Comments and a genealogical tribute by Bryan S. Godfrey, great6-grandson of Jehu and Alice Maris Lewis (on his maternal grandfather's side) and great5-grandson of Alice's second cousin, Mary Pyle Newlin (on his maternal grandmother's side):
According to Volume VI in William Wade Hinshaw's "Encyclopedia of American Quaker Genealogy," page 526, in the section on Fairfax Monthly Meeting in present-day Loudoun County, Virginia, Alice, wife of Jehu Lewis, produced a certificate from Chester Monthly Meeting in Pennsylvania for herself and three small children: Joel, Hannah, and Evin [sic] on 29 October 1762, dated 26 March 1762. Below this record is an insert on Jehu, that he was son of Evan Lewis of Chester County, Pennsylvania, that he married 11 May 1749 at Springfield Meeting House in Pennsylvania, under the auspices of Chester Monthly Meeting, to Alice Maris, daughter of George of Chester County, Pennsylvania. Jehu Lewis produced a certificate from Darby Monthly Meeting in Pennsylvania to Chester Monthly Meeting on 24 February 1749.
In the Goose Creek Monthly Meeting (Bedford County, Virginia) section of the same volume of Hinshaw, page 355, in the Turner family entries, on 27 July 1789, Elijah Turner and wife Sarah deeded to John (it could read Jehu as Jehu's name has been miswritten as John in Bedford records) and Alice Lewis and Moses Cadwallader, John Coffee, and Joel Lewis, all of Bedford County, one lot on Difficult Creek, Bedford County, containing twelve acres beginning at Jehu Lewis' corner, on which lot stood Goose Creek (Friends) Meeting House (known as Lower Goose Creek or Bedford Meeting). This indicates that Jehu and Alice and children had settled very near the present Quaker Baptist Church by 1789, as it was constructed on the site of the Quaker meeting. How long they resided in Loudoun and Bedford Counties is uncertain, and it also appears they resided under Hopewell Friends Meeting in Frederick County, Virginia around 1760, as their son Evan's birth is listed in its records.
In several secondary sources, including a Sons of the American Revolution biography of Jehu Lewis, there are incorrect statements made which I have been able to rectify. First, Alice's husband Jehu Lewis was not the one of the name who served in the American Revolution from Chester County, Pennsylvania. This Jehu was Quaker and was living in Virginia by that time. Some of his descendants have joined SAR on this claim. Also, it states Jehu and Alice died in Grayson City, Virginia, which does not exist, and this has been perpetuated by others. According to a biography of their great-grandson John Lewis of Highland County, Ohio, Jehu died in Bedford County, Virginia and is buried in the Friends Graveyard there, assumed to be the cemetery of present-day Quaker Baptist Church, and Alice is buried in Chestnut Cemetery in Grayson County, Virginia. It appears the Grayson City claim originated from the fact that after Jehu's death, Alice likely went with their daughter Hannah and Hannah's husband Richard Larrowe to Grayson County, that part now in Carroll County, where there was a Quaker meeting called Mount Pleasant, also called Chestnut Hill or Chestnut Creek, for Hannah and Richard are buried in its cemetery, now called the Old Quaker Cemetery, near Pipers Gap. Alice probably died in their home and was buried here with them, but her grave was apparently unmarked. Their markers are modern ones, and there is no way to know whether they are merely memorials or whether they mark the location of earlier tombstones. A biography of Jehu and Alice's great-grandson Christopher Lewis, of Muscatine County, Iowa, states Jehu and Alice were both buried in the Friends Graveyard in Bedford County. John's biography is more likely to be correct in stating Alice is buried in what was then Grayson County.
My maternal grandparents, Melvin "Ray" Overstreet (1920-1984) and Ella Perrow Pearson Overstreet (1921-2008), were born and raised about seventy miles apart in Virginia, and even though his father was from Virginia and hers from North Carolina, they were both descended from Alice's great-grandparents, the Quaker immigrants George and Alice Maris who came from Worcestershire, England to Springfield Township, present-day Delaware County, Pennsylvania, in 1683. My grandfather was descended from their great-granddaughter Alice Maris Lewis, as she was his great4-grandmother, whereas my grandmother was descended from their great-granddaughter Mary Pyle Newlin (ca. 1724-ca. 1790), as she was her great3-grandmother, making my grandparents seventh cousins once removed. The Maris family is extremely well-traced, both back in England and in America, for as of 2014, over 300,000 descendants of George and Alice Maris have been traced by Raymond Lee Maris, and he showed the nonliving generations on his website http://www.maris.net/gen/ . It came as a surprise to me in 1994 when I was able to determine the correct Lewis ancestry for my maternal grandfather when a cousin of his had typed up a genealogy booklet 20 years earlier showing a false lineage from the prominent John Lewis family of Gloucester County, Virginia, and in the process I realized he and my grandmother were both descended from the Maris family of Pennsylvania. Alice and Jehu came from Pennsylvania and settled in Loudoun County, Virginia with other Quakers about 1760. Before 1789, they moved further south with other Quakers to Bedford County, Virginia, and a 1789 deed shows that Jehu and Alice resided on Difficult Creek and deeded land on which Lower Goose Creek Friends Meeting, the site of present-day Quaker Baptist Church, is located. This makes the Lewises pioneer settlers of this area, where numerous descendants of their son George still reside. Four of their surviving children, Joel, Evan, Jesse, and Ann, migrated to Ohio in 1814, Jesse later settling in Parke County, Indiana, whereas daughter Hannah migrated south to what was then part of Grayson County, Virginia, and it appears Alice went with them after Jehu's death as her son George had died about the same time.
Of interest to my close relatives and me is the fact that my grandfather was born and raised within sight of Quaker Baptist Church, was baptized there, and his parents' and paternal grandparents' property all adjoined Difficult Creek, which he, my mother, and I all played in during our youths before his parents' farm was sold out of the family in 2001.
Just as my Grandfather Overstreet's great4-grandparents, Jehu and Alice Maris Lewis, were pioneer Quaker settlers in the area of present-day Quaker Baptist Church in Bedford County, Virginia, my Grandmother Overstreet's great3-grandparents, John and Mary Pyle Newlin (Mary being Alice's second cousin), were pioneer Quaker settlers in the Cane Creek and Haw River valley of present-day Alamance County, North Carolina, where they were among the earliest burials at Spring Friends Meeting. Both families came from Chester and/or present-day Delaware County, Pennsylvania, southwest of Philadelphia, and were descended from English or Welsh Quakers who came to Pennsylvania shortly after the arrival of William Penn in 1683. And John Newlin and Jehu Lewis both died around 1805. What a proud heritage this has been for me, and because of my double descent from the Marises, which unites the families of my maternal grandparents, I am thankful to have someone such as Raymond Maris who has traced so many descendants, including numerous famous ones, and Professor Stewart Baldwin of Auburn University, who has traced the ancestors of George Maris in Worcestershire.
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https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Grayson_County_Monthly_Meeting
In John Perry Alderman's book, "The Settlements, Carroll County 1765-1815," he states, "The predominant faith in the days of the county settlement was the Quakers. The Quaker Church had strong congregations in several parts of eastern and central Virginia, but for western Virginia,, only in Carroll was there a significant settlement by the Quaker faithful." (We must remember there was no Carroll County at this time, we were still part of Grayson County VA.) "The early Quaker settlers officially had their church memberships at the New Garden MM in Guilford County NC; after the Westfield Meeting was organized in 1786 in Surry County NC. their membership was transferred to that place.." "The Mt. Pleasant MM was set up in 1801; it comprised all the Quaker memberships in the county and endured until 1826. (1 Hinshaw 1001)." The Mt. Pleasant Meeting in it's later day was also called the Chestnut Creek Meeting." It's meeting house was on a seven acre site deeded in 1797 by Joshua Hanks and the younger William Reddick. The CEMETERY which was adjunct to the MM still remains and is beautifully maintained.." "There were at least three other meeting houses for the Quakers in the county, all which were outposts for the Mt. Pleasant Meeting. One was at Hillsville at the present site of the North End Cemetery, another on Burks Fork which was known as Fruit Hill MM and a third at Wards Gap." "The Quakers by 1800 numbered between a fourth and a third of the population (that is the Carroll portion of Old Grayson County)" "The migration pattern of the time was to the Northwest. The minutes of the Mt. Pleasant Meeting reveal that hundreds of Quaker families left, bound for southern Ohio and Indiana where they hoped to build a better life.." This is a bit condensed from Mr. Alderman's book, but I hope has helped someone. Remember this is all his research, I merely took the liberty of copying.
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Source: Portrait and Biographical Album, Muscatine County, Iowa, 1889, page 564
JOHN LEWIS, one of the honored pioneers of Muscatine County, Iowa. of 1841, now living a retired life in West Liberty, was born in Highland County, Ohio, in 1820, and is a son of Enoch and Mourning ( Timberlake ) Lewis. On his father's side he traces his ancestry back to the beginning of the eighteenth century.
JOHN [Jehu] LEWIS , the great-grandfather of our subject, was born June 6, 1723, and
wedded ALICE MORRIS [Maris], born March 31, 1726, and daughter of George and Hannah Morris [Maris].
He died August 19, 1804, aged eighty-one years, two months,and thirteen days, and was buried in the Friends' burying ground at Goose Creek, Bedford Co., Va. His wife survived him nearly sixteen years, dying Feb. 21, 1820, at the age of ninety-three years, nine months, and one day. She was buried in Chestnut cemetery, in Grayson Co.,Va.
Evan, the fifth son of John and Alice Lewis, was born May 5, 1760. About the year 1789 he married Sarah Tennison, born Jan. 1, 1761.
