There is much fact and some fancy woven through the warp and woof of the life of Lewis Lewis. Tradition claims he was an Oxford graduate. This presumption is fortified by the record of a Lewis Lewis, son of a Thomas Lewis, of St. James, London, England who was graduated from that University 29 April 1757, a plebe of Christ Church matriculated July 5, 1753 aged 17. (See Alumni Oxoniences. Oxford University Volume III). This claim is also strengthened by an expression used by Eleanor Smith Lott, 17 December 1787, an heir of her grandfather, Andrew Calhoun, when she gave "a power of attorney to my trusty and loving friend Lewis Lewis of the Borough of Carlisle Gentleman" (see Book H. vol. I p 469 Lewiston Pennsylvania. )

Family letters state that Lewis Lewis was identified with William Penn's Colonists and crossed the Atlantic with one of his groups in company with his cousins, the Williams family. He was a surveyor and the first member of his own profession in Centre County at the time that county was embraced in Northumberland county. He surveyed along the Susquehanna and Juniata rivers and later around Bald Eagle Creek. It is said he laid out Lewiston, it being named after him, and located about thirty miles from Bellefonte. As was the custom in those days, the government issued warrants for land to surveyors in payment for their services, and this fact accounts for the ownership by Lewis Lewis of lands in Northumberland, Bedford and Miffin counties.

In 1779-80, Lewis Lewis was assessed for taxes in Huntington Township, York County, Pennsylvania and is assessed continuously until 1784. The last year he is simply listed with having eight inhabitants in his household. The following years find his name on the tax rolls of Northumberland. Bedford and Cumberland Counties. Lewis Lewis and his family were evidently settled in Cumberland County in 1785 for he is then assessed for one horse, two cows and two Negroes. He is also claimed to have been the district surveyor for Northumberland County at this time. However, in 1790, his youngest child. David was born in Carlisle, in Hanover Street. Soon afterwards, Lewis died, a resident of Mifflin county.

Excerpts from a letter written by Margaret (Lewis) Fox dated 2 May 1897, from Cedar Hill, Brandon, Mississippi, now in possession (1932) of Mr. S. B. Sheller of Duncannon, Pennsylvania. "Grandfather Lewis Lewis was a Welshman and was born and raised in Wales. He moved to America long before the Revolutionary War and I think he settled in Virginia, at least I often heard my Father, Thomas Lewis, tell
of going to market with his aunt in Virginia at daylight and being gone all day at town with her market stuff; and grandmother Lewis often seen George Washington and that was where he lived and it was working in his aunt's garden with Tobacco he learned to chew it, but I don't know if Father was born there or in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. "Grandfather Lewis was appointed general surveyor by the government and surveyed until he was hurt that caused his death. Father told us in surveying he jumped again a limb hurt him inwardly and killed him and told us he took part pay from the government in land warrants. Any how, he said when he rolled them up they were as thick around as his leg above the knee and he heard him tell his mother where he intended to lay them for each of his children and if the heirs had their just dues they would have got it." (I presume she is talking about the land warrants here.)

"Father was born the day of the Long Island battle in the year 1776. I often heard him tell that. And that there were ten children. Ten children and Thomas my father, then Lewis Lewis that lived at Bristol, near Philadelphia, then Henry and David and the two that died when small, never heard their names. My grandmother was Jane Dill. She was a baby when her father, Thomas Dill, died and she named my father Thomas for him then her mother married Caleb Beals and she named her son Caleb for her step father." A great great grand daughter of Lewis Lewis and Jane Dill, Mrs. Marcia Hite of Louisville, Kentucky, wrote in 1933, "Jane Dill at the age of 90 years rode horseback attended by her old colored woman from Centre county, Pennsylvania, to Louisville, Kentucky to see her son Jacob Lewis, my great grandfather and then rode back., When she rode unannounced into Louisville, her son Jacob was walking on the street. He glanced at the old lady on horseback, but not having seen her for many years, exclaimed however, "I believe that is my mother." As a young woman she traveled over the country of Pennsylvania and its outlying sections with her handsome silk stockings while he was general surveyor for the Penn's prior to the Revolution. He went to Oxford and his personal articles brought back were marked with the Lewis crest. And again family tradition seems very well established in the memories of members of the Lewis Lewis descendants who state their progenitor was a close kinsman of George Washington.

The Kentucky descendants of his eldest son Jacob seem to have more reasonably authentic material relative to the assumption than their Pennsylvania relatives. To quote Mrs. Marcia Hite, of Louisville, Kentucky, viz. "Great aunt Alice (Alice Lewis Upshaw (1813-1901) said in her notes that her father Jacob (1773-1857) who was a grown man during George Washington's life time told her "he was of blood relation to George Washington and Meriweather Lewis." He also looked strikingly like him as does another member of the family-Auburn and red hair runs through the family. My grandmother having gorgeous auburn hair and milk white skin and my mother also. "Colonel Henry Lewis named his first son Lorenzo (Italian for Lawrence) a Washington family name as Betty Washington called a son Lorenzo and Colonel Henry Lewis' son Henry named his two children Nicholas and Lucy, two outstanding Meriweather Lewis names." Again Carl A. Lewis, of Branford, Connecticut, for many years, 'the editor of "Lewisiana", a bulletin on the Lewis families of America, states; "Dr. Charles L. Caldwell, of Washington, D. C, wrote "Lawrence Lewis, born about 1780, a millwright in comfortable circumstances received a visit from his relative Captain Meriweather Lewis when he came to Pennsylvania. This Lawrence Lewis was supposed to be a son of Augustine who with his brother Samuel removed to Pennsylvania while Washington was President where Augustine died probably in 1795 and where his widow married second time.


