Memories of our family
written by
Eunice Maria Lewis Brown
for my daughter
Sarah E. McLeod,
Central College, Ohio, 1890
"David Lewis, at the age of 17 years, just a boy, entered the Revolutionary war. He served until the end of the war. He was twice married. The first wife I never heard about but there were several children. Aunt Betsey Johnson being a half-sister and 12 years older than my father, Dr. John [Lewis]. The second time he married Sarah Adams, a cousin of John Quincy Adams, their two fathers being brothers. I will talk about a cheese that the friends and neighbors made for the President Adams. The time was appointed when all the women were to run all the milk and curd it at home, and bring it to the appointed place. Then it was taken to the cider press and set in cheese shape. A platform chart was prepared especially to take it to a place to ripen. When done, it was taken to the President with many ceremonies. Grandfather after raising a large family was bound to go to Ohio. He got ready with a team of oxen ( I suppose) and a big wagon and he started and came all the way alone, to look for a home site, which he did and later the family came the same way. His neighbors back east in Conn., said if he got through safely and did not get killed by the Indians, they would come too. Which very many of them did later. Those with families of little children waiting until they were sure of food and shelter. Grandfather got over the mountains and got to Cheshire, Berlin Twp., Delaware Co., Ohio and landed where a white man's foot had never trod before. (The family arrived Nov.25, 1805.) He had a tent for shelter and an abundance of firewood and cooked out of doors as it was quite cold. He started to get logs ready for his house. He split logs and hewed them to fit for the floors which was called pucheon. He cut logs the right length that would split easily for clapboard shingles. He also split out the rafters and lath for shingling. When he had everything prepared he went to the nearest settlements to ask everyone to come and help, which they always did. The fireplace made of stones and a large oven at one end and one cut of doors. The nearest settler was over seven miles away without even blazed trees to go by until he did it. At this time he had to go to Zanesville or Chillicothe for salt flour and other provisions. He laid in such things for the cooking of his family. They made their own sugar by boiling maple syrup in their cooking kettles. For a few years their living was mostly corn bread or some form of corn in meal, hominy and pork, with wild geese which were plentiful, even deer and turkey. For several years they had to go to Franklinton for their mail.So the next year they were to have some neighbors. Asa Scott started for Ohio, both families starting from Conn., New Haven County, Waterbury town. His destination was the same place where Grandfather Lewis had settled in Nov, 1806. All living as close together as possible on account of the Indians and having close neighbors. Scott put out a cabin that winter. Then the next year there were enough families came to make quite a settlement. There were families by the name of Hoadley, Steward, Caulkins, Eaton's. This was called the Lewis settlement being named after the first to settle in that place. here Galena now is was called the Carpenter Settlement; Sunbury was called the Brown settlement, Delaware the Bixbee settlement, Werthington the Kilbourne Settlement. So many settlers coming in, the Indians became very troublesome. They would come to your house and whatever they could see what they wanted, they would take it. At one time Grandmother Lewis had her dinner on the table and six large Indians came in with their guns, knives and tomahawks. They looked at Grandmother, then at each other. She thought they intended to kill her, but instead they took out their big knives walked to the table, ate all she had and then went their way. At another time an Indian comes and made grandmother Scott understand they wanted salt. At one time an Indian came, going into every house, looking around and not seeing what he wanted, would give a cross grunt and go to the next one. Finally he went to Aunt Hannah Caswell's house and there saw a large bunch of linen yarn ( which she had spun from flax) hanging up. He reached up and took it down. Aunt did not like to see her hard labor go that way, so she pitched into him and took it away from him. She was hardly five feet tall. Not another woman in the settlement but would have let him have it and been glad to see him go. The Indians became more and more troublesome as the settlers came in, the Indians were afraid they would have to leave. The white men had to