Enoch, the second son of Evan and Sarah Lewis, was born Oct.3, 1793. He married Elizabeth Cadwallader, March 16, 1812. They had one son, Jonah, born March 13, 1814. Elizabeth Lewis died April 6, 1814. Enoch Lewis, some two years later, March 16, 1816, wedded Mourning Timberlake, born Oct. 8, 1794, and daughter of John and Mollie Timberlake. They had a family of ten children : Elizabeth, born Feb.4, 1817, married Henry Felkner, who subsequently represented his county in the Iowa Legislature ; both are now deceased. Sally, born Oct. 10, 1818, became the wife of William Henderson, whose sketch appears on another page of this work ; she is now deceased. John, born Aug.4, 1820, is the subject of this sketch ; Mary, born May 5, 1823, became the wife of Jacob Romain, and both are now deceased ; Clark, born June 19, 1825, is now living at West Liberty ; Ann, born July 22, 1827, is the wife of Isaac Wright, of Laramie City, Wyo.Ter. ; William, born April 14, 1830, died March 4, 1831 ; Agnes, born Dec. 30, 1831, is the wife of S. A. Barnes, of Downey, Iowa ; Emily, born Oct. 13, 1833, is the wife of W. C. Chase, a farmer of Wapsinonoc Township, who formerly represented the county in the Legislature ; Milton, born Jan. 12, 1837, is engaged in farming near Downey, Iowa.
In 1841 accompanied by his family, Enoch Lewis emigrated to Iowa, settling in Wapsinonoc Township, where he purchased 720 acres of land. He improved three farms in that neighborhood ; first the one now owned by A. Brown, second the Joseph Chase farm, and later the one now known as the Brown farm in Cedar County. Wishing to retire from active life he removed to West Liberty, where he lived until the death of his wife in the spring of 1864. He then lived with his children until April, 1871, when, after a few hours' sickness he breathed his last in the seventy-eighth year of his age. He and his wife were members of the Society of Friends. Mr. Lewis was a man who took great interest in public affairs, and aided largely in the advancement of the social, moral, and educational interests of the community. As a business man he was energetic, enterprising and fair in all his dealings, consequently he was successful. During his earlier years he was a Whig, and being greatly opposed to slavery was among the first to be known by the term of " abolitionist." When the Republican party was organized he became one of its members, and supported it by his ballot and influence until his death. While living in Ohio he was appointed one of the three trustees of the estate of a wealthy slave-owner, who emancipated a large number of slaves in Ohio. A large sum of money was left in their hands for the benefit of the freedmen, and most of the responsibility rested upon Mr. Lewis, but he performed his duties faithfully and well, and remained one of the trustees until his removal to this State. While acting in the capacity of agent for the emancipated slaves his home was a well-known " station " to the Society of Friends ; and many fugitive slaves from Kentucky, in their efforts to reach Canada and freedom on the " Underground Railroad," found a welcome, sympathy, and food, and were sent to the next " station " by the kind-hearted Mr. and Mrs. Lewis.
John Lewis, the subject of this sketch, was reared on a farm in Ohio, and at the age of twenty-one came with his parents to this State. He improved a farm of eighty acres for himself soon after his arrival, but remained under the parental roof until 1845, when he was united in marriage with Delia Humphrey, who was born in Delaware County, Ohio, and is a daughter of Lemuel and Betsey ( Pinney ), Humphrey, who were natives of Connecticut. After their marriage the young couple began their domestic life upon a farm which he had purchased on section 2, Wapsinonoc Township, aand there resided until 1873. From time to time Mr. Lewis added to his original purchase, until 349 broad acres paid tribute to his care and cultivation. Removing to West Liberty in 1873, he has there since continued to reside, and is living a retired life.
By the union of Mr. and Mrs. Lewis Four children were born ;
Eudora E., wife of N. W. Ball, a resident of West Liberty, Iowa, and editor of the Wapsie Weekly Index ;
Elsie, who died at the age of two years ;
Lizzie, wife of C. D. Haldeman, of Des Moines, Iowa, proprietor of a creamery ; and Lillian, the efficient assistant principal of the High School of West Liberty.
On the 24th of May, 1873, Mrs. Lewis was called to her long rest. He was again married in 1880, Miss S. A. Troupe, a native of Ohio, and a teacher in the public schools for twenty-five years becoming his wife. She is an active member of the W.C.T.U., and is President of the county organization.
For many years Mr. Lewis has been a director in the People's Bank of West Liberty, and at present holds the position of President. He takes a deep interest in public affairs, is well informed on all the leading questions of the day, and casts his ballot with the Republican party. Not a member of any church, yet fully believing in the beneficient influence on society of religious teachings, he is a liberal contributor to church organizations. A member of the State Temperance Alliance, and County and City Auxiliary Societies, he contributes money and time towards the enforcement of the law prohibiting the manufacture or sale of intoxicants to be used as a beverage. A man of influence and prominence in the community where he resides, he holds an enviable place in the hearts of the people, and well deserves their confidence and esteem.
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http://www.ohiogenealogyexpress.com/highland/highlandco_bios_1902/highlandco_bios_1902_l.htm?fbclid=IwAR3GSYD54jdtdpyUNiOGUmvm_WIox35Iglj_BaYC8mNqqS8Kz4fFkrwAeiQ
CHRISTOPHER LEWIS, proprietor of the famous farm in Penn township known as Flora Vale, is the principal living representative of one of the oldest and most honorable families in Highland county. They came originally from Wales. According to the carefully preserved records it was in the year 1682 that three brothers emigrated to America and fixed their abodes in different parts of the colonial settlements along the Atlantic coast. Two of them were lost to sight, so far as subsequent history is concerned, and it is not known whether they left descendants or what became of them. Evan Lewis, second in age of the trio, settled in Philadelphia and became the progenitor of the family subsequently so well known in the West. Among his children was a son named Jehu, born in 1723, who afterward settled in Chester county, Pa., and remained there until the close of that century, when he removed to Bedford county, Va. He married Alice, daughter of George and Hannah Maris, and their nine children were as follows: Jesse, born in 1750; James, in 1751; Elijah, in 1752 (these three died young); Joel, in 1755; Hannah, in 1757; Evan, in 1760; Jesse (named from the eldest, who died), in 1763; George, in 1765; Ann, in 1767. Jehu Lewis died in 1804 and his wife, who was born in 1726, died in 1820, both being buried in Friends' graveyard, Goose Creek meeting house, in Bedford county. Their son Joel, accompanied by his brothers Evan and Jesse and sister Ann, migrated to Ohio in 1814 and settled first on the Little Miami, near Millgrove, where he remained until 1822. In that year Joel removed to Highland county, where he purchased a farm in the southern part of what is now Penn township. Mar. 9, 1786, he was married to Sarah, daughter of William and Esther Daniel, of Loudoun county, Va., and his four children were: Jehu, born in 1791, and died in 1875, at State Center, Iowa; Daniel, more fully noticed below; Sarah, born in 1797; and a second daughter who died on day of birth in 1802. Joel Lewis died at his home in Penn township Nov. 30, 1829, after which his widow was tenderly cared for by her children and grandchildren until her death, which occurred June 23, 1840, in the eighty-second year of her age. Her remains were deposited in the cemetery of Clear Creek by the side of those of her husband which had been left eleven years before in the same place of final rest. Daniel Lewis, the second son of this pioneer couple, was born in Bedford county, Va., in 1794, and after coming to Ohio with his parents in 1814, taught school several years in the counties of Warren, Clinton and Highland. In 1825 he bought of Gov. Allen Trimble the farm in the northwestern part of Penn township now known as Flora Vale and owned by his son. At the time of the purchase this land was covered by an unbroken forest, which disappeared in the course of years before the woodsman's ax and pioneer fortitude and eventually emerged as one of the handsomest estates in the county. In 1825 Daniel Lewis married Priscilla, daughter of Christopher and Sarah Hussey, and the eight children resulting from this union were as follows: Charles D., born in 1829; Christopher, fully sketched below; Sarah A., born in 1835; Albert, in 1836; Alvah, in 1839; Mary B., in 1841; George, in 1843; and Rachel, in 1845. The father of this family died Nov. 28, 1847, his widow surviving him many years and passing away in May, 1885. Charles D. Lewis, their oldest son, was a young man of great promise and had entered upon a career that promised most fruitful results but which, unhappily, was cut short in the prime of life by a railroad accident July 4, 1857. At the time of his death he was professor of chemistry and pharmacy in the Eclectic college of medicine at Cincinnati and had exhibited remarkable versatility of talent, as well as much force of character, during his brief but brilliant life. Christopher Lewis, second in age of the eight, children of his parents, was born on the homestead farm in Highland county, Ohio, Sept. 16, 1831, and has devoted his entire life to the quiet pursuits of agriculture. Under his skillful management and endless industry the place has been steadily improved and is now almost ideal both in its external and internal appointments. In the fall of 1825 his father built a comfortable Hewed-log house, which gave place in fourteen years to the present neat, dwelling-house where Mr. Lewis and his family have so long resided. In 1870 several additions and tasteful improvements were made by the proprietor and it would now be difficult to find a prettier place than Flora Vale, with its lovely lawns, choice shade trees and shrubbery, highly cultivated fields and other concomitants of rural repose. In fact, the contrast between "pioneer days," as exemplified by Mr. Lewis' father, and twentieth-century civilization, as witnessed by Mr. Lewis himself, can nowhere be seen in more force than at this luxurious country home in Highland county. Sept. 22, 1859, Mr. Lewis was married in Philadelphia to Louisa K., daughter of Joseph and Esther C. Hallowell of Chester county, Pa. Shortly after this event, he began purchasing the interests of the other heirs in his father's estate, which was kept up from time to time until 1865, when he obtained and has retained full possession of this desirable property. The farm, consisting of a hundred acres, is situated in Penn township on what is now known as the Careytown pike, about three miles and a half southeast of New Vienna. Mr. and Mrs. Lewis have three children of whom Eugene C., the oldest, was born June 20, 1860. Walter H., the second son, was born Nov. 17, 1862, and married Apr. 19, 1888, to Maude K. Smith, his children being Walter H., Ralph M., Gertrude M., Louise K., William Waddell and Priscilla. Marion, the only daughter, was born May 25, 1866, and married Dec. 24, 1890, to Horace K. Anson, their children being Virgil L. and Louisa L. Mr. Lewis served several years as master of Union grange, No. 77, Patrons of Husbandry, at New Vienna and was for a long time school director in his district. He and his wife have long been devoted members of the religious Society of Friends and prominent in connection with church affairs. They possess the same reposeful traits of character, the same industrious habits, the same love of liberty, good morals and right-doing that have characterized these people for centuries and made them such staunch supports of law and order and free government everywhere.
