John LEWIS

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Biography John Lewis of Beverley Manor, Augusta County, Virginia was a son of Andrew Lewis and Mary Calhoun. He was born on 1 February 1677/8 in County Donegal, Ulster Province, Ireland and died on 1 February 1762 in Augusta County, Virginia. His parents reportedly were French Huguenots who left France for Ireland. It has been surmised that they did so in 1685, but that date conflicts with John Lewis’s date and place of birth. A more accurate date for his parents’ move to Ireland may be reflected in Howe’s history of Virginia. Howe wrote that the Lewis family fled France during the persecutions that followed the death of the country’s King Henry IV, which occurred in 1610.[1] One old but mistaken family tradition, published in 1893, relates that the family went first to Wales and established the family name there. W. T. Lewis wrote, "All the Welsh Lewises are related, as they sprang from the same original stock."[2] To the contrary, a search of Welsh births and baptisms at www.familysearch.org reveals 14 persons named Lewis born in either Wales or England between 1541 and 1610.[3] Clearly, the surname Lewis has multiple origins, as evidenced by the Y-DNA results of FamilYTreeDNA's Lewis project revealing multiple Y-DNA haplogroups.[4] At the same time, not one Lewis in the rather large project claims a French origin. In 1715 in County Donegal, Ireland, John Lewis married Margaret Lynn, daughter of William Lynn and Margaret Patton, who was born on 3 July 1693 in County Donegal and died in 1773 in Bellefonte, Augusta County, Virginia. Howe described Margaret as a daughter of “the laird of Loch Lynn, who was a descendant of the chieftains of a once powerful clan in the Scottish Highlands”.[5] Regrettably, however, there are at least two problems with this description. First, the Lynns were entirely a Lowland family and were never a clan nor a sept or family of any clan, the name Lynn being entirely absent from every credible printed history of Scottish clans. Second, a thorough study of about four hundred Scottish historical sources reveals only two Lynn families who were lairds in Scotland and reveals, further, that neither of those family’s properties included a loch. One family were lairds of the minor barony of Lynn in Dalry, Ayrshire, which does include a Lynn Falls but no loch. The other were lairds of the minor barony of Lyne in Peeblesshire, which includes the Lyne Water (a “water” being a stream) but again no loch. The children of John and Margaret (Lynn) Lewis have been reported as : 1. Samuel Lewis, born 1716 in County Donegal, Ulster Province, Ireland. 2. Thomas Lewis of the Bullpasture, Augusta County, Virginia, born 27 April 1718 in County Donegal; died 31 January 1790 in Rockingham County, Virginia. 3. Gen. Andrew Lewis, born 24 April 1720 in County Donegal; died September 1781 in Botetourt County, Virginia. 4. Alice Lewis, born 1722 County Donegal. 5. Maj. William Lynn Lewis, born 17 November 1724 in County Donegal; died 1812 in Virginia. 6. Margaret Lynn Lewis, born 1726 in County Donegal. 7. Anne Lewis, born 1728 in County Donegal. 8. Col. Charles Lewis of the Cowpasture, Augusta County, Virginia, born 11 March 1735/36, probably in Orange County, Virginia; died on 10 October 1774, killed by Shawnee Indians at the Battle of Point Pleasant.[6] However, only Andrew, William, Margaret, and Charles are named as children in Lewis’s 1761 will (along with his wife, Margaret)[7], which is curious since Thomas is reported to have lived until 1790. A son named Samuel is not mentioned in either Lewis’s will or Howe’s history of Virginia but is listed by Peyton.[8], [9] Reports of John and Margaret having a daughter named Alice arose from an 1862 work of fiction that was passed off as the diary of Margaret (Lynn) Lewis but was written in fact by a known southern author of prose and poetry. Under the pseudonym Fanny Fielding, Mary Jane Stith Upshur submitted “The Valley Manuscript” a/k/a “Common Place Book of me Margaret Lewis, nee Lynn, of Loch Lynn, Scotland” not to a Virginia historical magazine but to one in North Carolina. Several historical facts included in the manuscript in fact did not occur until after Margaret (Lynn) Lewis had died. Commenting on the manuscript in a 1948 Richmond news article, Margaret’s direct descendant Judge Lunsford L. Lewis decried it as a hoax, saying “[It] is pure fiction; its spuriousness is apparent on its face, yet very many persons have been deceived by it.”[10] Judge Lewis also disputed the existence of a daughter named Alice, and she does not appear in W. T. Lewis's 1893 work[11] or other early genealogies of the families. Upshur showed a wanton disregard for truth or for anyone other than herself, giving no thought to the great disservice her fictitious diary has done to the descendants of John and Margaret (Lynn) Lewis. As to John Lewis’s emigration to America, Peyton relates that he came when he was fifty, placing his emigration in about 1728, and further that he lived first in Pennsylvania and awaited the arrival of his wife and children.