quaker group. His parents were Quakers and his wife came from Quaker stock also. There being no conservative congregation near his home, he journeyed to Woodland, where he joined the meeting there. He has been a loyal Conservative Quaker ever since, one of the few left in this part of the state.
His group does not believe in music in the churches. They have no hired ministers and members of the meeting preach if and when they feel they have something to say. Their doctrine is much the same as that of the old-time Quakers who settled their portion of Alamance and Chatham Counties.
Harvey Newlin and Nannie stick to the Quaker speech. They address you as "thee" and they stick to plain clothes, avoiding show or fanciness. Their home is modern, having all the comforts needed. There is a telephone...
The Newlins and members of their family and some 30 other persons attend West Grove Friends Meeting not too far from their home. Their meeting, plus Holly Spring near Ramseur, makes up the Western quarter of Conservative Friends in North Carolina. There are three meetings in the Eastern quarter and these five together constitute the conservative movement in this state. Yearly meetings are held at Woodland.
Harvey Newlin has always been interested in family history. He recalls that when he was but a boy he used to visit an old abandoned home which had belonged to John Braxton, an early settler who was one of his ancestors.
"I found an old Book of Common Prayer when I was rummaging around. I used to go through the house, wishing that I had the money and know-how to fix it up so that it could be saved....
During the past 40 years he has worked on the history of 12 families, all of them intertwined with his own family. Ask him about a Lindley, Guthrie, Braxton, Holladay, Hadley, Newlin, or Andrew and chances are that he'll tell you anything you want to know, including names and dates. He keeps elaborate records and is now whipping the Newlin records into shape for a book.
His younger brother, Dr. Algie Newlin, Guilford College history professor, is aiding him in the writing of the book, and his sister, Miss Elizabeth Newlin of Greensboro, a retired Southern Railway worker, is doing the typing. He has been working on the book for several years now and it will probably be several more before it is finished.
Over the years Harvey Newlin has become a recognized authority on certain families. He gets many requests for aid, particularly from anxious women who hope to prove that their ancestors fought in the American Revolution so that they can get into the Daughters of the American Revolution.
"I always tell these women that I'm sorry, but their Quaker ancestors were not people who would join an army since it was against their religion. Of course, this isn't true, because many Quakers fought, but that always gives them a start," he joked.
He recalled the case of one woman who was very anxious to determine if a certain ancestor had been in the Revolutionary army. Newlin told her that he had searched the colonial records and it was clear that her ancestor had been a Revolutionary soldier. It was also just as clear, he added, that he had deserted and gone over to the Tories within a few weeks after joining up. This ruined the lady's chances of making the DAR rolls.
Harvey Newlin had what was an ordinary public school education of his day, attending Green Hill school near his home and one quarter at Guilford College. He thinks that he is not well-educated, but a talk with him will convince you otherwise.
He is a keen historian and is considered an authority on local history, particularly that of the Revolutionary period. Over the years he has accumulated many valuable papers, books, and other historical items given to him by friends and people in this neighborhood.
For many years he has been visiting in Indiana, where many Quakers, descendants of Chatham County people, still live. He has traced the family lines...
One of his prized possessions is a letter written during the Civil War by an Indiana boy named Newlin. The letter was written from Goldsboro back home to his family in Indiana. The boy was a member of Sherman's army and he seemed to have no doubt that the Southerners were suffering from the ravages of war.
"If the citizens is not sick where our army has been I can't help but wonder why for they ruined everything. Everything is taken from them, only what little they have in the houses and that was not much for they had no cense and did not know how to keep it. Everything they had they hid in the ground. We found lots bakon buried," the letter read.
Perhaps the most interesting and certainly the most entertaining item in Newlin's collection is a letter written from Indiana back to North Carolina in 1860 by Ira Braxton. The letter was written to their uncle informing him that his brother (their father) was dead.
Ira Braxton's letter, here printed exactly as written, was a masterpice of advice to his nephews:
"Though I never saw youe, youe are my brother's children, now I want youe to conduct yourselves so that youe name may stand big amongst men now as your dead father is done and gone and can't give no advice. I will give youe mine, all tho I am old and all most blind. That is to shun all bad company for one bad horse will spoil a dozen colts, that is to shun all kinds of gambling such as horse racing, card playing or any other kind of gamblin, keep company with men in good credit and your names will soon stand by, be honest, deal justly with all men and all men will respect youe and God will respect youe.
"Now boys, if youe are all single yet I will teach youe how to chuse a good wife if your go to see a girl go some time when she is not looking for youe and stay until breakfast next morning and see if she gets up early and makes up the beds and sweeps the floor and brushes down the pot trimbels before she hangs up the pot, look on the shelves, mind that her shoes is not on slip shod and if there is no holes for stockeens heels and is she makes good coffee she will do. If youe should marry them try to both pull together for in one pulls back and one fored youe will soon get into the mire.