Source: History of Highland County, Ohio by Rev. J. W. Klise - Publ. Madison, Wis., Northwestern Historical Association - 1902 - Page 373
According to Volume VI in William Wade Hinshaw's "Encyclopedia of American Quaker Genealogy," page 526, in the section on Fairfax Monthly Meeting in present-day Loudoun County, Virginia, Alice, wife of Jehu Lewis, produced a certificate from Chester Monthly Meeting in Pennsylvania for herself and three small children: Joel, Hannah, and Evin [sic] on 29 October 1762, dated 26 March 1762. Below this record is an insert on Jehu, that he was son of Evan Lewis of Chester County, Pennsylvania, that he married 11 May 1749 at Springfield Meeting House in Pennsylvania, under the auspices of Chester Monthly Meeting, to Alice Maris, daughter of George of Chester County, Pennsylvania. Jehu Lewis produced a certificate from Darby Monthly Meeting in Pennsylvania to Chester Monthly Meeting on 24 February 1749.
In the Goose Creek Monthly Meeting (Bedford County, Virginia) section of the same volume of Hinshaw, page 355, in the Turner family entries, on 27 July 1789, Elijah Turner and wife Sarah deeded to John (it could read Jehu as Jehu's name has been miswritten as John in Bedford records) and Alice Lewis and Moses Cadwallader, John Coffee, and Joel Lewis, all of Bedford County, one lot on Difficult Creek, Bedford County, containing twelve acres beginning at Jehu Lewis' corner, on which lot stood Goose Creek (Friends) Meeting House (known as Lower Goose Creek or Bedford Meeting). This indicates that Jehu and Alice and children had settled very near the present Quaker Baptist Church by 1789, as it was constructed on the site of the Quaker meeting. How long they resided in Loudoun and Bedford Counties is uncertain, and it also appears they resided under Hopewell Friends Meeting in Frederick County, Virginia around 1760, as their son Evan's birth is listed in its records.
In several secondary sources, including a Sons of the American Revolution biography of Jehu Lewis, there are incorrect statements made which I have been able to rectify. First, Alice's husband Jehu Lewis was not the one of the name who served in the American Revolution from Chester County, Pennsylvania. This Jehu was Quaker and was living in Virginia by that time. Some of his descendants have joined SAR on this claim. Also, it states Jehu and Alice died in Grayson City, Virginia, which does not exist, and this has been perpetuated by others. According to a biography of their great-grandson John Lewis of Highland County, Ohio, Jehu died in Bedford County, Virginia and is buried in the Friends Graveyard there, assumed to be the cemetery of present-day Quaker Baptist Church, and Alice is buried in Chestnut Cemetery in Grayson County, Virginia. It appears the Grayson City claim originated from the fact that after Jehu's death, Alice likely went with their daughter Hannah and Hannah's husband Richard Larrowe to Grayson County, that part now in Carroll County, where there was a Quaker meeting called Mount Pleasant, also called Chestnut Hill or Chestnut Creek, for Hannah and Richard are buried in its cemetery, now called the Old Quaker Cemetery, near Pipers Gap. Alice probably died in their home and was buried here with them, but her grave was apparently unmarked. Their markers are modern ones, and there is no way to know whether they are merely memorials or whether they mark the location of earlier tombstones. A biography of Jehu and Alice's great-grandson Christopher Lewis, of Muscatine County, Iowa, states Jehu and Alice were both buried in the Friends Graveyard in Bedford County. John's biography is more likely to be correct in stating Alice is buried in what was then Grayson County.
My maternal grandparents, Melvin "Ray" Overstreet (1920-1984) and Ella Perrow Pearson Overstreet (1921-2008), were born and raised about seventy miles apart in Virginia, and even though his father was from Virginia and hers from North Carolina, they were both descended from Alice's great-grandparents, the Quaker immigrants George and Alice Maris who came from Worcestershire, England to Springfield Township, present-day Delaware County, Pennsylvania, in 1683. My grandfather was descended from their great-granddaughter Alice Maris Lewis, as she was his great4-grandmother, whereas my grandmother was descended from their great-granddaughter Mary Pyle Newlin (ca. 1724-ca. 1790), as she was her great3-grandmother, making my grandparents seventh cousins once removed. The Maris family is extremely well-traced, both back in England and in America, for as of 2014, over 300,000 descendants of George and Alice Maris have been traced by Raymond Lee Maris, and he showed the nonliving generations on his website http://www.maris.net/gen/ . It came as a surprise to me in 1994 when I was able to determine the correct Lewis ancestry for my maternal grandfather when a cousin of his had typed up a genealogy booklet 20 years earlier showing a false lineage from the prominent John Lewis family of Gloucester County, Virginia, and in the process I realized he and my grandmother were both descended from the Maris family of Pennsylvania. Alice and Jehu came from Pennsylvania and settled in Loudoun County, Virginia with other Quakers about 1760. Before 1789, they moved further south with other Quakers to Bedford County, Virginia, and a 1789 deed shows that Jehu and Alice resided on Difficult Creek and deeded land on which Lower Goose Creek Friends Meeting, the site of present-day Quaker Baptist Church, is located. This makes the Lewises pioneer settlers of this area, where numerous descendants of their son George still reside. Four of their surviving children, Joel, Evan, Jesse, and Ann, migrated to Ohio in 1814, Jesse later settling in Parke County, Indiana, whereas daughter Hannah migrated south to what was then part of Grayson County, Virginia, and it appears Alice went with them after Jehu's death as her son George had died about the same time.
Of interest to my close relatives and me is the fact that my grandfather was born and raised within sight of Quaker Baptist Church, was baptized there, and his parents' and paternal grandparents' property all adjoined Difficult Creek, which he, my mother, and I all played in during our youths before his parents' farm was sold out of the family in 2001.
Just as my Grandfather Overstreet's great4-grandparents, Jehu and Alice Maris Lewis, were pioneer Quaker settlers in the area of present-day Quaker Baptist Church in Bedford County, Virginia, my Grandmother Overstreet's great3-grandparents, John and Mary Pyle Newlin (Mary being Alice's second cousin), were pioneer Quaker settlers in the Cane Creek and Haw River valley of present-day Alamance County, North Carolina, where they were among the earliest burials at Spring Friends Meeting. Both families came from Chester and/or present-day Delaware County, Pennsylvania, southwest of Philadelphia, and were descended from English or Welsh Quakers who came to Pennsylvania shortly after the arrival of William Penn in 1683. And John Newlin and Jehu Lewis both died around 1805. What a proud heritage this has been for me, and because of my double descent from the Marises, which unites the families of my maternal grandparents, I am thankful to have someone such as Raymond Maris who has traced so many descendants, including numerous famous ones, and Professor Stewart Baldwin of Auburn University, who has traced the ancestors of George Maris in Worcestershire.
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https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Grayson_County_Monthly_Meeting
In John Perry Alderman's book, "The Settlements, Carroll County 1765-1815," he states, "The predominant faith in the days of the county settlement was the Quakers. The Quaker Church had strong congregations in several parts of eastern and central Virginia, but for western Virginia,, only in Carroll was there a significant settlement by the Quaker faithful." (We must remember there was no Carroll County at this time, we were still part of Grayson County VA.) "The early Quaker settlers officially had their church memberships at the New Garden MM in Guilford County NC; after the Westfield Meeting was organized in 1786 in Surry County NC. their membership was transferred to that place.." "The Mt. Pleasant MM was set up in 1801; it comprised all the Quaker memberships in the county and endured until 1826. (1 Hinshaw 1001)." The Mt. Pleasant Meeting in it's later day was also called the Chestnut Creek Meeting." It's meeting house was on a seven acre site deeded in 1797 by Joshua Hanks and the younger William Reddick. The CEMETERY which was adjunct to the MM still remains and is beautifully maintained.." "There were at least three other meeting houses for the Quakers in the county, all which were outposts for the Mt. Pleasant Meeting. One was at Hillsville at the present site of the North End Cemetery, another on Burks Fork which was known as Fruit Hill MM and a third at Wards Gap." "The Quakers by 1800 numbered between a fourth and a third of the population (that is the Carroll portion of Old Grayson County)" "The migration pattern of the time was to the Northwest. The minutes of the Mt. Pleasant Meeting reveal that hundreds of Quaker families left, bound for southern Ohio and Indiana where they hoped to build a better life.." This is a bit condensed from Mr. Alderman's book, but I hope has helped someone. Remember this is all his research, I merely took the liberty of copying.
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Source: Portrait and Biographical Album, Muscatine County, Iowa, 1889, page 564
JOHN LEWIS, one of the honored pioneers of Muscatine County, Iowa. of 1841, now living a retired life in West Liberty, was born in Highland County, Ohio, in 1820, and is a son of Enoch and Mourning ( Timberlake ) Lewis. On his father's side he traces his ancestry back to the beginning of the eighteenth century.
JOHN [Jehu] LEWIS , the great-grandfather of our subject, was born June 6, 1723, and
wedded ALICE MORRIS [Maris], born March 31, 1726, and daughter of George and Hannah Morris [Maris].
He died August 19, 1804, aged eighty-one years, two months,and thirteen days, and was buried in the Friends' burying ground at Goose Creek, Bedford Co., Va. His wife survived him nearly sixteen years, dying Feb. 21, 1820, at the age of ninety-three years, nine months, and one day. She was buried in Chestnut cemetery, in Grayson Co.,Va.
Evan, the fifth son of John and Alice Lewis, was born May 5, 1760. About the year 1789 he married Sarah Tennison, born Jan. 1, 1761.
Enoch, the second son of Evan and Sarah Lewis, was born Oct.3, 1793. He married Elizabeth Cadwallader, March 16, 1812. They had one son, Jonah, born March 13, 1814. Elizabeth Lewis died April 6, 1814. Enoch Lewis, some two years later, March 16, 1816, wedded Mourning Timberlake, born Oct. 8, 1794, and daughter of John and Mollie Timberlake. They had a family of ten children : Elizabeth, born Feb.4, 1817, married Henry Felkner, who subsequently represented his county in the Iowa Legislature ; both are now deceased. Sally, born Oct. 10, 1818, became the wife of William Henderson, whose sketch appears on another page of this work ; she is now deceased. John, born Aug.4, 1820, is the subject of this sketch ; Mary, born May 5, 1823, became the wife of Jacob Romain, and both are now deceased ; Clark, born June 19, 1825, is now living at West Liberty ; Ann, born July 22, 1827, is the wife of Isaac Wright, of Laramie City, Wyo.Ter. ; William, born April 14, 1830, died March 4, 1831 ; Agnes, born Dec. 30, 1831, is the wife of S. A. Barnes, of Downey, Iowa ; Emily, born Oct. 13, 1833, is the wife of W. C. Chase, a farmer of Wapsinonoc Township, who formerly represented the county in the Legislature ; Milton, born Jan. 12, 1837, is engaged in farming near Downey, Iowa.
