John Lewis | |
---|---|
Born | 1 February 1678 [1] : 181 |
Died | 1 February 1762 84) | (aged
Years active | 1737-1753 |
Known for | Virginia leadership and land development |
Title | Augusta County magistrate, militia colonel, Justice of the Peace |
Spouse | Margaret Lynn Lewis (1693-1773) |
Parent(s) | Andrew Lewis and Mary Colquhoun |
Relatives | Samuel Lewis (son), Thomas Lewis (son), Andrew Lewis (son), Alice Lewis (daughter), William Lynn Lewis (son), Margaret Lynn Lewis (daughter), Anne Lewis (daughter), Charles Lewis (son), James Patton (nephew) |
Military career | |
Allegiance | Colony of Virginia |
Years of service | 1738-? |
Rank | Colonel of the Augusta County Militia |
Unit | Virginia militia, Augusta County militia |
John Lewis (1 February 1678 - 1 February 1762) was a militia officer, magistrate and prominent Virginia landowner. Born in Ireland, he was forced to emigrate after killing his landlord. He settled in Virginia and, together with his nephew James Patton, became wealthy through land grants and sales during expansion of Virginia's westward frontier. His youngest son Andrew Lewis was a well-known general in the French and Indian War and the American Revolutionary War. His second oldest son Thomas Lewis was a politician who served in the Virginia House of Delegates. [2] For many years, Lewis engaged in a heated rivalry with his nephew Patton over land grants, judicial power, and the construction of a parish meeting house. He died at his home in Staunton, Virginia at the age of 84.
John Lewis was born on 1 February 1678 in County Donegal, Ireland. [1] His parents were Andrew Lewis and Mary Colquhoun, and his father's family reportedly were French Huguenots who had left France for Ireland. [2] : 26
Lewis was forced to flee Ireland in 1720 after killing his landlord in an altercation over inflated rent. The Lewises leased land in County Donegal from a "proud, profligate and extravagant" man named Sir Mungo Campbell, who tried to coerce his tenants to pay inflated rents. When Lewis protested, Campbell came to his home at night to evict Lewis and his family. He fired a musket loaded with buckshot into the house, wounding Lewis's wife in the hand and killing his disabled brother. Lewis then came out holding a shillelagh, which he used to kill Campbell and his steward. Fearful that Campbell's family would take revenge, Lewis, in disguise, and "about thirty of his faithful tenantry" obtained passage on a ship bound for the Kingdom of Portugal. In 1729 he traveled to Philadelphia. After a brief period in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Lewis rented land in western Augusta County, Virginia where he settled on Lewis Creek just a few miles south of what is now Staunton, Virginia. After an investigation, Lewis was eventually pardoned by Irish authorities and granted land in western Virginia in compensation for the attack on his home. [2] : 26 [Note 1]
In 1869 a magazine called The Land We Love published "The Valley Manuscript," purportedly the first part of "The Common-Place Book of me Margaret Lewis, née Lynn, of Loch Lynn, Scotland," [7] which was supposedly the diary of Lewis's wife Margaret Lynn Lewis, in which she provided an eyewitness account of John Lewis's killing of his landlord in Ireland. The diary was considered legitimate at the time and was republished several times subsequently before it was revealed in 1976 to be a hoax, written by "Fanny Fielding," pseudonym of Mary Jane Stith Sturges (1828-1891, née Upshur). [8] [9]
John Lewis married Margaret Lynn (James Patton's maternal aunt) in 1715 in County Donegal. She was born on 3 July 1693 in County Donegal and was the daughter of William Lynn and Margaret Patton. They had eight children: [10]
Lewis's first homestead was located on the Middle River in Augusta County, but by 1732 he had moved to a property known as Belle-fonte (also Bellefont and other spellings) on Lewis Creek. [13] [14] He arrived with the first European settlers on Borden's grant, [15] : 268 and was probably one of the first settlers on the Beverley grant. [16] : 11 In 1738, Lewis's nephew James Patton arrived at Lewis Creek with his family, including the eight-year-old William Preston, after which Patton returned to England for his final voyages as a merchant sea captain. [6] : 7
Lewis became close friends with William Beverley, his landlord, and in 1738 Beverley hired Lewis as a representative in charge of surveying and selling plots of land from the Beverley Manor. [17] : 77 Lewis acquired an official title for his land on Beverley Manor (2,071 acres) on 21 February 1738, [18] : 30 and for his land on Borden's tract on 20 February 1739. [19] : 3 By 1751, Lewis owned 9,313 acres in Augusta County. [17] : 65
In February 1747 Lewis applied for permission to build a mill, and in March 1747 he applied for an ordinary (tavern) license. [20] : 32–33 The mill was in construction by May 1751, when Lewis went to court to prevent the construction of a second mill in Staunton. [18] : 74 [21] : 42