build a fort which was called the blockhouse. It was built of hewn logs fitted together two stories high. The upper story projecting out over the lower part which had no opening. The lower one being entered by climbing ladders under the projection and going down on steps on the inside. The ladders being pulled up from the outside when all were in and the men shoot down from the projection in case of attack. When it was done, barrels of water, barrels of meat, provisions such as they could get and wood for the fireplace where they did their cooking. Not a very pleasant place but their lives are dependent on it. Then the families all moved in the big room, men and boys above. The men took turns standing guard. One night grandfather Lewis was on guard and he heard something which he thought might be Indians. As they always, he called out to find out who it was, he said "Who comes There?" No one answered. He fired his gun which was answered by the Indians. He turned to run into the fort but fell flat, the Indians shooting above him, yet he was not hurt. A Mrs. Eaton with a little babe and her little girl about 8 years old were taken by the Indians. The babe was very young. As soon as they were missed, the white went in pursuit. They got the little girl who said the baby cried and her mother would not throw it away as they tried to make her. So they took it by the bottom of the long skirt and swung its head against a tree. His mother fainted when she saw her baby killed. The little girl said she put her apron over her face as they killed her mother. The Indians became very cruel. One Mr. Power was scalped and left for dead but he got well. I have seen him many times and have been in his store at Delaware. So they struggled on. The Indians finally went away from the settlement. So the whites went each to their own home. All this time There was but little stock in the settlement. The men thinking it safe to go away and get some cattle, they left the women in charge of the children and homes. John Lewis, son of David, married Ruth Scott, daughter of Asa Scott. The 11th day of April 1812, after being married 17 days, John went into the war of 1812. These people were my father and mother. Father was an officer called ensign. My Grandfather Asa Scott was a colonel. My father was a doctor and a good one. He had a gun that had a hinge in the breach, so he could double it up and fasten it to the saddle. When he went to see the sick, he would kill game, hang it on a tree until he came back and then get it. He trained his saddle horses to let him shoot from the saddle. My oldest brother, Perry, once killed a deer when he was nine years old, I suppose it was hard to tell which was prouder, the father or the son. As my brother grew older he was a wonderful marksman. He learned to call just like an old hen turkey and my Uncle Thomas could gobble like a wild gobbler. The girls learned to shoot as well as the boys. It was one of their lively pastimes to shoot at a mark. I learned to shoot when a very small girl. My sister Betsey (Mrs. Nelson Bockover) once shot a hawk from a very high tree, with a long range rifle. Flint locks at that. Betsey was shooting at a mark one day when a young man by the name of Hiram DeWitt came along and wanted Betsey to shoot at his hat. Father told him that he had better not. He said that he was not afraid and she shot it in such a way that she tore it to pieces. He felt sorry as hats were hard to get. It was nice to beat your husbands and brothers shooting, as I have done many times. In 1861, another war came on. Nearly all my male relatives, except my aged father, 70 years old, were in it. Three brothers, Harry, Kingsley and Thomas. Kingsley died in Memphis in 1863, he was a doctor and a surgeon. He was graduated from Delaware College, Cincinnati Medical School and Harvard, dying six months after graduating from Harvard. He was in the 48th O.V.I. My brother Harry enlisted from Indiana from Jay or Adams County. My brother Thomas came home, he was Captain in the 121st Ohio Volunteer Infantry. Brother Harry got home to father's farm where we were all born in time to die January 5, 1865. One nephew, Sanford Ames, son of sister Mabel and Sloan Ames, was on the boat Sultana when it was blown up. He came near death, but lived several years an invalid, never fully recovering. He lived at New Carydon, Jay Co., Indiana. Another nephew, Wesley Lewis, whom my father raised,( as his father, my oldest brother, Perry died when a babe) died in Washington, D.C., after the others were mustered out. He being sick and would not be allowed to come home with Silus Nafus, my sister Eliza's husband and his son Elias Nafus, although they offered to help him in