In 1841 accompanied by his family, Enoch Lewis emigrated to Iowa, settling in Wapsinonoc Township, where he purchased 720 acres of land. He improved three farms in that neighborhood ; first the one now owned by A. Brown, second the Joseph Chase farm, and later the one now known as the Brown farm in Cedar County. Wishing to retire from active life he removed to West Liberty, where he lived until the death of his wife in the spring of 1864. He then lived with his children until April, 1871, when, after a few hours' sickness he breathed his last in the seventy-eighth year of his age. He and his wife were members of the Society of Friends. Mr. Lewis was a man who took great interest in public affairs, and aided largely in the advancement of the social, moral, and educational interests of the community. As a business man he was energetic, enterprising and fair in all his dealings, consequently he was successful. During his earlier years he was a Whig, and being greatly opposed to slavery was among the first to be known by the term of " abolitionist." When the Republican party was organized he became one of its members, and supported it by his ballot and influence until his death. While living in Ohio he was appointed one of the three trustees of the estate of a wealthy slave-owner, who emancipated a large number of slaves in Ohio. A large sum of money was left in their hands for the benefit of the freedmen, and most of the responsibility rested upon Mr. Lewis, but he performed his duties faithfully and well, and remained one of the trustees until his removal to this State. While acting in the capacity of agent for the emancipated slaves his home was a well-known " station " to the Society of Friends ; and many fugitive slaves from Kentucky, in their efforts to reach Canada and freedom on the " Underground Railroad," found a welcome, sympathy, and food, and were sent to the next " station " by the kind-hearted Mr. and Mrs. Lewis.
John Lewis, the subject of this sketch, was reared on a farm in Ohio, and at the age of twenty-one came with his parents to this State. He improved a farm of eighty acres for himself soon after his arrival, but remained under the parental roof until 1845, when he was united in marriage with Delia Humphrey, who was born in Delaware County, Ohio, and is a daughter of Lemuel and Betsey ( Pinney ), Humphrey, who were natives of Connecticut. After their marriage the young couple began their domestic life upon a farm which he had purchased on section 2, Wapsinonoc Township, aand there resided until 1873. From time to time Mr. Lewis added to his original purchase, until 349 broad acres paid tribute to his care and cultivation. Removing to West Liberty in 1873, he has there since continued to reside, and is living a retired life.
By the union of Mr. and Mrs. Lewis Four children were born ;
Eudora E., wife of N. W. Ball, a resident of West Liberty, Iowa, and editor of the Wapsie Weekly Index ;
Elsie, who died at the age of two years ;
Lizzie, wife of C. D. Haldeman, of Des Moines, Iowa, proprietor of a creamery ; and Lillian, the efficient assistant principal of the High School of West Liberty.
On the 24th of May, 1873, Mrs. Lewis was called to her long rest. He was again married in 1880, Miss S. A. Troupe, a native of Ohio, and a teacher in the public schools for twenty-five years becoming his wife. She is an active member of the W.C.T.U., and is President of the county organization.
For many years Mr. Lewis has been a director in the People's Bank of West Liberty, and at present holds the position of President. He takes a deep interest in public affairs, is well informed on all the leading questions of the day, and casts his ballot with the Republican party. Not a member of any church, yet fully believing in the beneficient influence on society of religious teachings, he is a liberal contributor to church organizations. A member of the State Temperance Alliance, and County and City Auxiliary Societies, he contributes money and time towards the enforcement of the law prohibiting the manufacture or sale of intoxicants to be used as a beverage. A man of influence and prominence in the community where he resides, he holds an enviable place in the hearts of the people, and well deserves their confidence and esteem.
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http://www.ohiogenealogyexpress.com/highland/highlandco_bios_1902/highlandco_bios_1902_l.htm?fbclid=IwAR3GSYD54jdtdpyUNiOGUmvm_WIox35Iglj_BaYC8mNqqS8Kz4fFkrwAeiQ
CHRISTOPHER LEWIS, proprietor of the famous farm in Penn township known as Flora Vale, is the principal living representative of one of the oldest and most honorable families in Highland county. They came originally from Wales. According to the carefully preserved records it was in the year 1682 that three brothers emigrated to America and fixed their abodes in different parts of the colonial settlements along the Atlantic coast. Two of them were lost to sight, so far as subsequent history is concerned, and it is not known whether they left descendants or what became of them. Evan Lewis, second in age of the trio, settled in Philadelphia and became the progenitor of the family subsequently so well known in the West. Among his children was a son named Jehu, born in 1723, who afterward settled in Chester county, Pa., and remained there until the close of that century, when he removed to Bedford county, Va. He married Alice, daughter of George and Hannah Maris, and their nine children were as follows: Jesse, born in 1750; James, in 1751; Elijah, in 1752 (these three died young); Joel, in 1755; Hannah, in 1757; Evan, in 1760; Jesse (named from the eldest, who died), in 1763; George, in 1765; Ann, in 1767. Jehu Lewis died in 1804 and his wife, who was born in 1726, died in 1820, both being buried in Friends' graveyard, Goose Creek meeting house, in Bedford county. Their son Joel, accompanied by his brothers Evan and Jesse and sister Ann, migrated to Ohio in 1814 and settled first on the Little Miami, near Millgrove, where he remained until 1822. In that year Joel removed to Highland county, where he purchased a farm in the southern part of what is now Penn township. Mar. 9, 1786, he was married to Sarah, daughter of William and Esther Daniel, of Loudoun county, Va., and his four children were: Jehu, born in 1791, and died in 1875, at State Center, Iowa; Daniel, more fully noticed below; Sarah, born in 1797; and a second daughter who died on day of birth in 1802. Joel Lewis died at his home in Penn township Nov. 30, 1829, after which his widow was tenderly cared for by her children and grandchildren until her death, which occurred June 23, 1840, in the eighty-second year of her age. Her remains were deposited in the cemetery of Clear Creek by the side of those of her husband which had been left eleven years before in the same place of final rest. Daniel Lewis, the second son of this pioneer couple, was born in Bedford county, Va., in 1794, and after coming to Ohio with his parents in 1814, taught school several years in the counties of Warren, Clinton and Highland. In 1825 he bought of Gov. Allen Trimble the farm in the northwestern part of Penn township now known as Flora Vale and owned by his son. At the time of the purchase this land was covered by an unbroken forest, which disappeared in the course of years before the woodsman's ax and pioneer fortitude and eventually emerged as one of the handsomest estates in the county. In 1825 Daniel Lewis married Priscilla, daughter of Christopher and Sarah Hussey, and the eight children resulting from this union were as follows: Charles D., born in 1829; Christopher, fully sketched below; Sarah A., born in 1835; Albert, in 1836; Alvah, in 1839; Mary B., in 1841; George, in 1843; and Rachel, in 1845. The father of this family died Nov. 28, 1847, his widow surviving him many years and passing away in May, 1885. Charles D. Lewis, their oldest son, was a young man of great promise and had entered upon a career that promised most fruitful results but which, unhappily, was cut short in the prime of life by a railroad accident July 4, 1857. At the time of his death he was professor of chemistry and pharmacy in the Eclectic college of medicine at Cincinnati and had exhibited remarkable versatility of talent, as well as much force of character, during his brief but brilliant life. Christopher Lewis, second in age of the eight, children of his parents, was born on the homestead farm in Highland county, Ohio, Sept. 16, 1831, and has devoted his entire life to the quiet pursuits of agriculture. Under his skillful management and endless industry the place has been steadily improved and is now almost ideal both in its external and internal appointments. In the fall of 1825 his father built a comfortable Hewed-log house, which gave place in fourteen years to the present neat, dwelling-house where Mr. Lewis and his family have so long resided. In 1870 several additions and tasteful improvements were made by the proprietor and it would now be difficult to find a prettier place than Flora Vale, with its lovely lawns, choice shade trees and shrubbery, highly cultivated fields and other concomitants of rural repose. In fact, the contrast between "pioneer days," as exemplified by Mr. Lewis' father, and twentieth-century civilization, as witnessed by Mr. Lewis himself, can nowhere be seen in more force than at this luxurious country home in Highland county. Sept. 22, 1859, Mr. Lewis was married in Philadelphia to Louisa K., daughter of Joseph and Esther C. Hallowell of Chester county, Pa. Shortly after this event, he began purchasing the interests of the other heirs in his father's estate, which was kept up from time to time until 1865, when he obtained and has retained full possession of this desirable property. The farm, consisting of a hundred acres, is situated in Penn township on what is now known as the Careytown pike, about three miles and a half southeast of New Vienna. Mr. and Mrs. Lewis have three children of whom Eugene C., the oldest, was born June 20, 1860. Walter H., the second son, was born Nov. 17, 1862, and married Apr. 19, 1888, to Maude K. Smith, his children being Walter H., Ralph M., Gertrude M., Louise K., William Waddell and Priscilla. Marion, the only daughter, was born May 25, 1866, and married Dec. 24, 1890, to Horace K. Anson, their children being Virgil L. and Louisa L. Mr. Lewis served several years as master of Union grange, No. 77, Patrons of Husbandry, at New Vienna and was for a long time school director in his district. He and his wife have long been devoted members of the religious Society of Friends and prominent in connection with church affairs. They possess the same reposeful traits of character, the same industrious habits, the same love of liberty, good morals and right-doing that have characterized these people for centuries and made them such staunch supports of law and order and free government everywhere.