"But if youe do go to see a girl that lies in bed til the sun is up and then cals dady to fetch her some water to wash and runs to the glass to fix her hear and has a hoop on big enuf to go around a bacco hogset and chanes in her years long enough for drowing chains, let them slide, for that is nothing but pride, although I have my grandchildren that is so proud of there hoopes and chances that it seems the ground is not good enuf for them to walk on."
Harvey Newlin has had a great deal of fun with this letter and he enjoys reading it to groups when he talks about genealogy. But he had another Braxton document which is far more valuable to him. It is a listing, made by John Braxton, of the dates of birth of his 12 children. Braxton was the first of the family in this section and the list of his children was of invaluable aid to Newlin, who was trying to trace the family and had been able to find only five of the children's names.
The document was written in the late 1700's and was found some 30 years ago in a box full of old books in an attic of a Snow Camp home. It was given to Newlin by the late Simon Hadley, who was a descendant of Braxton'
Harvey Newlin spends all of his spare time working on his book on the Newlin family. But he is still available for questioning by people who want to tap his vast store of knowledge of family history. He enjoys talking about the past.
When he finishes the book on his family, he should begin immediately to put down in writing the tremendous store of knowledge which he has about the history of his section of the state. As it is now he is a walking history book, all of it interesting and probably a lot of which is unknown to professional historians.
The Newlins have five children, two girls and three boys. One of the boys, Alfred, lives near Silk Hope and Burton lives beside his father. The third, Harvey, is assisting superintendent of the Burlington City Schools. The daughters are Mrs. Coyt Bray of Fairmont and Mrs. Everette Hartley of Ohio.
Below is a memorial to Harvey Newlin prepared for the North Carolina Yearly Meeting of Friends (Conservative), Eighth Month, 1971.
HARVEY NEWLIN 1888-1970
A MEMORIAL
Harvey Newlin was a minister in the Society of Friends. The greatest glow of his witness to the Christ within came through his ministry of friendship. This was as natural to him as his humility and unselfishness. The door to his heart was never closed to anyone. He always had time for his friends. The fruits of his religious life, his knowledge, and his stock of fun and stories were always ready for anyone who came to him. Through the giving of himself, his cup was continually filled with a sense of joyous satisfaction.
All hearts grew warmer in the presence
Of one who, seeking not his own,
Gave freely for the love of giving
Nor reaped for self the harvest sown (Whittier)
A farm in Hickory Mountain Township, Chatham County, North Carolina, was the starting point in Harvey Newlin's life. He was born there the nineteenth of Seventh Month, 1888, the sixth, and middle child, in the family of James Nathaniel and Martha Elizabeth Newlin.
His public school experience was in crowded school rooms and short terms. These years were followed by study in the Preparatory Department of Guilford College. Then, under his own incentive, he began the practice of self-education by which he prepared himself for each new venture of his life.
As a young man he was physically strong and active, and he was blessed with a mind which was equally strong and imaginative. He enjoyed life and radiated that spirit wherever he went. Without trying to push himself into positions of leadership he promoted wholesome activities for young people. His influence was shown in the active part he took in a debating society which reached beyond the limits of the local school district. In baseball, his pitching and his work as a manager contributed to the success of a community team. He was one of the most active of the young people who, for several summers, produced dramas which were at the peak of community interest. Harvey never lost his spirit of youth, and his interest in children and young people continued throughout his life.
On the twentieth of Fourth Month, 1910, Harvey Newlin and Nannie Guthrie were married. They had known each other for more than a decade, having attended the same school and the same Friends Meeting. Under their care their five children were reared in a Quaker atmosphere. They were taught by word and example, that family life rises from unselfish and cooperative work, freely given, and that a spirit of love must bind all together and reach out to friends and relatives. They practiced and appreciated an orderly life.
Their children remember that life in the family was always in a definite religious spirit. There were daily Bible readings and worship, in which all participated. Twice each week they went as a family to meetings for worship, that each might find a closer union with the living Christ. The plain language was the language of the family. One of their rich experiences was in sharing their home and family life with visiting Friends who always found a welcome there. Some of these were extended visits, but short or extended they all left their afterglow on both the visited and the visitors.
Harvey and Nannie began life together with very limited material resources. They shared cheerfully the hard work and privations necessary for the family livelihood. The limited income from the small farm had to be supplemented. Before marriage Harvey had made one break from rural life when he worked for several months in a steel mill, but now he engaged in additional work which he found within reach of his home. He operated a blacksmith shop on a small scale, worked at a sawmill and cotton gin, and for several years was responsible for the maintenance of the local cooperative telephone system. While engaged in these different lines of work he made and maintained a reputation for reliability and for the quality of his work.
When he turned to dairying he found an outlet for his energies and for his imaginative mind, which led him farther in the development of his own interests and of those of the community. He introduced thoroughbred dairy cattle to the community, made use of the county agricultural agent and followed the best methods available in agriculture and dairying. By the time he was ready to relinquish the operation of his dairy farm it ranked with the best in the area.