Notes for Jane Dill

When the Welshman, Lewis Lewis, had stalked into the industrious settlement around Dills with his marvelous tales of college at Oxford and the novelty of a surveyor's life in new places, he cast a glamour over the eyes of the girl of seventeen. She married the stranger. For a few years they lived around her old home but, soon, both business interests and their natural inclinations drew them to Carlisle. However, they soon drifted from one settlement to another, until abut 1790/91, Lewis Lewis, the adventurer with his engraved seal and crested silver died at Lewiston and lies at rest in the vicinity.

Her eldest brother, John Dill, brought a partition action for a division of their grandfather Dill's original holdings at the present site of Dillsburg, Pennsylvania in January 1769. It has been related, Jane was vivacious and possessed such boundless energy that it seriously interfered with her following the cultural arts. Her reputations as a horsewoman clings as tenaciously to her memory as does the evidence of her tell tale mark for her name on a conveyance of real property. Even though she too, had come under the benign teachings of the Friends, an adventurous life held many charms.

Thomas Lincoln Wall - Clearfield County Present and Past - 1925 pg. 36-37
"Granny Leathers" and her son David Lewis.
It was not until1800 that the settlers discovered the old Indian path over the mountain from the Big Island (Lock Haven) on the West Branch to Chinkacamoose (Clearfield) and along this path came one day the widow Lewis, who became familiarly known as "Granny Leathers." She located not far from where the jail now stands, by the river, and started a distillery. She went away about the time of the war of 1812 and was known no more, but her son David, who had been a bad boy, later became a robber and held up the wagons of Belfont merchants, until they organized a vigilance committee and hunted him down. He was shot while being persued on a branch of the Sinnemahoning, and refusing to have his wound properly dressed, finally died from its effects.
(Note Granny Leathers as mentioned in some Clearfield references is Jane (Dill) Lewis. Aldrich page 54 says she located in Clearfield and started a distillery about the time of the war of 1812. She disappeared just as quickly and was only known by the exploits of her son David.

David was married twice, first to a 16 year old girl that helped him escape jail, to whom he gave the assumed name of Malinda as they were on the run and he called himself Peter Van Buren. They had two daughters while he was living a life of crime in NY City, NJ and Philadelphia. His wife died at the birth of their second daughter. Back in PA he married another girl that reminded him of Malinda which he says he later regretted. He spent his last days in jail in Bellefont where he told his story and made his confessions to the press. More can be found about David Lewis at the following addresses:
www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/pa/centrez.html
press report http://http://members.fortunecity.com/petee77/feb97gaz.htm

Jane Lewis remarried a man named Leathers who, for whatever reason was not among the taxable’s in 1806 of Chinklacamoose Township, which included all of Clearfield County. Among those listed are Jane Leathers, Thomas Lewis, Lewis Lewis and David Lewis.)

Letters of administration on the Estate of Lewis Lewis were issued out of the Orphans Court at Lewiston, 10 March 1791, to Jane Dill Lewis, widow, and Joshua Williams said to have been a cousin of the Lewis family. An inventory was exhibited by them to the court 2 April 1791, in which one finds many articles of household use., bedding, coverlets, rugs, blankets, bedsteads, chest of drawers, chairs, looking glasses, trunks, teacups, saucers, 2 fish dishes, 2 cream gold ware, one stove 4 pounds in value, compass and chain, table and apparatus, spinning wheels, 1 pair spectacles and cap, ploughs, woman's saddle, saddle bags and bridles and hundreds of other articles of household use and value. Among the most interested buyers named in the bill of sale dated, 18 June 1791, were one Caleb Beals, Richard Gonsalus and others. At the time of his death about the first months of 1791, Lewis Lewis had lived at Eagle's Nest, near Milesburg, a few miles from Bellefonte, Centre County, Pennsylvania. According to the History of Pennsylvania by Sherman on page 201 published in 1843, practically all of present Centre County was comprised of Bald Eagle and Potter townships of Northumberland county.

The treaty with the Six Nations was made at Fort Stanwix in 1768 and at this time the first settlers moved into that section. The first cabin was erected on the left bank of Bald Eagle creek opposite an old Indian village on the flats near the present site of Milesburg. In this village was situated Bald Eagle's Nest not the Nest of a bird but the home of an old Indian warrior who lived and had his wigwam there between two oaks still standing several years ago. The name Bald Eagle was given to the creek, the mountains nearby and the scattered cabins.
The early settlers of Centre County were very adventurous but were inclined to give their neighbors a wide berth as the early white settlements sprawled around at great distances in the valley. Clearfield the county seat, was laid out in 1805 and among its first inhabitants "was the family of the widow Leathers." During her middle years, Jane Leathers was involved in court matters relative to the administration of the Lewis Lewis Estate. At an Orphans Court held at Lewiston 9 December 1808, the court passed upon the accounting of the said Estate and confirmed the same. At the instance of one Thomas Burnsides, Esquire, chancery papers at Lewiston dated 6 January 1813 cite, "Jane Leathers, formerly Jane Lewis and Joshua Williams administrators of the Estate of Lewis Lewis, late of said county, deceased, to show cause, why the final administration account should not be settled."




Copyright 2007. This site is owned and operated by ErieRandall.com All material found at this site is owned or licensed by us. You may view, download, and print material from this site only for your personal, noncommercial use. You may not post material from this site on another web site or on a computer network without our permission. You may not transmit or distribute material from this site to others. You may not use this site or information found at this site (including the names and addresses of those who submitted information) for selling or promoting products or services, soliciting clients, or any other commercial purpose. If you have questions or desire permission to post information, send e-mail to: Belle@ErieRandall.com