In 1756 "Fort Lewis," a stockade fort, was constructed by Lewis's son Charles to guard the strategic pass of the Shenandoah Mountain. A large stone mansion, now known as Fort Lewis, was later built nearby, probably by Charles Lewis, [22] although some sources say that it was John Lewis's home for at least a short time. [23] [24] : 29–31 The building has undergone substantial renovation over the years, but the original stone section of the ground floor is still visible. [25]
In 1738 Lewis hosted James Anderson, Presbyterian minister from the Synod of Philadelphia, the first minister to deliver a sermon in the upper Shenandoah Valley. [10] [18] : 33–34 [6] : 12 [26] : 172 The Reverend John Craig arrived in 1740 as permanent Presbyterian minister of the parish. [27]
On 22 April 1738, the Virginia Council appointed Lewis captain over the settlers in Beverly Manor, where Indians had been stealing items and had killed a farmer. The order states:
Lewis was, however, ordered not to "offer any Violence to any of the said Indians passing quietly through their plantations nor to any Indians whatsoever unless the said Indians do first Commit Hostilities on the said Inhabitants in which case only they are at liberty to defend themselves and to Act offensively." [6] : 8 [28] : 414 [17] : 305 [4] : 42
John Lewis was appointed colonel of the Augusta County militia on 22 February, 1739. [18] : 37
On 3 November 1741, John Lewis was among the first Justices of the Peace appointed for Augusta County, after its formation in 1738. [18] : 42 When Augusta County was incorporated in 1745, Lewis was appointed magistrate by Governor William Gooch on 30 October. [18] : 52 The first session of the Augusta County Court convened on 9 December, 1745.
For several years, Lewis engaged in competition with his nephew James Patton over control of the court. Patton was named Chief Magistrate and President of the county court, but his duties as sheriff initially kept him occupied, and Lewis sat on the bench during 13 out of 15 regularly scheduled court days during the first half of 1746. Then on 14 June 1746, Lewis was appointed sheriff for Augusta County, [29] : 290–91 replacing Patton, and from July 1746 to May 1749, Patton took over the court, presiding over forty-five out of fifty-two regularly scheduled court days as well as ten out of eleven additional courts called for individual criminal trials, essentially replacing Lewis entirely as magistrate. [17] : 223–224 Possibly due to his military duties, after June 1749 Patton distanced himself from the court and Lewis presided on twenty-five out of the forty-three court days for the next two years. [17] : 232 Lewis served as a member of the Augusta County Court until at least 1752. [18] : 53
By 1737, Lewis and other partners were acquiring grants for large tracts of land outside Beverley Manor, including the Calfpasture River areas. [26] : 86–87 Lewis and Patton received a patent for 10,500 acres along that river in 1743. [30]
In 1745, a grant of 100,000 acres was made to John Lewis and his associates under the Greenbrier Company. [31] Much of this land was located on the Greenbrier River, a name given by John Lewis. [2] : 82 Lewis had his sons Andrew and Thomas trained as surveyors in order to maintain control over the surveying process of the Greenbrier Company. In 1751, Lewis and his son Andrew completed surveys of the Greenbrier tract. [1] Thomas eventually received professional certification as a surveyor from the College of William and Mary and was appointed surveyor for Augusta County. [17] : 95
In 1748, Lewis collaborated with his nephew, James Patton, and Dr. Thomas Walker in the formation of the Loyal Land Company of Virginia. [32] [33] : 108 A grant was made to the company on July 12, 1748, according to the Virginia Council records: "To John Lewis Esq. & others eight hundred thousand acres in one or more surveys, beginning on the bounds between this colony and North Carolina, and running to the Westward and to the North, so as to include the said Quantity." [34] : 88 The company was given four years in which to survey the tract and purchase enough rights so that smaller grants could then be issued. [29] : 296–97 On 14 June 1753, they received an additional four years in which to complete the surveys because of conflicting claims by other settlers. [29] : 434 [34] : 93
Patton had decided in 1745 to form his own company, known initially as the Wood's River Company, and later as the New River Company, [35] and entered into direct competition with his uncle. In January 1753, Patton applied for a 100,000 acre grant and Lewis went to court to prevent him from receiving it, stating that Patton's claim included lands previously claimed by the Loyal Land Company. [36] : 7–8
Although Lewis and Patton collaborated frequently, they eventually became rivals and enemies. The Reverend John Craig wrote: "...a Difference happened between Col. John Lewis & Col. James Patton, both Living in that Congregation, which Continued while they Lived, Which of them Should be highest in Commission & power." [37] [6] : 34