Harvey's construction of a dairy barn, different in model and size, and much more efficient than those in general use at the time, created a demand from his neighbors for barns of this type. This proved to be the beginning of another of his fruitful enterprises. With a group of workers, made up of men living in the community, numerous barns were made in the surrounding area. This brought additional income to all who engaged in the work and made a great improvement in the appearance and efficiency of the farms affected. In all of this work the influence of a religious faith was obvious. Honesty and the superior quality of work, at a fair price, were never forgotten by the persons benefitted by it. This reputation was established in every community in which they worked.
Through the greater part of his life Harvey Newlin devoted much time and thought to the study of local history and the history of many of the families of long standing in the Cane Creek Valley. He had a prodigious memory and a marked gift in tracing family relationships. In these fields of interest he shared his great knowledge freely and in doing so reached the heart of everyone who came to him. Children in the local public school benefited from his knowledge of local history. His extensive research and tireless promotion were of major importance in the preparation and publication of a large volume on the history and genealogy of one branch of the Newlin family.
In the years preceding and during his early manhood, Harvey showed relatively little interest in religion, beyond regular attendance of meetings for worship in the accustomed family pattern. When he was about twenty years of age his discovery of the power and intimacy of the Inner Light in his own soul powerfully affected him. He never allowed himself to become estranged from it. At the beginning of what proved to be a long and treasured friendship, he wrote:
"...there is one thing in which we are all equal--we all have the Inner Light, and if we obey it, it will grow brighter, but if we turn aside from it and refuse to follow it our spiritual vision will grown dimmer."
This short message, to a new-found friend, has the character, force and simplicity, of his vocal ministry for worship.
When Chatham Friends Meeting was given the status of a Monthly Meeting, Harvey Newlin and Nannie Guthrie were two of the most active of the younger members. Nannie was the Assistant Clerk of the Monthly Meeting and Harvey was named to two of the important committees. To Harvey this was another vital interest, and in it he followed the lead of the same inquiring mind that guided him along other important paths of life. The idea that Quakerism was "primitive Christianity revived" took hold of him and guided his thought and spirit. After discovering that God can be felt in the heart of the individual, he became as persistent in his "practice of the presence of God" as he was in any other interest in life. In the practice of silent communion he found a mystic union which gave him inward peace and confidence.
When his first contact with Conservative Friends was made he was ready for it. A few months after his marriage he changed his affiliation to the North Carolina Yearly Meeting of Friends (Conservative). From that time on he devoted himself more completely to the search for a deeper understanding of the Quaker faith that he might become its effective witness. He did not seek spiritual growth as an end within itself. He wanted to be able to use every opportunity to spread the Truth and minister to the spiritual needs of those with whom he might have any association. The spirit and witness of his ministry were as much in evidence on weekdays as on any First Day. His Christian ministry reached many of those for whom he was doing construction work and a great number of others who sought his aid in their search for their family heritage. His influence on one of the latter is seen in the following tribute, given after a second visit with him. "Harvey Newlin was as near a saint as any man I have ever known." True ministry is the work of the Spirit and the occasion for it is where two or more are gathered together. Harvey's life is a living witness to this belief.
Harvey's adoption of the manner of dress and speech, once used by nearly all Friends, was neither a fad nor a fetish. These were symbols of a way of life to which he was fully committed, and the Spirit which prompted him to use them was the same as that which caused early Friends to adopt them. They were reminders of a commitment and he found in them ways of witnessing to the Quaker faith.
His life was a full life. It was shaped by his humility, imagination, energy, perseverance, and loyalty, and by his obedience to the ever-present Christ within. In a religious society which stresses humility, few were more humble than he. He sought the lowest seat in the face of the meeting and in all of his associations. A close friend said of him:
"I do not think I have ever been with a person so genuinely humble as Harvey, and in some way, perhaps this is why he reached into the hearts of so many people."
His loyalty to his friends and to his ideals was close akin to his loyalty to God. He was possessed by the determination to live in the power of the Inner Christ and to walk in the way of the early Friends. He once said that the main direction of his ministry was to witness to the Quaker faith and give what strength he could to the Conservative body of Friends. He lived as if directed by one of the prayers of the Quaker poet:
O spirit of the early day
So pure and strong and true,
Be with us in the narrow way
Our faithful fathers knew.
He was unfailing in his attendance of meetings for worship and discipline at West Grove Meeting. He had had a leading part in founding this Meeting, and he and his brother, Mahlon, were responsible for much of the vocal ministry and leadership in it. He was loyal to the Quarterly Meeting which he served as Clerk for ninenteen years. His attendance and active work in his Yearly Meeting were as regular as its sessions. In 1961 he was recorded as a minister in the Society of Friends.