Source: History of Highland County, Ohio by Rev. J. W. Klise - Publ. Madison, Wis., Northwestern Historical Association - 1902 - Page 373
Comments and a genealogical tribute by Bryan S. Godfrey, great6-grandson of Jehu and Alice Maris Lewis (on his maternal grandfather's side) and great5-grandson of Alice's second cousin, Mary Pyle Newlin (on his maternal grandmother's side):
According to Volume VI in William Wade Hinshaw's "Encyclopedia of American Quaker Genealogy," page 526, in the section on Fairfax Monthly Meeting in present-day Loudoun County, Virginia, Alice, wife of Jehu Lewis, produced a certificate from Chester Monthly Meeting in Pennsylvania for herself and three small children: Joel, Hannah, and Evin [sic] on 29 October 1762, dated 26 March 1762. Below this record is an insert on Jehu, that he was son of Evan Lewis of Chester County, Pennsylvania, that he married 11 May 1749 at Springfield Meeting House in Pennsylvania, under the auspices of Chester Monthly Meeting, to Alice Maris, daughter of George of Chester County, Pennsylvania. Jehu Lewis produced a certificate from Darby Monthly Meeting in Pennsylvania to Chester Monthly Meeting on 24 February 1749.
In the Goose Creek Monthly Meeting (Bedford County, Virginia) section of the same volume of Hinshaw, page 355, in the Turner family entries, on 27 July 1789, Elijah Turner and wife Sarah deeded to John (it could read Jehu as Jehu's name has been miswritten as John in Bedford records) and Alice Lewis and Moses Cadwallader, John Coffee, and Joel Lewis, all of Bedford County, one lot on Difficult Creek, Bedford County, containing twelve acres beginning at Jehu Lewis' corner, on which lot stood Goose Creek (Friends) Meeting House (known as Lower Goose Creek or Bedford Meeting). This indicates that Jehu and Alice and children had settled very near the present Quaker Baptist Church by 1789, as it was constructed on the site of the Quaker meeting. How long they resided in Loudoun and Bedford Counties is uncertain, and it also appears they resided under Hopewell Friends Meeting in Frederick County, Virginia around 1760, as their son Evan's birth is listed in its records.
In several secondary sources, including a Sons of the American Revolution biography of Jehu Lewis, there are incorrect statements made which I have been able to rectify. First, Alice's husband Jehu Lewis was not the one of the name who served in the American Revolution from Chester County, Pennsylvania. This Jehu was Quaker and was living in Virginia by that time. Some of his descendants have joined SAR on this claim. Also, it states Jehu and Alice died in Grayson City, Virginia, which does not exist, and this has been perpetuated by others. According to a biography of their great-grandson John Lewis of Highland County, Ohio, Jehu died in Bedford County, Virginia and is buried in the Friends Graveyard there, assumed to be the cemetery of present-day Quaker Baptist Church, and Alice is buried in Chestnut Cemetery in Grayson County, Virginia. It appears the Grayson City claim originated from the fact that after Jehu's death, Alice likely went with their daughter Hannah and Hannah's husband Richard Larrowe to Grayson County, that part now in Carroll County, where there was a Quaker meeting called Mount Pleasant, also called Chestnut Hill or Chestnut Creek, for Hannah and Richard are buried in its cemetery, now called the Old Quaker Cemetery, near Pipers Gap. Alice probably died in their home and was buried here with them, but her grave was apparently unmarked. Their markers are modern ones, and there is no way to know whether they are merely memorials or whether they mark the location of earlier tombstones. A biography of Jehu and Alice's great-grandson Christopher Lewis, of Muscatine County, Iowa, states Jehu and Alice were both buried in the Friends Graveyard in Bedford County. John's biography is more likely to be correct in stating Alice is buried in what was then Grayson County.
My maternal grandparents, Melvin "Ray" Overstreet (1920-1984) and Ella Perrow Pearson Overstreet (1921-2008), were born and raised about seventy miles apart in Virginia, and even though his father was from Virginia and hers from North Carolina, they were both descended from Alice's great-grandparents, the Quaker immigrants George and Alice Maris who came from Worcestershire, England to Springfield Township, present-day Delaware County, Pennsylvania, in 1683. My grandfather was descended from their great-granddaughter Alice Maris Lewis, as she was his great4-grandmother, whereas my grandmother was descended from their great-granddaughter Mary Pyle Newlin (ca. 1724-ca. 1790), as she was her great3-grandmother, making my grandparents seventh cousins once removed. The Maris family is extremely well-traced, both back in England and in America, for as of 2014, over 300,000 descendants of George and Alice Maris have been traced by Raymond Lee Maris, and he showed the nonliving generations on his website http://www.maris.net/gen/ . It came as a surprise to me in 1994 when I was able to determine the correct Lewis ancestry for my maternal grandfather when a cousin of his had typed up a genealogy booklet 20 years earlier showing a false lineage from the prominent John Lewis family of Gloucester County, Virginia, and in the process I realized he and my grandmother were both descended from the Maris family of Pennsylvania. Alice and Jehu came from Pennsylvania and settled in Loudoun County, Virginia with other Quakers about 1760. Before 1789, they moved further south with other Quakers to Bedford County, Virginia, and a 1789 deed shows that Jehu and Alice resided on Difficult Creek and deeded land on which Lower Goose Creek Friends Meeting, the site of present-day Quaker Baptist Church, is located. This makes the Lewises pioneer settlers of this area, where numerous descendants of their son George still reside. Four of their surviving children, Joel, Evan, Jesse, and Ann, migrated to Ohio in 1814, Jesse later settling in Parke County, Indiana, whereas daughter Hannah migrated south to what was then part of Grayson County, Virginia, and it appears Alice went with them after Jehu's death as her son George had died about the same time.
Of interest to my close relatives and me is the fact that my grandfather was born and raised within sight of Quaker Baptist Church, was baptized there, and his parents' and paternal grandparents' property all adjoined Difficult Creek, which he, my mother, and I all played in during our youths before his parents' farm was sold out of the family in 2001.
Just as my Grandfather Overstreet's great4-grandparents, Jehu and Alice Maris Lewis, were pioneer Quaker settlers in the area of present-day Quaker Baptist Church in Bedford County, Virginia, my Grandmother Overstreet's great3-grandparents, John and Mary Pyle Newlin (Mary being Alice's second cousin), were pioneer Quaker settlers in the Cane Creek and Haw River valley of present-day Alamance County, North Carolina, where they were among the earliest burials at Spring Friends Meeting. Both families came from Chester and/or present-day Delaware County, Pennsylvania, southwest of Philadelphia, and were descended from English or Welsh Quakers who came to Pennsylvania shortly after the arrival of William Penn in 1683. And John Newlin and Jehu Lewis both died around 1805. What a proud heritage this has been for me, and because of my double descent from the Marises, which unites the families of my maternal grandparents, I am thankful to have someone such as Raymond Maris who has traced so many descendants, including numerous famous ones, and Professor Stewart Baldwin of Auburn University, who has traced the ancestors of George Maris in Worcestershire.
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https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Grayson_County_Monthly_Meeting
In John Perry Alderman's book, "The Settlements, Carroll County 1765-1815," he states, "The predominant faith in the days of the county settlement was the Quakers. The Quaker Church had strong congregations in several parts of eastern and central Virginia, but for western Virginia,, only in Carroll was there a significant settlement by the Quaker faithful." (We must remember there was no Carroll County at this time, we were still part of Grayson County VA.) "The early Quaker settlers officially had their church memberships at the New Garden MM in Guilford County NC; after the Westfield Meeting was organized in 1786 in Surry County NC. their membership was transferred to that place.." "The Mt. Pleasant MM was set up in 1801; it comprised all the Quaker memberships in the county and endured until 1826. (1 Hinshaw 1001)." The Mt. Pleasant Meeting in it's later day was also called the Chestnut Creek Meeting." It's meeting house was on a seven acre site deeded in 1797 by Joshua Hanks and the younger William Reddick. The CEMETERY which was adjunct to the MM still remains and is beautifully maintained.." "There were at least three other meeting houses for the Quakers in the county, all which were outposts for the Mt. Pleasant Meeting. One was at Hillsville at the present site of the North End Cemetery, another on Burks Fork which was known as Fruit Hill MM and a third at Wards Gap." "The Quakers by 1800 numbered between a fourth and a third of the population (that is the Carroll portion of Old Grayson County)" "The migration pattern of the time was to the Northwest. The minutes of the Mt. Pleasant Meeting reveal that hundreds of Quaker families left, bound for southern Ohio and Indiana where they hoped to build a better life.." This is a bit condensed from Mr. Alderman's book, but I hope has helped someone. Remember this is all his research, I merely took the liberty of copying.
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Source: Portrait and Biographical Album, Muscatine County, Iowa, 1889, page 564
JOHN LEWIS, one of the honored pioneers of Muscatine County, Iowa. of 1841, now living a retired life in West Liberty, was born in Highland County, Ohio, in 1820, and is a son of Enoch and Mourning ( Timberlake ) Lewis. On his father's side he traces his ancestry back to the beginning of the eighteenth century.
JOHN [Jehu] LEWIS , the great-grandfather of our subject, was born June 6, 1723, and
wedded ALICE MORRIS [Maris], born March 31, 1726, and daughter of George and Hannah Morris [Maris].
He died August 19, 1804, aged eighty-one years, two months,and thirteen days, and was buried in the Friends' burying ground at Goose Creek, Bedford Co., Va. His wife survived him nearly sixteen years, dying Feb. 21, 1820, at the age of ninety-three years, nine months, and one day. She was buried in Chestnut cemetery, in Grayson Co.,Va.
Evan, the fifth son of John and Alice Lewis, was born May 5, 1760. About the year 1789 he married Sarah Tennison, born Jan. 1, 1761.