every way. When he started away he fainted, he was so homesick and when he revived he would faint again and again and died. One of the Lewis cousin's there, saw that he was buried as there was no money to bring him home. He was remarried years before, Jane Nash was her name. I did many kinds of work I had never done before. My little girl Sarah, twelve years old kept us in stove wood. My father would hitch up his steady old Bett, and Sarah and Aby Nafus would go to the windfall and get the wood. We had a few sheep and the children would hold them down while I cut the wool off. The sheep were sorry looking objects when we got through. We dried many apples the last year of the war, in fact enough to buy what we had to buy at the store. We had potatoes, corn and buckwheat flour and pork. For the first time in my life I planted a garden after it was plowed and harrowed by Santford Havens. I did very well except the onions did not come up. someone examined them and found they were all planted the wrong side up. My husband came home July 13, 1865. He could not walk alone, weighed less than a hundred pounds, had not strength to feed himself nor hold a cup of water to drink. His trousers were tatters to the knees, and years afterwards he was not well. My Grandmother Chloe Scott had the first loom in those parts. It was made by a Mr. Caulkins. They could all spin but they must have some way of weaving cloth. The men wore all the clothes they had but the women strictly kept a best dress for the Sabbath. They made their own bed linen, table cloths and towels, from flax which they raised, prepared for spinning and weaving. Also linen for the men's and boys summer clothes. For winter wear they spun their own wool rolls and made cloth, jeans for the men and boys and for Sunday they spun very fine yarn, wove it nice and took it to the factory and had it dyed shrunk and pressed. For everyday wear they colored at home beautiful colors, as my coverlids will show. They wove pretty plaids for dresses and colored all red or blue for the harder work wear. The women's flannel for nice was finer than that for men. For the beds we made woolen sheets as the Yankees called them. I have some now that were made in 1845 and are good yet. The cursey coverlids are good too. I have three strawbed ticks my mother wove in 1845, they have been in constant use and are as good as new. I have three coverlids that I began to spin the yarn for when I was 15 years old. My mother colored the yarn and we haired them woven in Delaware in 1846 by Gabriel Rausher and his brother who were Russians and brought their looms with them. They would not weave before anyone and their secrets died with them. The said it was as much trouble to prepare their loom for one as sic, also they charged, one for $5.00 or four for $9.00. (All had the western fever, went to Iowa but returned to Ohio to stay.)
This is a copy of record of C Ross Bloomquist, 49 Park, Westerville, Ohio.
Sources: E.H. Brown's Records, Emma Lewis Ryant Family History, Anderson-History of Waterbury, Lewis Letter, History of Delaware County, Census
David Lewis b 4-22-1756, d. age 80. m. 1- Elizabeth Benham; 2. Sarah Adams , d. age 87.
Children of David Lewis and Sarah Adams / Elizabeth Case:
Sylvester; Patty Martha; Issac; Chester; Joseph b 6-10-1778? in Waterbury;
Rosette b 4-3-1779; David b 1778 ?; Betsy b 11-1-1782, d 1875; Sylvia;
John b 3-12-1791; Hannah b. 10-20-1802, m Wilbur Caswell, d. age 94; Warren.
Order is different in Anderson's History of Waterbury and Ryant's History
1. Isaac Lewis, md. Florilla Welch 1810 d. 1827
Children of Isaac and Florilla Lewis:
Sylvia; Amy; Debbie(Deborah) md. Martin Benton; Eunice; Asal; Sherben.
2. Chester md. Hattie [Catherine] Kensler 1811 d. 1826
Children of Chester and Hattie [Catherine] Lewis:
Thomas; Sylvester; William; Alma md. ---Gilkey (resided in Illinois)
3. Joseph b. 6-10-1770? md. Sarah Sherwood
Children of Joseph and Sarah Lewis:
David, Emma md. James Ryant
4. Rosette b 4-3-1779, md. Amos Whitney 1-1-1800 d. 1872 NY City
(see Lewis Letter V.9 pg 88, Chap. 43 for issue) d. age 97
5. David b 1778, md. Almira Caulkins (3-27-1802/3),d. 1860 age 85
Children of David and Almira Lewis:
Joseph Constant-b. 9-29-1806 (1st white child in Delaware. Co.); Rosette Whitney- b. 1-16-1813;
Milo- b. 12-15-1811 resides Wash., D.C.; Julia Ripley -b. 11-27-1818, md. Platt;
Delia - md. Adams; Eunice Caulkins - b. 3-1-1821, md. #1. Watrous,#2. Scott;
Elizabeth - md. George
6. Betsey b. 11-1-1782, md. John Johnson 1809 , d. 1875 age 93
Children of Betsey and John Johnson:
Harvey; Lewis; Sarah (Sally) md. #1. Shandy Calkins (children: Albert and Henrietta)
#2.Peter Bockoven (children William; John; Augustus)