Harvey Newlin was a familiar figure in most of the Conservative Yearly Meetings. He knew by name and sight many of the Friends in each of them. He felt that his presence in the sessions of their Meetings might give them encouragement and support, and he found strength and satisfaction in their fellowship. For many years in succession he made the long journey to Indiana to attend the session of the small Western Yearly Meeting. Next to his own he attended Ohio Yearly Meeting more often than any other. He felt so strongly that he belonged with Friends in these rather distant Conservative Yearly Meetings that he visited them many times regardless of cost or physical strain.
Nannie's death, in 1967, brought an end to a happy and fruitful companionship which had lasted for nearly fifty seven years. Harvey's last three years were without his beloved companion. His faith in God and the continued pursuit of some of his deep concerns and major interests helped to crowd out some of the loneliness. In this period came the realization of one of his aspirations for travel--a chance to see much of the western part of this Country. Soon after returning home his fatal illness struck him.
On the fifth of Sixth Month, 1970, Harvey Newlin's life on earth ended, at eighty-one years, ten months and sixteen days.
God calls our loved ones, but he lose not wholly
What he hath given:
They live on earth, in thought and deed,
As truly as in His Heaven. (Whittier)
They that trust in the Lord shall be as Mount Zion,
Which cannot be removed, but abideth forever. (Psalm 125)
Below is Harvey Newlin's obituary from an unidentified newspaper, probably the one which serves Burlington, North Carolina:
Mr. Newlin Is Claimed By Death
SNOW CAMP--Harvey Newlin, 81, of Rt. 1, Snow Camp, died in a Burlington hospital this morning at 1 o'clock after five months of declining health and one week of critical illness.
Mr. Newlin, who was a native of Chatham County, was the son of the late James N. and Martha Guthrie Newlin. He was married to the late Nancy (Nannie) Guthrie Newlin, who died in 1967. He lived most of his life in Alamance County.
Mr. Newlin was a minister in the Society of Friends. His primary interests in life were farming, dairying, constructing barns and homes, and the study of genealogy. He was a member of West Grove Friends Meeting.
Surviving are two daughters, Mrs. Mary Bray of Fairmont, and Mrs. Martha Hartley of North Lima, Ohio; three sons, Harvey R. Newlin of Burlington, Burton O. Newlin of Rt. 1, Snow Camp, and Alfred C. Newlin of Rt. 1, Siler City; four sisters, Mrs. Sarah Shaw and Mrs. Ila Braxton, both of Rt. 1, Snow Camp, Mrs. Mary Clark of Rt. 4, Siler City, and Miss Elizabeth Newlin of Guilford College; two brothers, Dr. A.I. Newlin of Guilford College, and Ira G. Newlin of Scarsdale, NY; 12 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.
Final rites will be held Sunday afternoon at 2:30 o'clock in a traditional "After the Order of the Friends" service at West Grove Friends Meeting. Burial will follow in the cemetery there.
The body will remain with Rich and Thompson Funeral Home in Graham until taken to West Grove Friends Meeting 30 minutes prior to the service.
The family will be at the funeral home Saturday from 7 to 9 o'clock. Visitation will begin at noon Saturday.
The family requests that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to a favorite charity in memory of Mr. Newlin.
Harvey Newlin was born in Chatham County, North Carolina, and has lived most of his life in the adjacent county of Alamance. His main interests in life have been farming, dairying, the building of barns and dwelling houses, the Society of Friends and Genealogy. He is a Minister in the Society of Friends.
His work in genealogy has covered families which were among the early settlers of his section of Piedmont North Carolina and which later sent many of their members to help open up and settle the Middle West.
More than forty years ago he began collecting data on the Newlin family. Then he and the author decided to concentrate on the descendants of their first Newlin ancestors to come to North Carolina--John and Mary Pyle Newlin. More, by far, than anyone else, Harvey promoted this project. By numerous trips to the Middle West and by extensive correspondence he worked assiduously to stimulate interest in the collection of data and in support for the publication of this work.
He personally collected most of the data on the descendants of James and Deborah Lindley Newlin and has been responsible for much of the remainder. His hand of influence has been the collection of material for other branches of the family.
He was the author's main consultant and resource person through the years of preparation for this publication.
The following article, unknown date and newspaper, describes Harvey Newlin's many interests, and part of it is quoted as follows:
Harvey Newlin Has Combined Barn Building, Genealogy And History Into Active Career
By Jim Parker
Harvey Newlin is a man who should have three stories written about him.
He is well known in five North Carolina counties as a builder of barns, gambrel-roofed barns which are solid and reveal the sturdiness of the honest Quaker who built them.
He is famous as a genealogist, specializing in the families which settled the Snow Camp area two hundred years ago and which migrated west to Indiana and Illinois in the 1800's.
He is a well qualified local historian, probably knowing as much local history as any man in North Carolina.