Enoch, the second son of Evan and Sarah Lewis, was born Oct.3, 1793. He married Elizabeth Cadwallader, March 16, 1812. They had one son, Jonah, born March 13, 1814. Elizabeth Lewis died April 6, 1814. Enoch Lewis, some two years later, March 16, 1816, wedded Mourning Timberlake, born Oct. 8, 1794, and daughter of John and Mollie Timberlake. They had a family of ten children : Elizabeth, born Feb.4, 1817, married Henry Felkner, who subsequently represented his county in the Iowa Legislature ; both are now deceased. Sally, born Oct. 10, 1818, became the wife of William Henderson, whose sketch appears on another page of this work ; she is now deceased. John, born Aug.4, 1820, is the subject of this sketch ; Mary, born May 5, 1823, became the wife of Jacob Romain, and both are now deceased ; Clark, born June 19, 1825, is now living at West Liberty ; Ann, born July 22, 1827, is the wife of Isaac Wright, of Laramie City, Wyo.Ter. ; William, born April 14, 1830, died March 4, 1831 ; Agnes, born Dec. 30, 1831, is the wife of S. A. Barnes, of Downey, Iowa ; Emily, born Oct. 13, 1833, is the wife of W. C. Chase, a farmer of Wapsinonoc Township, who formerly represented the county in the Legislature ; Milton, born Jan. 12, 1837, is engaged in farming near Downey, Iowa.
In 1841 accompanied by his family, Enoch Lewis emigrated to Iowa, settling in Wapsinonoc Township, where he purchased 720 acres of land. He improved three farms in that neighborhood ; first the one now owned by A. Brown, second the Joseph Chase farm, and later the one now known as the Brown farm in Cedar County. Wishing to retire from active life he removed to West Liberty, where he lived until the death of his wife in the spring of 1864. He then lived with his children until April, 1871, when, after a few hours' sickness he breathed his last in the seventy-eighth year of his age. He and his wife were members of the Society of Friends. Mr. Lewis was a man who took great interest in public affairs, and aided largely in the advancement of the social, moral, and educational interests of the community. As a business man he was energetic, enterprising and fair in all his dealings, consequently he was successful. During his earlier years he was a Whig, and being greatly opposed to slavery was among the first to be known by the term of " abolitionist." When the Republican party was organized he became one of its members, and supported it by his ballot and influence until his death. While living in Ohio he was appointed one of the three trustees of the estate of a wealthy slave-owner, who emancipated a large number of slaves in Ohio. A large sum of money was left in their hands for the benefit of the freedmen, and most of the responsibility rested upon Mr. Lewis, but he performed his duties faithfully and well, and remained one of the trustees until his removal to this State. While acting in the capacity of agent for the emancipated slaves his home was a well-known " station " to the Society of Friends ; and many fugitive slaves from Kentucky, in their efforts to reach Canada and freedom on the " Underground Railroad," found a welcome, sympathy, and food, and were sent to the next " station " by the kind-hearted Mr. and Mrs. Lewis.
John Lewis, the subject of this sketch, was reared on a farm in Ohio, and at the age of twenty-one came with his parents to this State. He improved a farm of eighty acres for himself soon after his arrival, but remained under the parental roof until 1845, when he was united in marriage with Delia Humphrey, who was born in Delaware County, Ohio, and is a daughter of Lemuel and Betsey ( Pinney ), Humphrey, who were natives of Connecticut. After their marriage the young couple began their domestic life upon a farm which he had purchased on section 2, Wapsinonoc Township, aand there resided until 1873. From time to time Mr. Lewis added to his original purchase, until 349 broad acres paid tribute to his care and cultivation. Removing to West Liberty in 1873, he has there since continued to reside, and is living a retired life.
By the union of Mr. and Mrs. Lewis Four children were born ;
Eudora E., wife of N. W. Ball, a resident of West Liberty, Iowa, and editor of the Wapsie Weekly Index ;
Elsie, who died at the age of two years ;
Lizzie, wife of C. D. Haldeman, of Des Moines, Iowa, proprietor of a creamery ; and Lillian, the efficient assistant principal of the High School of West Liberty.
On the 24th of May, 1873, Mrs. Lewis was called to her long rest. He was again married in 1880, Miss S. A. Troupe, a native of Ohio, and a teacher in the public schools for twenty-five years becoming his wife. She is an active member of the W.C.T.U., and is President of the county organization.
For many years Mr. Lewis has been a director in the People's Bank of West Liberty, and at present holds the position of President. He takes a deep interest in public affairs, is well informed on all the leading questions of the day, and casts his ballot with the Republican party. Not a member of any church, yet fully believing in the beneficient influence on society of religious teachings, he is a liberal contributor to church organizations. A member of the State Temperance Alliance, and County and City Auxiliary Societies, he contributes money and time towards the enforcement of the law prohibiting the manufacture or sale of intoxicants to be used as a beverage. A man of influence and prominence in the community where he resides, he holds an enviable place in the hearts of the people, and well deserves their confidence and esteem.
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http://www.ohiogenealogyexpress.com/highland/highlandco_bios_1902/highlandco_bios_1902_l.htm?fbclid=IwAR3GSYD54jdtdpyUNiOGUmvm_WIox35Iglj_BaYC8mNqqS8Kz4fFkrwAeiQ
CHRISTOPHER LEWIS, proprietor of the famous farm in Penn township known as Flora Vale, is the principal living representative of one of the oldest and most honorable families in Highland county. They came originally from Wales. According to the carefully preserved records it was in the year 1682 that three brothers emigrated to America and fixed their abodes in different parts of the colonial settlements along the Atlantic coast. Two of them were lost to sight, so far as subsequent history is concerned, and it is not known whether they left descendants or what became of them. Evan Lewis, second in age of the trio, settled in Philadelphia and became the progenitor of the family subsequently so well known in the West. Among his children was a son named Jehu, born in 1723, who afterward settled in Chester county, Pa., and remained there until the close of that century, when he removed to Bedford county, Va. He married Alice, daughter of George and Hannah Maris, and their nine children were as follows: Jesse, born in 1750; James, in 1751; Elijah, in 1752 (these three died young); Joel, in 1755; Hannah, in 1757; Evan, in 1760; Jesse (named from the eldest, who died), in 1763; George, in 1765; Ann, in 1767. Jehu Lewis died in 1804 and his wife, who was born in 1726, died in 1820, both being buried in Friends' graveyard, Goose Creek meeting house, in Bedford county. Their son Joel, accompanied by his brothers Evan and Jesse and sister Ann, migrated to Ohio in 1814 and settled first on the Little Miami, near Millgrove, where he remained until 1822. In that year Joel removed to Highland county, where he purchased a farm in the southern part of what is now Penn township. Mar. 9, 1786, he was married to Sarah, daughter of William and Esther Daniel, of Loudoun county, Va., and his four children were: Jehu, born in 1791, and died in 1875, at State Center, Iowa; Daniel, more fully noticed below; Sarah, born in 1797; and a second daughter who died on day of birth in 1802. Joel Lewis died at his home in Penn township Nov. 30, 1829, after which his widow was tenderly cared for by her children and grandchildren until her death, which occurred June 23, 1840, in the eighty-second year of her age. Her remains were deposited in the cemetery of Clear Creek by the side of those of her husband which had been left eleven years before in the same place of final rest. Daniel Lewis, the second son of this pioneer couple, was born in Bedford county, Va., in 1794, and after coming to Ohio with his parents in 1814, taught school several years in the counties of Warren, Clinton and Highland. In 1825 he bought of Gov. Allen Trimble the farm in the northwestern part of Penn township now known as Flora Vale and owned by his son. At the time of the purchase this land was covered by an unbroken forest, which disappeared in the course of years before the woodsman's ax and pioneer fortitude and eventually emerged as one of the handsomest estates in the county. In 1825 Daniel Lewis married Priscilla, daughter of Christopher and Sarah Hussey, and the eight children resulting from this union were as follows: Charles D., born in 1829; Christopher, fully sketched below; Sarah A., born in 1835; Albert, in 1836; Alvah, in 1839; Mary B., in 1841; George, in 1843; and Rachel, in 1845. The father of this family died Nov. 28, 1847, his widow surviving him many years and passing away in May, 1885. Charles D. Lewis, their oldest son, was a young man of great promise and had entered upon a career that promised most fruitful results but which, unhappily, was cut short in the prime of life by a railroad accident July 4, 1857. At the time of his death he was professor of chemistry and pharmacy in the Eclectic college of medicine at Cincinnati and had exhibited remarkable versatility of talent, as well as much force of character, during his brief but brilliant life. Christopher Lewis, second in age of the eight, children of his parents, was born on the homestead farm in Highland county, Ohio, Sept. 16, 1831, and has devoted his entire life to the quiet pursuits of agriculture. Under his skillful management and endless industry the place has been steadily improved and is now almost ideal both in its external and internal appointments. In the fall of 1825 his father built a comfortable Hewed-log house, which gave place in fourteen years to the present neat, dwelling-house where Mr. Lewis and his family have so long resided. In 1870 several additions and tasteful improvements were made by the proprietor and it would now be difficult to find a prettier place than Flora Vale, with its lovely lawns, choice shade trees and shrubbery, highly cultivated fields and other concomitants of rural repose. In fact, the contrast between "pioneer days," as exemplified by Mr. Lewis' father, and twentieth-century civilization, as witnessed by Mr. Lewis himself, can nowhere be seen in more force than at this luxurious country home in Highland county. Sept. 22, 1859, Mr. Lewis was married in Philadelphia to Louisa K., daughter of Joseph and Esther C. Hallowell of Chester county, Pa. Shortly after this event, he began purchasing the interests of the other heirs in his father's estate, which was kept up from time to time until 1865, when he obtained and has retained full possession of this desirable property. The farm, consisting of a hundred acres, is situated in Penn township on what is now known as the Careytown pike, about three miles and a half southeast of New Vienna. Mr. and Mrs. Lewis have three children of whom Eugene C., the oldest, was born June 20, 1860. Walter H., the second son, was born Nov. 17, 1862, and married Apr. 19, 1888, to Maude K. Smith, his children being Walter H., Ralph M., Gertrude M., Louise K., William Waddell and Priscilla. Marion, the only daughter, was born May 25, 1866, and married Dec. 24, 1890, to Horace K. Anson, their children being Virgil L. and Louisa L. Mr. Lewis served several years as master of Union grange, No. 77, Patrons of Husbandry, at New Vienna and was for a long time school director in his district. He and his wife have long been devoted members of the religious Society of Friends and prominent in connection with church affairs. They possess the same reposeful traits of character, the same industrious habits, the same love of liberty, good morals and right-doing that have characterized these people for centuries and made them such staunch supports of law and order and free government everywhere.
