Newton C. Blanchard

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Newton Crain Blanchard (January 29, 1849 - June 22, 1922) was a United States Representative, Senator, and Governor of Louisiana. Born in Rapides Parish, he completed academic studies, studied law in Alexandria, Louisiana in 1868, and graduated from the law department of the Tulane University in 1870 (then named the University of Louisiana). He was admitted to the bar and commenced practice in Shreveport in 1871; in 1879 he was a delegate to the State constitutional convention.

Blanchard was elected as a Democrat to the Forty-seventh and to the six succeeding Congresses and served from March 4, 1881, until his resignation, effective March 12, 1894; while in the House of Representatives he was chairman of the Committee on Rivers and Harbors (Fiftieth through Fifty-third Congresses). He was appointed and subsequently elected as a Democrat to the U.S. Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Edward D. White and served from March 12, 1894, to March 3, 1897; he was not a candidate for reelection. While in the Senate, he was chairman of the Committee on Improvement of the Mississippi River and its Tributaries (Fifty-third Congress).

Elected associate justice of the supreme court of Louisiana, Blanchard served from 1897 to 1903, when he resigned. He was Governor of Louisiana from 1904 to 1908, and resumed the practice of law in Shreveport. In 1913 he was again a member of the State constitutional convention, this time serving as president. He died in Shreveport in 1922; interment was in Greenwood Cemetery.