Harvey Newlin lives near Center Methodist Church in what is now Alamance County. His farm lies in a strip of land which was taken from Chatham in the 1890's and given to Alamance. For years the section was known locally as "Oklahoma," but the use of that name has about disappeared.
Harvey Newlin was born in Chatham County, on a Hickory Mountain farm on the 19th day of July, 1888 or the 19th day of the seventh month, 1888, as he and his Quaker ways would have it. His father was a tenant on a farm belonging to the Lacy Alston family, but later bought a farm near the present Newlin home.
He was married to the former Nannie Guthrie slightly over 50 years ago, and he and his wife moved to their present home in 1913. He farmed for a number of years and then got into the dairy business, operating one of the first dairies in Alamance County. He is still a dairy operator.
He got into the barn building game by accident. His father had given him an old log house, which he moved to his farm and used for a barn. The roof of the building was about to cave in, and Newlin knew that he had to do something. He got Kerr Scott, then Alamance County agent, to obtain plans for a new barn. It happened to be a gambrel type. He built the barn and moved into his animals into it. Two hours later the roof of the old barn came down with a crash.
Neighbors saw the huge barn which Newlin had built and asked if he would be interested in building others. He was. All told, he and his sons built 153 before he retired a few years back.
"I told the boys that I would quit when I found that I was in the way. We started building pole barns several years ago, built the first in this section, and I found myself in the way of the tractor moving poles into location. So I quit and turned the barn building over to Burton, my son. He stays covered up with work now, but I've quit completely," he said.
Newlin-built barns can be seen all over Chatham County, in Alamance, Orange, and in two other counties in the state. According to those who own them, no better barn can be built.
Early in young manhood, Harvey Newlin became attracted to the Conservative Quaker group. His parents were Quakers and his wife came from Quaker stock also. There being no conservative congregation near his home, he journeyed to Woodland, where he joined the meeting there. He has been a loyal Conservative Quaker ever since, one of the few left in this part of the state.
His group does not believe in music in the churches. They have no hired ministers and members of the meeting preach if and when they feel they have something to say. Their doctrine is much the same as that of the old-time Quakers who settled their portion of Alamance and Chatham Counties.
Harvey Newlin and Nannie stick to the Quaker speech. They address you as "thee" and they stick to plain clothes, avoiding show or fanciness. Their home is modern, having all the comforts needed. There is a telephone...
The Newlins and members of their family and some 30 other persons attend West Grove Friends Meeting not too far from their home. Their meeting, plus Holly Spring near Ramseur, makes up the Western quarter of Conservative Friends in North Carolina. There are three meetings in the Eastern quarter and these five together constitute the conservative movement in this state. Yearly meetings are held at Woodland.
Harvey Newlin has always been interested in family history. He recalls that when he was but a boy he used to visit an old abandoned home which had belonged to John Braxton, an early settler who was one of his ancestors.
"I found an old Book of Common Prayer when I was rummaging around. I used to go through the house, wishing that I had the money and know-how to fix it up so that it could be saved....
During the past 40 years he has worked on the history of 12 families, all of them intertwined with his own family. Ask him about a Lindley, Guthrie, Braxton, Holladay, Hadley, Newlin, or Andrew and chances are that he'll tell you anything you want to know, including names and dates. He keeps elaborate records and is now whipping the Newlin records into shape for a book.
His younger brother, Dr. Algie Newlin, Guilford College history professor, is aiding him in the writing of the book, and his sister, Miss Elizabeth Newlin of Greensboro, a retired Southern Railway worker, is doing the typing. He has been working on the book for several years now and it will probably be several more before it is finished.
Over the years Harvey Newlin has become a recognized authority on certain families. He gets many requests for aid, particularly from anxious women who hope to prove that their ancestors fought in the American Revolution so that they can get into the Daughters of the American Revolution.
"I always tell these women that I'm sorry, but their Quaker ancestors were not people who would join an army since it was against their religion. Of course, this isn't true, because many Quakers fought, but that always gives them a start," he joked.
He recalled the case of one woman who was very anxious to determine if a certain ancestor had been in the Revolutionary army. Newlin told her that he had searched the colonial records and it was clear that her ancestor had been a Revolutionary soldier. It was also just as clear, he added, that he had deserted and gone over to the Tories within a few weeks after joining up. This ruined the lady's chances of making the DAR rolls.
Harvey Newlin had what was an ordinary public school education of his day, attending Green Hill school near his home and one quarter at Guilford College. He thinks that he is not well-educated, but a talk with him will convince you otherwise.
He is a keen historian and is considered an authority on local history, particularly that of the Revolutionary period. Over the years he has accumulated many valuable papers, books, and other historical items given to him by friends and people in this neighborhood.
For many years he has been visiting in Indiana, where many Quakers, descendants of Chatham County people, still live. He has traced the family lines...
One of his prized possessions is a letter written during the Civil War by an Indiana boy named Newlin. The letter was written from Goldsboro back home to his family in Indiana. The boy was a member of Sherman's army and he seemed to have no doubt that the Southerners were suffering from the ravages of war.