Source: History of Highland County, Ohio by Rev. J. W. Klise - Publ. Madison, Wis., Northwestern Historical Association - 1902 - Page 373
According to Volume VI in William Wade Hinshaw's "Encyclopedia of American Quaker Genealogy," page 526, in the section on Fairfax Monthly Meeting in present-day Loudoun County, Virginia, Alice, wife of Jehu Lewis, produced a certificate from Chester Monthly Meeting in Pennsylvania for herself and three small children: Joel, Hannah, and Evin [sic] on 29 October 1762, dated 26 March 1762. Below this record is an insert on Jehu, that he was son of Evan Lewis of Chester County, Pennsylvania, that he married 11 May 1749 at Springfield Meeting House in Pennsylvania, under the auspices of Chester Monthly Meeting, to Alice Maris, daughter of George of Chester County, Pennsylvania. Jehu Lewis produced a certificate from Darby Monthly Meeting in Pennsylvania to Chester Monthly Meeting on 24 February 1749.
In the Goose Creek Monthly Meeting (Bedford County, Virginia) section of the same volume of Hinshaw, page 355, in the Turner family entries, on 27 July 1789, Elijah Turner and wife Sarah deeded to John (it could read Jehu as Jehu's name has been miswritten as John in Bedford records) and Alice Lewis and Moses Cadwallader, John Coffee, and Joel Lewis, all of Bedford County, one lot on Difficult Creek, Bedford County, containing twelve acres beginning at Jehu Lewis' corner, on which lot stood Goose Creek (Friends) Meeting House (known as Lower Goose Creek or Bedford Meeting). This indicates that Jehu and Alice and children had settled very near the present Quaker Baptist Church by 1789, as it was constructed on the site of the Quaker meeting. How long they resided in Loudoun and Bedford Counties is uncertain, and it also appears they resided under Hopewell Friends Meeting in Frederick County, Virginia around 1760, as their son Evan's birth is listed in its records.
In several secondary sources, including a Sons of the American Revolution biography of Jehu Lewis, there are incorrect statements made which I have been able to rectify. First, Alice's husband Jehu Lewis was not the one of the name who served in the American Revolution from Chester County, Pennsylvania. This Jehu was Quaker and was living in Virginia by that time. Some of his descendants have joined SAR on this claim. Also, it states Jehu and Alice died in Grayson City, Virginia, which does not exist, and this has been perpetuated by others. According to a biography of their great-grandson John Lewis of Highland County, Ohio, Jehu died in Bedford County, Virginia and is buried in the Friends Graveyard there, assumed to be the cemetery of present-day Quaker Baptist Church, and Alice is buried in Chestnut Cemetery in Grayson County, Virginia. It appears the Grayson City claim originated from the fact that after Jehu's death, Alice likely went with their daughter Hannah and Hannah's husband Richard Larrowe to Grayson County, that part now in Carroll County, where there was a Quaker meeting called Mount Pleasant, also called Chestnut Hill or Chestnut Creek, for Hannah and Richard are buried in its cemetery, now called the Old Quaker Cemetery, near Pipers Gap. Alice probably died in their home and was buried here with them, but her grave was apparently unmarked. Their markers are modern ones, and there is no way to know whether they are merely memorials or whether they mark the location of earlier tombstones. A biography of Jehu and Alice's great-grandson Christopher Lewis, of Muscatine County, Iowa, states Jehu and Alice were both buried in the Friends Graveyard in Bedford County. John's biography is more likely to be correct in stating Alice is buried in what was then Grayson County.
My maternal grandparents, Melvin "Ray" Overstreet (1920-1984) and Ella Perrow Pearson Overstreet (1921-2008), were born and raised about seventy miles apart in Virginia, and even though his father was from Virginia and hers from North Carolina, they were both descended from Alice's great-grandparents, the Quaker immigrants George and Alice Maris who came from Worcestershire, England to Springfield Township, present-day Delaware County, Pennsylvania, in 1683. My grandfather was descended from their great-granddaughter Alice Maris Lewis, as she was his great4-grandmother, whereas my grandmother was descended from their great-granddaughter Mary Pyle Newlin (ca. 1724-ca. 1790), as she was her great3-grandmother, making my grandparents seventh cousins once removed. The Maris family is extremely well-traced, both back in England and in America, for as of 2014, over 300,000 descendants of George and Alice Maris have been traced by Raymond Lee Maris, and he showed the nonliving generations on his website http://www.maris.net/gen/ . It came as a surprise to me in 1994 when I was able to determine the correct Lewis ancestry for my maternal grandfather when a cousin of his had typed up a genealogy booklet 20 years earlier showing a false lineage from the prominent John Lewis family of Gloucester County, Virginia, and in the process I realized he and my grandmother were both descended from the Maris family of Pennsylvania. Alice and Jehu came from Pennsylvania and settled in Loudoun County, Virginia with other Quakers about 1760. Before 1789, they moved further south with other Quakers to Bedford County, Virginia, and a 1789 deed shows that Jehu and Alice resided on Difficult Creek and deeded land on which Lower Goose Creek Friends Meeting, the site of present-day Quaker Baptist Church, is located. This makes the Lewises pioneer settlers of this area, where numerous descendants of their son George still reside. Four of their surviving children, Joel, Evan, Jesse, and Ann, migrated to Ohio in 1814, Jesse later settling in Parke County, Indiana, whereas daughter Hannah migrated south to what was then part of Grayson County, Virginia, and it appears Alice went with them after Jehu's death as her son George had died about the same time.
Of interest to my close relatives and me is the fact that my grandfather was born and raised within sight of Quaker Baptist Church, was baptized there, and his parents' and paternal grandparents' property all adjoined Difficult Creek, which he, my mother, and I all played in during our youths before his parents' farm was sold out of the family in 2001.
Just as my Grandfather Overstreet's great4-grandparents, Jehu and Alice Maris Lewis, were pioneer Quaker settlers in the area of present-day Quaker Baptist Church in Bedford County, Virginia, my Grandmother Overstreet's great3-grandparents, John and Mary Pyle Newlin (Mary being Alice's second cousin), were pioneer Quaker settlers in the Cane Creek and Haw River valley of present-day Alamance County, North Carolina, where they were among the earliest burials at Spring Friends Meeting. Both families came from Chester and/or present-day Delaware County, Pennsylvania, southwest of Philadelphia, and were descended from English or Welsh Quakers who came to Pennsylvania shortly after the arrival of William Penn in 1683. And John Newlin and Jehu Lewis both died around 1805. What a proud heritage this has been for me, and because of my double descent from the Marises, which unites the families of my maternal grandparents, I am thankful to have someone such as Raymond Maris who has traced so many descendants, including numerous famous ones, and Professor Stewart Baldwin of Auburn University, who has traced the ancestors of George Maris in Worcestershire.
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https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Grayson_County_Monthly_Meeting
In John Perry Alderman's book, "The Settlements, Carroll County 1765-1815," he states, "The predominant faith in the days of the county settlement was the Quakers. The Quaker Church had strong congregations in several parts of eastern and central Virginia, but for western Virginia,, only in Carroll was there a significant settlement by the Quaker faithful." (We must remember there was no Carroll County at this time, we were still part of Grayson County VA.) "The early Quaker settlers officially had their church memberships at the New Garden MM in Guilford County NC; after the Westfield Meeting was organized in 1786 in Surry County NC. their membership was transferred to that place.." "The Mt. Pleasant MM was set up in 1801; it comprised all the Quaker memberships in the county and endured until 1826. (1 Hinshaw 1001)." The Mt. Pleasant Meeting in it's later day was also called the Chestnut Creek Meeting." It's meeting house was on a seven acre site deeded in 1797 by Joshua Hanks and the younger William Reddick. The CEMETERY which was adjunct to the MM still remains and is beautifully maintained.." "There were at least three other meeting houses for the Quakers in the county, all which were outposts for the Mt. Pleasant Meeting. One was at Hillsville at the present site of the North End Cemetery, another on Burks Fork which was known as Fruit Hill MM and a third at Wards Gap." "The Quakers by 1800 numbered between a fourth and a third of the population (that is the Carroll portion of Old Grayson County)" "The migration pattern of the time was to the Northwest. The minutes of the Mt. Pleasant Meeting reveal that hundreds of Quaker families left, bound for southern Ohio and Indiana where they hoped to build a better life.." This is a bit condensed from Mr. Alderman's book, but I hope has helped someone. Remember this is all his research, I merely took the liberty of copying.
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Source: Portrait and Biographical Album, Muscatine County, Iowa, 1889, page 564
JOHN LEWIS, one of the honored pioneers of Muscatine County, Iowa. of 1841, now living a retired life in West Liberty, was born in Highland County, Ohio, in 1820, and is a son of Enoch and Mourning ( Timberlake ) Lewis. On his father's side he traces his ancestry back to the beginning of the eighteenth century.
JOHN [Jehu] LEWIS , the great-grandfather of our subject, was born June 6, 1723, and
wedded ALICE MORRIS [Maris], born March 31, 1726, and daughter of George and Hannah Morris [Maris].
He died August 19, 1804, aged eighty-one years, two months,and thirteen days, and was buried in the Friends' burying ground at Goose Creek, Bedford Co., Va. His wife survived him nearly sixteen years, dying Feb. 21, 1820, at the age of ninety-three years, nine months, and one day. She was buried in Chestnut cemetery, in Grayson Co.,Va.
Evan, the fifth son of John and Alice Lewis, was born May 5, 1760. About the year 1789 he married Sarah Tennison, born Jan. 1, 1761.
Enoch, the second son of Evan and Sarah Lewis, was born Oct.3, 1793. He married Elizabeth Cadwallader, March 16, 1812. They had one son, Jonah, born March 13, 1814. Elizabeth Lewis died April 6, 1814. Enoch Lewis, some two years later, March 16, 1816, wedded Mourning Timberlake, born Oct. 8, 1794, and daughter of John and Mollie Timberlake. They had a family of ten children : Elizabeth, born Feb.4, 1817, married Henry Felkner, who subsequently represented his county in the Iowa Legislature ; both are now deceased. Sally, born Oct. 10, 1818, became the wife of William Henderson, whose sketch appears on another page of this work ; she is now deceased. John, born Aug.4, 1820, is the subject of this sketch ; Mary, born May 5, 1823, became the wife of Jacob Romain, and both are now deceased ; Clark, born June 19, 1825, is now living at West Liberty ; Ann, born July 22, 1827, is the wife of Isaac Wright, of Laramie City, Wyo.Ter. ; William, born April 14, 1830, died March 4, 1831 ; Agnes, born Dec. 30, 1831, is the wife of S. A. Barnes, of Downey, Iowa ; Emily, born Oct. 13, 1833, is the wife of W. C. Chase, a farmer of Wapsinonoc Township, who formerly represented the county in the Legislature ; Milton, born Jan. 12, 1837, is engaged in farming near Downey, Iowa.
