Arbon Valley lost Newell Lishman in the early hours of Friday, May 1, 1964. He was 73, and his death came at Bannock Memorial Hospital. The Idaho State Journal gave the news in a short notice that day, and on Sunday it printed his obituary. Among the usual facts of birth, family and funeral, the obituary carried one that appears nowhere else in the papers read for this site: a canyon near Arbon bore his name, Newell Canyon.
Half a century earlier the American Falls Press had followed him in its Arbon columns, where his name was usually spelled Leishman.
A homestead under Bowen's Peak
The obituary says he was born at Wellsville, in Utah's Cache Valley, to William McKay Lishman and a mother whose name was printed as Garkard Hanson Lishman; "Garkard" is probably a misprint, and Hanson was probably her maiden name. The Press's 1917 lists of the county's men registered for the draft give his full name as Newell Hanson Leishman of Arbon. The obituary dates his birth February 26, 1891, but the Arbon columns twice marked his birthday on February 18: a surprise party for "Mr. N. Lishman" at Willard Bailey's home on February 18, 1914, and a party at the J. E. Keeler home on February 18, 1916, where he celebrated his birthday along with Nina Keeler.
The obituary puts his move from Wellsville to Arbon Valley at the age of 18, which would be about 1909. In October 1917 the Press's roving correspondent, who signed himself "the Pilgrim," described his farm:
Newell Leishman, a young bachelor, four years ago homesteaded a 320 acre tract located two and a half miles west of Arbon, snug up against the foot of Bowen's peak. That young rancher has been industrious in the development of his homestead is attested by the 150 acres in cultivation. This year he harvested some fine No. 2 Turkey Red, and is preparing to harvest an increased acreage the coming year.
The whole column is transcribed with the Lusk brothers and Bailey sisters of Pauline.
The rural route
In April 1915 an examination was held at the Arbon post office for the carrier on Rural Free Delivery Route No. 1, the valley's first rural route. By that summer the route was Newell's. On August 12, 1915, the Arbon column reported that a man named Powell had "relieved Newt Lishman on the rural mail route during harvest." In May 1916 Melvin Bailey took the route for a month, relieving "the regular carrier," Newell. By January 1917 the regular carrier was Brigg Bowen, and it was Newell who stood in for him for a few days. The longer fight for mail service is told in By way of Brigham, and the carriers who came after him in Ed and Hannah Snyder and the Arbon rural mail route.
He drove the mail at least once more. Late in May 1917 he carried it out from Pocatello on one trip, when the Portneuf River was over its banks near the Swanson ranch. He reached Rattlesnake through mud and water, fording at one place with the water up into the engine of his car. "Newt says never again," the column reported. That trip is part of the roads to town in 1917.
The war years and after
The Arbon columns of 1917 and 1918 mention him often. In October 1917 he went to American Falls to see off "the boy from here" who was leaving for American Lake, sold his car to Parley Bailey that month and planned to spend the winter in Utah, and in November was treated in Pocatello for a lame arm, hurt when a wagon wheel ran over it. In the autumn of 1918 he was slowly recovering from influenza, and late in November the column reported him out again after "a long siege of pneumonia" (the influenza at Arbon, 1918). That December the War Department wrongly listed his brother Farrell as having died in a hospital in France. A letter from Farrell, written several days after the reported death, reached Newell, and on December 24 the Press reported that the dead man was a Utah relative of the same name (the Red Cross in the First World War).
In April 1919 the Arbon column reported that he had sold his farm, which it placed at the foot of Mt. Bannock, to Conrad Weidemann. The obituary also mentions a spell of about six years farming in Montana, which came after his time carrying the mail; after that he made his way back to Arbon Valley. It gives no dates for the Montana years, and the papers read for this site do not show when he went or returned. In the obituary's account he kept horses and cattle along with his crops and was his own blacksmith; it also names him an elder in the Garden Creek ward of the Latter-day Saints church. It does not say where that ward met.
Newell Canyon
The obituary does not say which canyon bore his name, or who named it, or when. None of the other papers read for this site mention a Newell Canyon, and a web search did not find one. The obituary's word for it, "nearby," is all there is to go on.
On this site: Melvin Bailey, who relieved him on the route in 1916, belongs to the Bailey family. Newell's 1914 birthday party is in Arbon in the sheep-store news, 1914.
The story as reported
Idaho State Journal, May 3, 1964, page 2. The original article is under copyright; this is our own report of what it said.
An illness ended in death for Newell Lishman early on Friday, May 1. He was 73, lived in Arbon Valley, and was a patient at Bannock Memorial Hospital when he died. The paper's Friday edition had carried a brief notice of the death, saying that the Manning Funeral Chapel would announce the arrangements.
The Sunday obituary gave his birth as February 26, 1891, at Wellsville, Utah. His parents were William McKay Lishman and a mother printed as Garkard Hanson Lishman. Wellsville was home until he was 18; that was the age at which he settled in Arbon Valley.
The paper summed up his working life in the valley as farming, along with several years as the mail carrier, broken by about six years on a farm in Montana. According to the paper, one canyon in the vicinity carried his first name, Newell Canyon, as a tribute to him.
Besides his crops he kept horses and cattle, and the forge work on the place was his own. Away from work he hunted and fished, and the paper noted that he liked having young folks around him. In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints he was an elder, belonging to the Garden Creek ward.
Five brothers and sisters survived him. His brothers were William of St. Ignatius, Montana, Vernon of Missoula and Kermit of Drummond, Montana. His sisters were Onetta, Mrs. Marvin Morris, of American Falls, and Ada, Mrs. Donald Holley, of Richland, Washington.
The funeral was set for 11 a.m. Monday in the Manning Funeral Chapel, with Elder Leland Bailey of the Pocatello LDS 26th Ward to conduct it. Friends could call at the chapel on Sunday evening between 6:30 and 7:30. Burial was to follow in the cemetery at Wellsville.
Sources
- Idaho State Journal, May 3, 1964, page 2
- Idaho State Journal, May 1, 1964, page 2
- American Falls Press, April 2, 1914, page 11
- American Falls Press, April 8, 1915, page 4
- American Falls Press, August 12, 1915, page 4
- American Falls Press, February 24, 1916, page 8
- American Falls Press, May 18, 1916, page 2
- American Falls Press, January 25, 1917, page 4
- American Falls Press, June 5, 1917, page 2
- American Falls Press, June 19, 1917, page 8
- American Falls Press, July 10, 1917, page 8
- American Falls Press, October 9, 1917, page 4
- American Falls Press, October 30, 1917, page 3
- American Falls Press, November 27, 1917, page 3
- American Falls Press, November 1, 1918, page 5
- American Falls Press, November 26, 1918, page 3
- American Falls Press, December 10, 1918, page 2
- American Falls Press, December 10, 1918, page 4
- American Falls Press, December 17, 1918, page 3
- American Falls Press, December 24, 1918, page 1
- American Falls Press, April 18, 1919, page 12