"If the citizens is not sick where our army has been I can't help but wonder why for they ruined everything. Everything is taken from them, only what little they have in the houses and that was not much for they had no cense and did not know how to keep it. Everything they had they hid in the ground. We found lots bakon buried," the letter read.
Perhaps the most interesting and certainly the most entertaining item in Newlin's collection is a letter written from Indiana back to North Carolina in 1860 by Ira Braxton. The letter was written to their uncle informing him that his brother (their father) was dead.
Ira Braxton's letter, here printed exactly as written, was a masterpice of advice to his nephews:
"Though I never saw youe, youe are my brother's children, now I want youe to conduct yourselves so that youe name may stand big amongst men now as your dead father is done and gone and can't give no advice. I will give youe mine, all tho I am old and all most blind. That is to shun all bad company for one bad horse will spoil a dozen colts, that is to shun all kinds of gambling such as horse racing, card playing or any other kind of gamblin, keep company with men in good credit and your names will soon stand by, be honest, deal justly with all men and all men will respect youe and God will respect youe.
"Now boys, if youe are all single yet I will teach youe how to chuse a good wife if your go to see a girl go some time when she is not looking for youe and stay until breakfast next morning and see if she gets up early and makes up the beds and sweeps the floor and brushes down the pot trimbels before she hangs up the pot, look on the shelves, mind that her shoes is not on slip shod and if there is no holes for stockeens heels and is she makes good coffee she will do. If youe should marry them try to both pull together for in one pulls back and one fored youe will soon get into the mire.
"But if youe do go to see a girl that lies in bed til the sun is up and then cals dady to fetch her some water to wash and runs to the glass to fix her hear and has a hoop on big enuf to go around a bacco hogset and chanes in her years long enough for drowing chains, let them slide, for that is nothing but pride, although I have my grandchildren that is so proud of there hoopes and chances that it seems the ground is not good enuf for them to walk on."
Harvey Newlin has had a great deal of fun with this letter and he enjoys reading it to groups when he talks about genealogy. But he had another Braxton document which is far more valuable to him. It is a listing, made by John Braxton, of the dates of birth of his 12 children. Braxton was the first of the family in this section and the list of his children was of invaluable aid to Newlin, who was trying to trace the family and had been able to find only five of the children's names.
The document was written in the late 1700's and was found some 30 years ago in a box full of old books in an attic of a Snow Camp home. It was given to Newlin by the late Simon Hadley, who was a descendant of Braxton'
Harvey Newlin spends all of his spare time working on his book on the Newlin family. But he is still available for questioning by people who want to tap his vast store of knowledge of family history. He enjoys talking about the past.
When he finishes the book on his family, he should begin immediately to put down in writing the tremendous store of knowledge which he has about the history of his section of the state. As it is now he is a walking history book, all of it interesting and probably a lot of which is unknown to professional historians.
The Newlins have five children, two girls and three boys. One of the boys, Alfred, lives near Silk Hope and Burton lives beside his father. The third, Harvey, is assisting superintendent of the Burlington City Schools. The daughters are Mrs. Coyt Bray of Fairmont and Mrs. Everette Hartley of Ohio.
Below is a memorial to Harvey Newlin prepared for the North Carolina Yearly Meeting of Friends (Conservative), Eighth Month, 1971.
HARVEY NEWLIN 1888-1970
A MEMORIAL
Harvey Newlin was a minister in the Society of Friends. The greatest glow of his witness to the Christ within came through his ministry of friendship. This was as natural to him as his humility and unselfishness. The door to his heart was never closed to anyone. He always had time for his friends. The fruits of his religious life, his knowledge, and his stock of fun and stories were always ready for anyone who came to him. Through the giving of himself, his cup was continually filled with a sense of joyous satisfaction.
All hearts grew warmer in the presence
Of one who, seeking not his own,
Gave freely for the love of giving
Nor reaped for self the harvest sown (Whittier)
A farm in Hickory Mountain Township, Chatham County, North Carolina, was the starting point in Harvey Newlin's life. He was born there the nineteenth of Seventh Month, 1888, the sixth, and middle child, in the family of James Nathaniel and Martha Elizabeth Newlin.
His public school experience was in crowded school rooms and short terms. These years were followed by study in the Preparatory Department of Guilford College. Then, under his own incentive, he began the practice of self-education by which he prepared himself for each new venture of his life.
As a young man he was physically strong and active, and he was blessed with a mind which was equally strong and imaginative. He enjoyed life and radiated that spirit wherever he went. Without trying to push himself into positions of leadership he promoted wholesome activities for young people. His influence was shown in the active part he took in a debating society which reached beyond the limits of the local school district. In baseball, his pitching and his work as a manager contributed to the success of a community team. He was one of the most active of the young people who, for several summers, produced dramas which were at the peak of community interest. Harvey never lost his spirit of youth, and his interest in children and young people continued throughout his life.
