Newton Knight's birth year remains a point of historical confusion with sources listing 1829, 1830, or November 1837. His gravestone lists the 10th of November 1829 as both his date of death and birth while the 1900 census records state he was born in November 1837.
Confederate authorities arrested Newton Knight in early 1863 for desertion before he escaped custody and fled into the swamps along the Leaf River. He organized the Knight Company on the 13th of October 1863 with deserters and fugitive slaves seeking protection from Confederate forces.
No formal declaration of statehood was ever ratified by Congress or recognized by any government despite local legends claiming Jones County officially seceded from the Confederacy during the war. Victoria Bynum notes that Newton Knight and two followers denied the myth of secession during their lifetimes believing Jones County never left the Union in the first place.
Newton Knight's gravestone lists the 10th of November 1829 as his date of death although historical confusion exists regarding his actual lifespan. In 1872 he became deputy U.S. Marshal for the Southern District and by 1875 Ames appointed him colonel of an all-black regiment defending residents against white paramilitary insurgents until Reconstruction officially ended in 1877 when Knight withdrew from politics entirely.
Newton Knight married Rachel a freedwoman formerly enslaved by his grandfather around 1875 and they had several children together before her death in 1889. Two pairs of their grown children married each other forming three mixed-race families within the community with Mat Knight son of Newton's first wife Serena marrying Fannie daughter of Rachel and Molly Knight daughter of Newton marrying Jeff son of Rachel.