[12] It is reported elsewhere that the couple’s first homestead was located on Middle River in Augusta County, but that the family soon moved to the property known as Bellefonte - belle for "fine” or “good” and font for “spring". First, in 1736, William Beverley received his grant of 118,000+ acres in Augusta County including “unsettled” land on Middle River occupied by John Lewis, which made Lewis a "squatter". At the formation of Augusta County in 1738, Lewis and his son Thomas were made the county’s first magistrates. In 1745, then, a grant of 100,000 acres was made to John Lewis and his associates under the name of the “Greenbrier Company”. [13] Much of this land was located on the Greenbrier River, a name given to the stream by Lewis.[14] In 1751, Lewis and his son Andrew would survey the Greenbrier tract.[15] A paragraph from Peyton’s “History of Augusta County” describes Lewis thus : “Lewis, himself, was a man endowed with many noble qualities. Of a martial spirit and heroic courage, he was formed to excel in war; the ardent friend of progress, of public improvements, of trade and commerce, wise in his conceptions and persevering in his plans, he was equally adapted for peace. Irreproachable in his public and private morals; courteous, affable, and eloquent; fond of society and excelling in conversation, he excited the love and admiration of the people who adhered to him and the policy he pointed out, as well from their attachment to his person as because of their respect for his talents and character ... Providence ordained him to become a pioneer of civilization-to erect the standard of the Cross in the wilderness. In the colony which he founded the Church anticipated the town and the county Before either was established the Gospel was preached in the houses of the settlers or under the shade of the trees. In Col. Lewis’ house, indeed, the first sermon ever delivered in the county was preached by Mr. James Thompson in 1739.”[16] Despite such accolades, John Lewis did not get along with all men. A feud erupted between him and Col. James Patton, his wife’s relative. An innocent party, Parson John Craig, was stuck in the middle. Craig’s autobiography is quoted in part as saying ... “So high a Difference happened between Coll. John Lewis & Coll. James Patton both Living in that Congregation which Continued while they Liv’d Which of them Should be highest in Commission & power which was hurtful to ye Settlement but Especially to me; they were Jealous of my interest with the people to Such a Degree that I Could Neither Bring them to friendship with Each other Nor obtain both their friendshipes at once Ever after; they both had Good interest with ye people of their own party; and one of them always by turns bitter Enemies to me which was very hurtfull both to my peace & Interests, they by turns Narrowly watched Every Step of my Conduct - marred my Support to ye utmost of their power - use their interest with ye people to Drive me from the place or Starve me out for wont of Support but to no purpose, for the people always intertain’d a Good opinion of me. My Character alway Stood Clear, tho they hurt my Estate very much this Continued for 13 or 14 years till Coll. Patton was murdered by the Indians at that time he was at peace with me after his Death Coll. Lewis was friendly to me till he Died.” [17] However ... “Even with this fault, John Lewis was without a doubt an extraordinary man perfectly suited for the extraordinary times of the late colonial period. He oversaw the progress of this area from a frontier to a bustling community that was on the forefront of what would become, a decade later, the movement that birthed the United States of America. John Lewis died at the age of 84 in 1762 and was buried atop a hill near Bellefonte.”[18] In 1900, Joseph L. Crowder, a Staunton, Virginia citizen, realized that Lewis’s grave was in a dilapidated state, and the inscription on the monument was even then very hard to read. On 18 November 1900, Mr. Crowder, with great effort, copied this inscription: " Here Lie the Remains of John Lewis Who Slew the Irish Lord Settled Augusta County, Located the City of Staunton And furnished five sons to Fight the Battles of the American Revolution. He was the son of Andrew Lewis and Mary Calhoun Was born in Donegal County Ireland 1678 and Died February 1, 1762 aged 84 years. He was a brave man A true patriot and a Friend of Liberty Throughout the World. Morta litate Relicta Vivit”[19] And now something must be said about the circumstances under which family legends claim John Lewis and his family left Ireland, as there are two somewhat differing accounts. One names Lewis’s Irish landlord as Sir Mungo Campbell and the other as Charles of Clonmithgairn. The latter can be easily laid to rest because Clongmithgairn does not exist as an Irish place name in any of the online Irish place name. The following is the inscription on the tomb of John Lewis, who was buried on the hill overlooking Lewis River, near Fort Lewis, which he built. He was the first European settler in Augusta County, Virginia, and a founder of Staunton.

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Titel	James Solomon Crow, Jan 2023 (James Philip Crow)
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Hochgeladen	2023-04-19 14:52:52.0
Einsender	Robert \\\\ Crowe
E-Mail	Wadecroweancestry@Gmail.com
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