On the twentieth of Fourth Month, 1910, Harvey Newlin and Nannie Guthrie were married. They had known each other for more than a decade, having attended the same school and the same Friends Meeting. Under their care their five children were reared in a Quaker atmosphere. They were taught by word and example, that family life rises from unselfish and cooperative work, freely given, and that a spirit of love must bind all together and reach out to friends and relatives. They practiced and appreciated an orderly life.
Their children remember that life in the family was always in a definite religious spirit. There were daily Bible readings and worship, in which all participated. Twice each week they went as a family to meetings for worship, that each might find a closer union with the living Christ. The plain language was the language of the family. One of their rich experiences was in sharing their home and family life with visiting Friends who always found a welcome there. Some of these were extended visits, but short or extended they all left their afterglow on both the visited and the visitors.
Harvey and Nannie began life together with very limited material resources. They shared cheerfully the hard work and privations necessary for the family livelihood. The limited income from the small farm had to be supplemented. Before marriage Harvey had made one break from rural life when he worked for several months in a steel mill, but now he engaged in additional work which he found within reach of his home. He operated a blacksmith shop on a small scale, worked at a sawmill and cotton gin, and for several years was responsible for the maintenance of the local cooperative telephone system. While engaged in these different lines of work he made and maintained a reputation for reliability and for the quality of his work.
When he turned to dairying he found an outlet for his energies and for his imaginative mind, which led him farther in the development of his own interests and of those of the community. He introduced thoroughbred dairy cattle to the community, made use of the county agricultural agent and followed the best methods available in agriculture and dairying. By the time he was ready to relinquish the operation of his dairy farm it ranked with the best in the area.
Harvey's construction of a dairy barn, different in model and size, and much more efficient than those in general use at the time, created a demand from his neighbors for barns of this type. This proved to be the beginning of another of his fruitful enterprises. With a group of workers, made up of men living in the community, numerous barns were made in the surrounding area. This brought additional income to all who engaged in the work and made a great improvement in the appearance and efficiency of the farms affected. In all of this work the influence of a religious faith was obvious. Honesty and the superior quality of work, at a fair price, were never forgotten by the persons benefitted by it. This reputation was established in every community in which they worked.
Through the greater part of his life Harvey Newlin devoted much time and thought to the study of local history and the history of many of the families of long standing in the Cane Creek Valley. He had a prodigious memory and a marked gift in tracing family relationships. In these fields of interest he shared his great knowledge freely and in doing so reached the heart of everyone who came to him. Children in the local public school benefited from his knowledge of local history. His extensive research and tireless promotion were of major importance in the preparation and publication of a large volume on the history and genealogy of one branch of the Newlin family.
In the years preceding and during his early manhood, Harvey showed relatively little interest in religion, beyond regular attendance of meetings for worship in the accustomed family pattern. When he was about twenty years of age his discovery of the power and intimacy of the Inner Light in his own soul powerfully affected him. He never allowed himself to become estranged from it. At the beginning of what proved to be a long and treasured friendship, he wrote:
"...there is one thing in which we are all equal--we all have the Inner Light, and if we obey it, it will grow brighter, but if we turn aside from it and refuse to follow it our spiritual vision will grown dimmer."
This short message, to a new-found friend, has the character, force and simplicity, of his vocal ministry for worship.
When Chatham Friends Meeting was given the status of a Monthly Meeting, Harvey Newlin and Nannie Guthrie were two of the most active of the younger members. Nannie was the Assistant Clerk of the Monthly Meeting and Harvey was named to two of the important committees. To Harvey this was another vital interest, and in it he followed the lead of the same inquiring mind that guided him along other important paths of life. The idea that Quakerism was "primitive Christianity revived" took hold of him and guided his thought and spirit. After discovering that God can be felt in the heart of the individual, he became as persistent in his "practice of the presence of God" as he was in any other interest in life. In the practice of silent communion he found a mystic union which gave him inward peace and confidence.
When his first contact with Conservative Friends was made he was ready for it. A few months after his marriage he changed his affiliation to the North Carolina Yearly Meeting of Friends (Conservative). From that time on he devoted himself more completely to the search for a deeper understanding of the Quaker faith that he might become its effective witness. He did not seek spiritual growth as an end within itself. He wanted to be able to use every opportunity to spread the Truth and minister to the spiritual needs of those with whom he might have any association. The spirit and witness of his ministry were as much in evidence on weekdays as on any First Day. His Christian ministry reached many of those for whom he was doing construction work and a great number of others who sought his aid in their search for their family heritage. His influence on one of the latter is seen in the following tribute, given after a second visit with him. "Harvey Newlin was as near a saint as any man I have ever known." True ministry is the work of the Spirit and the occasion for it is where two or more are gathered together. Harvey's life is a living witness to this belief.