In 1841 accompanied by his family, Enoch Lewis emigrated to Iowa, settling in Wapsinonoc Township, where he purchased 720 acres of land. He improved three farms in that neighborhood ; first the one now owned by A. Brown, second the Joseph Chase farm, and later the one now known as the Brown farm in Cedar County. Wishing to retire from active life he removed to West Liberty, where he lived until the death of his wife in the spring of 1864. He then lived with his children until April, 1871, when, after a few hours' sickness he breathed his last in the seventy-eighth year of his age. He and his wife were members of the Society of Friends. Mr. Lewis was a man who took great interest in public affairs, and aided largely in the advancement of the social, moral, and educational interests of the community. As a business man he was energetic, enterprising and fair in all his dealings, consequently he was successful. During his earlier years he was a Whig, and being greatly opposed to slavery was among the first to be known by the term of " abolitionist." When the Republican party was organized he became one of its members, and supported it by his ballot and influence until his death. While living in Ohio he was appointed one of the three trustees of the estate of a wealthy slave-owner, who emancipated a large number of slaves in Ohio. A large sum of money was left in their hands for the benefit of the freedmen, and most of the responsibility rested upon Mr. Lewis, but he performed his duties faithfully and well, and remained one of the trustees until his removal to this State. While acting in the capacity of agent for the emancipated slaves his home was a well-known " station " to the Society of Friends ; and many fugitive slaves from Kentucky, in their efforts to reach Canada and freedom on the " Underground Railroad," found a welcome, sympathy, and food, and were sent to the next " station " by the kind-hearted Mr. and Mrs. Lewis.
John Lewis, the subject of this sketch, was reared on a farm in Ohio, and at the age of twenty-one came with his parents to this State. He improved a farm of eighty acres for himself soon after his arrival, but remained under the parental roof until 1845, when he was united in marriage with Delia Humphrey, who was born in Delaware County, Ohio, and is a daughter of Lemuel and Betsey ( Pinney ), Humphrey, who were natives of Connecticut. After their marriage the young couple began their domestic life upon a farm which he had purchased on section 2, Wapsinonoc Township, aand there resided until 1873. From time to time Mr. Lewis added to his original purchase, until 349 broad acres paid tribute to his care and cultivation. Removing to West Liberty in 1873, he has there since continued to reside, and is living a retired life.
By the union of Mr. and Mrs. Lewis Four children were born ;
Eudora E., wife of N. W. Ball, a resident of West Liberty, Iowa, and editor of the Wapsie Weekly Index ;
Elsie, who died at the age of two years ;
Lizzie, wife of C. D. Haldeman, of Des Moines, Iowa, proprietor of a creamery ; and Lillian, the efficient assistant principal of the High School of West Liberty.
On the 24th of May, 1873, Mrs. Lewis was called to her long rest. He was again married in 1880, Miss S. A. Troupe, a native of Ohio, and a teacher in the public schools for twenty-five years becoming his wife. She is an active member of the W.C.T.U., and is President of the county organization.
For many years Mr. Lewis has been a director in the People's Bank of West Liberty, and at present holds the position of President. He takes a deep interest in public affairs, is well informed on all the leading questions of the day, and casts his ballot with the Republican party. Not a member of any church, yet fully believing in the beneficient influence on society of religious teachings, he is a liberal contributor to church organizations. A member of the State Temperance Alliance, and County and City Auxiliary Societies, he contributes money and time towards the enforcement of the law prohibiting the manufacture or sale of intoxicants to be used as a beverage. A man of influence and prominence in the community where he resides, he holds an enviable place in the hearts of the people, and well deserves their confidence and esteem.
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http://www.ohiogenealogyexpress.com/highland/highlandco_bios_1902/highlandco_bios_1902_l.htm?fbclid=IwAR3GSYD54jdtdpyUNiOGUmvm_WIox35Iglj_BaYC8mNqqS8Kz4fFkrwAeiQ
CHRISTOPHER LEWIS, proprietor of the famous farm in Penn township known as Flora Vale, is the principal living representative of one of the oldest and most honorable families in Highland county. They came originally from Wales. According to the carefully preserved records it was in the year 1682 that three brothers emigrated to America and fixed their abodes in different parts of the colonial settlements along the Atlantic coast. Two of them were lost to sight, so far as subsequent history is concerned, and it is not known whether they left descendants or what became of them. Evan Lewis, second in age of the trio, settled in Philadelphia and became the progenitor of the family subsequently so well known in the West. Among his children was a son named Jehu, born in 1723, who afterward settled in Chester county, Pa., and remained there until the close of that century, when he removed to Bedford county, Va. He married Alice, daughter of George and Hannah Maris, and their nine children were as follows: Jesse, born in 1750; James, in 1751; Elijah, in 1752 (these three died young); Joel, in 1755; Hannah, in 1757; Evan, in 1760; Jesse (named from the eldest, who died), in 1763; George, in 1765; Ann, in 1767. Jehu Lewis died in 1804 and his wife, who was born in 1726, died in 1820, both being buried in Friends' graveyard, Goose Creek meeting house, in Bedford county. Their son Joel, accompanied by his brothers Evan and Jesse and sister Ann, migrated to Ohio in 1814 and settled first on the Little Miami, near Millgrove, where he remained until 1822. In that year Joel removed to Highland county, where he purchased a farm in the southern part of what is now Penn township. Mar. 9, 1786, he was married to Sarah, daughter of William and Esther Daniel, of Loudoun county, Va., and his four children were: Jehu, born in 1791, and died in 1875, at State Center, Iowa; Daniel, more fully noticed below; Sarah, born in 1797; and a second daughter who died on day of birth in 1802. Joel Lewis died at his home in Penn township Nov. 30, 1829, after which his widow was tenderly cared for by her children and grandchildren until her death, which occurred June 23, 1840, in the eighty-second year of her age. Her remains were deposited in the cemetery of Clear Creek by the side of those of her husband which had been left eleven years before in the same place of final rest. Daniel Lewis, the second son of this pioneer couple, was born in Bedford county, Va., in 1794, and after coming to Ohio with his parents in 1814, taught school several years in the counties of Warren, Clinton and Highland. In 1825 he bought of Gov. Allen Trimble the farm in the northwestern part of Penn township now known as Flora Vale and owned by his son. At the time of the purchase this land was covered by an unbroken forest, which disappeared in the course of years before the woodsman's ax and pioneer fortitude and eventually emerged as one of the handsomest estates in the county. In 1825 Daniel Lewis married Priscilla, daughter of Christopher and Sarah Hussey, and the eight children resulting from this union were as follows: Charles D., born in 1829; Christopher, fully sketched below; Sarah A., born in 1835; Albert, in 1836; Alvah, in 1839; Mary B., in 1841; George, in 1843; and Rachel, in 1845. The father of this family died Nov. 28, 1847, his widow surviving him many years and passing away in May, 1885. Charles D. Lewis, their oldest son, was a young man of great promise and had entered upon a career that promised most fruitful results but which, unhappily, was cut short in the prime of life by a railroad accident July 4, 1857. At the time of his death he was professor of chemistry and pharmacy in the Eclectic college of medicine at Cincinnati and had exhibited remarkable versatility of talent, as well as much force of character, during his brief but brilliant life. Christopher Lewis, second in age of the eight, children of his parents, was born on the homestead farm in Highland county, Ohio, Sept. 16, 1831, and has devoted his entire life to the quiet pursuits of agriculture. Under his skillful management and endless industry the place has been steadily improved and is now almost ideal both in its external and internal appointments. In the fall of 1825 his father built a comfortable Hewed-log house, which gave place in fourteen years to the present neat, dwelling-house where Mr. Lewis and his family have so long resided. In 1870 several additions and tasteful improvements were made by the proprietor and it would now be difficult to find a prettier place than Flora Vale, with its lovely lawns, choice shade trees and shrubbery, highly cultivated fields and other concomitants of rural repose. In fact, the contrast between "pioneer days," as exemplified by Mr. Lewis' father, and twentieth-century civilization, as witnessed by Mr. Lewis himself, can nowhere be seen in more force than at this luxurious country home in Highland county. Sept. 22, 1859, Mr. Lewis was married in Philadelphia to Louisa K., daughter of Joseph and Esther C. Hallowell of Chester county, Pa. Shortly after this event, he began purchasing the interests of the other heirs in his father's estate, which was kept up from time to time until 1865, when he obtained and has retained full possession of this desirable property. The farm, consisting of a hundred acres, is situated in Penn township on what is now known as the Careytown pike, about three miles and a half southeast of New Vienna. Mr. and Mrs. Lewis have three children of whom Eugene C., the oldest, was born June 20, 1860. Walter H., the second son, was born Nov. 17, 1862, and married Apr. 19, 1888, to Maude K. Smith, his children being Walter H., Ralph M., Gertrude M., Louise K., William Waddell and Priscilla. Marion, the only daughter, was born May 25, 1866, and married Dec. 24, 1890, to Horace K. Anson, their children being Virgil L. and Louisa L. Mr. Lewis served several years as master of Union grange, No. 77, Patrons of Husbandry, at New Vienna and was for a long time school director in his district. He and his wife have long been devoted members of the religious Society of Friends and prominent in connection with church affairs. They possess the same reposeful traits of character, the same industrious habits, the same love of liberty, good morals and right-doing that have characterized these people for centuries and made them such staunch supports of law and order and free government everywhere.
Source: History of Highland County, Ohio by Rev. J. W. Klise - Publ. Madison, Wis., Northwestern Historical Association - 1902 - Page 373
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