Since August 1748, Lewis had been contracted by the Augusta County parish to construct several public buildings, including a home for the parish minister as well as the parish meeting house, for which Lewis was to be paid a total of £148. Lewis therefore felt that he had final say in the location of the parish meeting house. Patton had risen quickly in prominence since arriving in Virginia, and was appointed magistrate, County Sheriff, Justice of the Peace, collector of duties on furs and skins, escheator, coroner, and Chief Commander of the Augusta County Militia. He was also among the ten elected commissioners of the Tinkling Spring congregation in 1741 and underwrote the cost of the meeting house's construction. In the end, Patton selected the location of the meeting house, and Lewis remained at odds with him afterwards. Craig wrote, "[They] could not agree for several years upon a plan or manner, where to build [the Tinkling Spring Meeting House], which gave me a very great trouble...their disputes ran so high...I could neither bring them to friendship with each other, nor obtain both their friendships at once, ever after. This continued for thirteen or fourteen years, till Colonel Patton was murdered by the Indians." [18] : 70
Lewis completed the other parish buildings and was paid in May 1750. [18] : 75–77 In November 1752, parish leaders declared that Lewis had not in fact completed all the glebe buildings as promised, and required him to contract a builder at his own expense, to complete the remaining buildings. [2] : 99–101
Lewis wrote his will on 28 November 1761, and died at age 84 on 1 February, 1762. [18] : 166 He is buried on what was, at the time, his Bellefonte estate outside Staunton, [38] near the Regional Wastewater Treatment Plant. [10] His grave marker is inscribed with these words:
An obelisk monument, erected on 31 May 1962 in Gypsy Hill Park in Staunton by the John Lewis Society, honors John Lewis. [39] In 1891, Lewis's great-great-grandson John Lewis Peyton wrote to the city proposing that Lewis's remains and those of his wife be moved to Gypsy Hill Park from Bellefonte estate and reburied under a memorial. [24] The Staunton City Council erected the memorial but the graves were not relocated. [40] [41]
The Shawnee chief Quatawapea adopted the Anglo sobriquet "Colonel John Lewis" in honor of John Lewis. [42]
On 13 March 2001, the Virginia General Assembly passed an act to designate that portion of Interstate Route 81 within the boundaries of Augusta County the "John Lewis Memorial Highway" in honor of John Lewis. [43]
Augusta County is a county in the Shenandoah Valley on the western edge of the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. The second-largest county of Virginia by total area, it completely surrounds the independent cities of Staunton and Waynesboro. Its county seat is Staunton, but most of the administrative services have offices in neighboring Verona.
Stuarts Draft is a census-designated place (CDP) in Augusta County, Virginia, United States. It is part of the Staunton–Waynesboro Micropolitan Statistical Area and adjacent to the South River. Its population was 12,142 as of the 2020 census.
Staunton is an independent city in the U.S. Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 25,750. In Virginia, independent cities are separate jurisdictions from the counties that surround them, so the government offices of Augusta County are in Verona, which is contiguous to Staunton. Staunton is a principal city of the Staunton-Waynesboro Metropolitan Statistical Area, which had a 2010 population of 118,502. Staunton is known for being the birthplace of Woodrow Wilson, the 28th U.S. president, and as the home of Mary Baldwin University, historically a women's college. The city is also home to Stuart Hall, a private co-ed preparatory school, as well as the Virginia School for the Deaf and Blind. It was the first city in the United States with a fully defined city manager system.
Andrew Lewis was an Irish-born American surveyor, military officer and politician. Born in County Donegal, he moved with his family to the British colony of Virginia at a young age. A colonel in the Virginia militia during the French and Indian War, and brigadier general in the American Revolutionary War, his most famous victory was the Battle of Point Pleasant in Dunmore's War in 1774, although he also drove Lord Dunmore's forces from Norfolk and Gwynn's Island in 1776. He also helped found Liberty Hall in 1776.
Thomas Lewis was an Irish-American surveyor, lawyer, politician and pioneer of early western Virginia. He was among the signers of the Fairfax Resolves, represented Augusta County at four of the five Virginia Revolutionary Conventions and the first session of the Virginia House of Delegates during the American War for Independence, and after the conflict, represented newly established Rockingham County at the Virginia Ratification Convention, as well as contributed to the settlement of an area that long after his death become part of West Virginia.
Spring Hill is an unincorporated community in Augusta County, Virginia, United States.
Colonel John Stuart was a Revolutionary War commander and pioneering western Virginia settler. A veteran of the Battle of Point Pleasant (1774), he surveyed and settled the Greenbrier Valley and is known locally as the "Father of Greenbrier County". Owing to his Memoir of Indian Wars and Other Occurrences, written in 1799, he has been called "the most important chronicler of pioneer history in southern West Virginia".
