Page 12 - Town of Newcomb Newsletter - November December 2021

This brings us to Daniel Newcomb. As most of you know Daniel T. New-
comb was the first Supervisor of the Town of Newcomb. He was the son of
Daniel and Elizabeth Newcomb of Pittstown, Rensselaer County, NY. His
th
grandfather, Zaccheus Newcomb, was the 5 generation from Captain An-
drew Newcomb, from the West of England. He was among the earliest
settlers of New England, first mentioned in 1663.

Daniel spent his youth and early manhood on his father’s farm in his favor-
ite pursuit, agriculture. In the war of 1812, he served under General Eddy
during the invasion of Plattsburgh in September 1814. He moved to the
Newcomb area in 1822 at the age of 28 with the thought of cultivation of a
large tract of land he owned. This land is located close to the old Ward’s
lumber property off the road to Tahawus. It is now part of the Newcomb
Sportsman’s Club.
In July of 1825 he married Patience Viele, (an ancestor of mine). She was the
eldest daughter of Abraham I. and Hanna (Douglass) Viele of Pittstown, NY.

After their marriage the couple lived in Newcomb for only 4 or 5 years be-
fore returning to Pittstown. Daniels’s ambition was to become an extensive
agriculturalist; with this in mind he looked westward to explore other areas.
In the winter of 1837, he headed out alone on horseback through Western
New York, parts of Canada, Michigan, Indiana, and Illinois crossing the Mis-
sissippi into Iowa where he decided to settle. In the fall of that year his wife,
Patience, and her parents, plus several other family members moved to Io-
wa.

Daniel Newcomb was one of the first farmers to use agricultural machinery
in the state of Iowa. Under his management and foresight, the profits and
proceeds of his estate grew into a large fortune. After living for several years
between Dubuque and Des Moines and owning and operating a farm of
twelve hundred acres it was time to move on. In 1842 he moved to Daven-
port, finally erecting a residence with spacious grounds later known as the
Newcomb mansion, then Brady Manor. He lived there with Patience until
his death in 1870 from apoplexy, (stroke, cerebral hemorrhage). In 1892
their residence became St. Luke’s Hospital.

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