Harvey's adoption of the manner of dress and speech, once used by nearly all Friends, was neither a fad nor a fetish. These were symbols of a way of life to which he was fully committed, and the Spirit which prompted him to use them was the same as that which caused early Friends to adopt them. They were reminders of a commitment and he found in them ways of witnessing to the Quaker faith.
His life was a full life. It was shaped by his humility, imagination, energy, perseverance, and loyalty, and by his obedience to the ever-present Christ within. In a religious society which stresses humility, few were more humble than he. He sought the lowest seat in the face of the meeting and in all of his associations. A close friend said of him:
"I do not think I have ever been with a person so genuinely humble as Harvey, and in some way, perhaps this is why he reached into the hearts of so many people."
His loyalty to his friends and to his ideals was close akin to his loyalty to God. He was possessed by the determination to live in the power of the Inner Christ and to walk in the way of the early Friends. He once said that the main direction of his ministry was to witness to the Quaker faith and give what strength he could to the Conservative body of Friends. He lived as if directed by one of the prayers of the Quaker poet:
O spirit of the early day
So pure and strong and true,
Be with us in the narrow way
Our faithful fathers knew.
He was unfailing in his attendance of meetings for worship and discipline at West Grove Meeting. He had had a leading part in founding this Meeting, and he and his brother, Mahlon, were responsible for much of the vocal ministry and leadership in it. He was loyal to the Quarterly Meeting which he served as Clerk for ninenteen years. His attendance and active work in his Yearly Meeting were as regular as its sessions. In 1961 he was recorded as a minister in the Society of Friends.
Harvey Newlin was a familiar figure in most of the Conservative Yearly Meetings. He knew by name and sight many of the Friends in each of them. He felt that his presence in the sessions of their Meetings might give them encouragement and support, and he found strength and satisfaction in their fellowship. For many years in succession he made the long journey to Indiana to attend the session of the small Western Yearly Meeting. Next to his own he attended Ohio Yearly Meeting more often than any other. He felt so strongly that he belonged with Friends in these rather distant Conservative Yearly Meetings that he visited them many times regardless of cost or physical strain.
Nannie's death, in 1967, brought an end to a happy and fruitful companionship which had lasted for nearly fifty seven years. Harvey's last three years were without his beloved companion. His faith in God and the continued pursuit of some of his deep concerns and major interests helped to crowd out some of the loneliness. In this period came the realization of one of his aspirations for travel--a chance to see much of the western part of this Country. Soon after returning home his fatal illness struck him.
On the fifth of Sixth Month, 1970, Harvey Newlin's life on earth ended, at eighty-one years, ten months and sixteen days.
God calls our loved ones, but he lose not wholly
What he hath given:
They live on earth, in thought and deed,
As truly as in His Heaven. (Whittier)
They that trust in the Lord shall be as Mount Zion,
Which cannot be removed, but abideth forever. (Psalm 125)
Below is Harvey Newlin's obituary from an unidentified newspaper, probably the one which serves Burlington, North Carolina:
Mr. Newlin Is Claimed By Death
SNOW CAMP--Harvey Newlin, 81, of Rt. 1, Snow Camp, died in a Burlington hospital this morning at 1 o'clock after five months of declining health and one week of critical illness.
Mr. Newlin, who was a native of Chatham County, was the son of the late James N. and Martha Guthrie Newlin. He was married to the late Nancy (Nannie) Guthrie Newlin, who died in 1967. He lived most of his life in Alamance County.
Mr. Newlin was a minister in the Society of Friends. His primary interests in life were farming, dairying, constructing barns and homes, and the study of genealogy. He was a member of West Grove Friends Meeting.
Surviving are two daughters, Mrs. Mary Bray of Fairmont, and Mrs. Martha Hartley of North Lima, Ohio; three sons, Harvey R. Newlin of Burlington, Burton O. Newlin of Rt. 1, Snow Camp, and Alfred C. Newlin of Rt. 1, Siler City; four sisters, Mrs. Sarah Shaw and Mrs. Ila Braxton, both of Rt. 1, Snow Camp, Mrs. Mary Clark of Rt. 4, Siler City, and Miss Elizabeth Newlin of Guilford College; two brothers, Dr. A.I. Newlin of Guilford College, and Ira G. Newlin of Scarsdale, NY; 12 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.
Final rites will be held Sunday afternoon at 2:30 o'clock in a traditional "After the Order of the Friends" service at West Grove Friends Meeting. Burial will follow in the cemetery there.
The body will remain with Rich and Thompson Funeral Home in Graham until taken to West Grove Friends Meeting 30 minutes prior to the service.
The family will be at the funeral home Saturday from 7 to 9 o'clock. Visitation will begin at noon Saturday.
The family requests that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to a favorite charity in memory of Mr. Newlin.
Family Members
Siblings
Sponsored by Ancestry
Advertisement
Records on Ancestry
Advertisement