John Peter Salling, born Johan Peter Saling and sometimes referred to as John Peter Salley, Sayling, Sallings, and Sallee, was a German explorer known for being among the first Europeans to visit parts of what is now Virginia, West Virginia and Kentucky. He was imprisoned by the French in New Orleans on charges of spying and escaped together with another prisoner, taking eight months to finally reach his home in Virginia. His detailed journal describing his journeys of exploration was lost twice, and each time Salling was able to reconstruct it from memory. Salling's journal was used as a source in the creation of early maps of Virginia and eastern North America.
Sampson Mathews was an American merchant, soldier, and legislator in the colony of Virginia.
The Mathews family is an American political family descended from John Mathews and Ann Archer, originating in colonial Virginia and active in Virginia and the American South in the 18th–20th centuries.
Archer Mathews was a United States pioneer, legislator, and city founder in the colony of Virginia. He was a member of the Virginia House of Delegates from Greenbrier County from 1780 to 1782.
The Tinkling Spring Presbyterian Church is a Presbyterian church founded in 1740, and is the oldest Presbyterian congregation in the Valley of Virginia. Its historic building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP).
Gabriel Jones was an 18th-century Welsh American lawyer, legislator, court clerk and civil servant in the colony of Virginia.
John Mathews was an early American pioneer in Augusta County, Virginia, where he served as an officer in the county militia, a vestryman for Augusta Parish, and a justice of the peace. He was the progenitor of the Mathews political family from Virginia and the American South. His sons included George Mathews (1739–1812) and Sampson Mathews. Other descendants include Henry M. Mathews (1834–1884) and Mason Mathews Patrick (1863–1942).
William Beverley (1696–1756) was an 18th-century legislator, civil servant, planter and landowner in the Colony of Virginia. Born in Virginia, Beverley—the son of planter and historian Robert Beverley, Jr. and his wife, Ursula Byrd Beverley (1681–1698)—was the scion of two prominent Virginia families. He was the nephew of Peter Beverley (1668–1728), Speaker of the Virginia House of Burgesses, and the grandson of wealthy Virginia planter William Byrd I (1652–1704) of Westover Plantation. Beverley's mother died shortly before her 17th birthday, and he was sent to England.
Samuel Stalnaker was an explorer, trapper, guide and one of the first settlers on the Virginia frontier. He established a trading post, hotel and tavern in 1752 near what is now Chilhowie, Virginia. He was held captive by Shawnee Indians at Lower Shawneetown in Kentucky for almost a year, before escaping and traveling over 460 miles to Williamsburg, Virginia, to report on French preparations to attack English settlements in Virginia and Pennsylvania. He later served as a guide under George Washington during the French and Indian War.
William Morris Jr. was a Virginia military officer, ranger, spy, attorney, and politician who served in the Virginia House of Delegates representing in Kanawha County, Virginia from 1792 - 1801. Morris served alongside Daniel Boone during the American Revolution and during the Northwest Indian War. He is best known as the first permanent European settler in the Kanawha Valley, and often misrepresented for his father. In 1800, Morris was appointed as one of the commissioners for supervising the Presidential Election between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. He was also associated to James Monroe, who Morris exchanged letters with during his time in the Virginia House during Monroe's tenure as governor.
William Ingles, also spelled Inglis, Ingliss, Engels, or English, was a colonist and soldier in colonial Virginia. He participated in the Sandy Creek Expedition and was a signatory of the Fincastle Resolutions. He was eventually promoted to colonel in the Virginia Regiment. His wife, Mary Draper Ingles, was captured by Shawnee warriors and held captive for months before escaping and walking several hundred miles to her settlement. William's sons, Thomas and George, were also held captive, although William was able to ransom his son Thomas in 1768. William Ingles established Ingles Ferry in southwestern Virginia.
James Lynn Patton, was a merchant, pioneer frontiersman, and soldier who settled parts of Virginia's Shenandoah Valley. Between his immigration to Virginia in 1740, and his death there in 1755, he was a prominent figure in the exploration, settlement, governance, and military leadership of the colony. Patton held such Augusta County offices as Justice of the Peace, Colonel of Militia and Chief Commander of the Augusta County Militia, County Lieutenant, President of the Augusta Court, commissioner of the Tinkling Spring congregation, county coroner, county escheator, collector of duties on furs and skins, and County Sheriff. He also was President of the Augusta Parish Vestry and a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses. He was present at three important treaty conferences with Iroquois and Cherokee leaders. Patton was killed by Shawnee warriors in July 1755.
John Buchanan was a colonial Virginia landowner, magistrate, colonel in the Virginia Militia, deputy surveyor under Thomas Lewis, and Sheriff of Augusta County, Virginia. As a surveyor, Buchanan was able to locate and purchase some of the most desirable plots of land in western Virginia and quickly became wealthy and politically influential. As magistrate, sheriff and a colonel the Augusta County Militia, he was already well-connected when his father-in-law Colonel James Patton was killed in 1755. Buchanan had replaced Patton in several key roles by the time of his own death in 1769.