7. Sylvia Lewis md. Jesse Armstrong, d. age 90/91 in Iowa.
Children: Eliza (Lizzie) md. *Luther "Clason"; ( children: Jesse; John; Wilbur)
Ann md.(Faulkner,Volkmar); ?Daughter md. Robinson
8. John Lewis md. Ruth Scott 4-11-1812, d. age 83
children:Perry-b.1813; Betsey; Laurette; Mabel; Elize; Harriette; Harry d.1-5-1865
Eunice Marie b. 3-12-1829, md. William Brown,d.4-25-1900
Kingsley b 1835 d. in Civil War 1863 at Memphis, Tenn.; Thomas C.1840
9. Hannah Lewis b. 10-20-1802,md.Wilbur Caswell
Children: Sever(Seaver); Sabia md. Scott(Logan Co., Ohio); Jane md. Allen(Gambier, Ohio); Benjamin.
10.Warren Lewis md. Mary Garinger (went west, children in Indiana)
children: Jane md. ? Bockover; Caroline md. ? Bockover; Mary md. ? Bockover.
8a.Perry Lewis(son of John and Ruth Lewis)md. Jane(Jane remarried to
Samuel W. Nash).
Children: Wesley in Civil War d. in Washington 1865; Hariette md. ---Carpenter
8b. Betsey(dau. of John and Ruth Lewis) md. Nelson Bockover
children: Mary md.?Creamer; Lewis;.Harriet md.? Garringer;Ruth md. ? Flood; Catharine;
Tura; Emma md. ? Buell
8c.Mabel (dau of John and Ruth Lewis) md. Sloan Ames
children: Sanford(in Civil War, lived New Croydon, Jay Co., Ind)d.1870 ; Perry; Amy;
Rosa; Eunice; Charlie; Harvey.
8d. Eliza (dau of John and Ruth Lewis)md. Silas Nafus;
children: Sophronia; Hollenbeck; Elias(in Civil War); Mabel; Aby; Kingsley.
8e. Harriet (dau of John and Ruth Lewis)md. Jacob G. Garringer
children: John; Annette md.___ Besel; Sarah; Ella md._____Whiteneck (had 5 children)
8f. Harry Lewis , mortally wounded in Civil War d.1-5-1865
children: Lewis; Eddie; Malida
8g. Eunice Marie Lewis: b.3-12-1829,md.9-17-1846 William Brown,d. 4-25-1900
children: Mary L. b.1850; Sarah b.11-8-1852,md.Albert McLeod; Preston b.12-29-1856
8h. Thomas Lewis, md. Naomi Walters;
children: Thomas; Minnie; Tilbury; Musa; Lottie
Copy of C. Ross Bloomquist's records, Made by Anna Smith Pabst
Statements of C.Ross Bloomquist, letter dated December 11, 1950:
"correcting facts cited before in Emma Lewis Ryant's History of the
Lewis Family"
David Lewis Sr., was the first to come to Ohio. Captain John Lewis, his uncle, may have came to Ohio later but he did not remain permanently. Captain John's son, also John, did settle in Berlin Township, but was not one of the earliest settlers. Alanson Lewis, his son, came with David Sr., but died before maturity. The Delaware County Recorder's Office indicates that David Sr., did not get the land as a gift- he paid for it. Eunice Maria Brown's Memories confirm this. She was David's granddaughter. He died before E.M.'s birth, but she was grown while her grandmother, Sarah Lewis was still living.
Newspaper items:
THE LOCO FOCO, DELAWARE,OHIO., JUNE 25,1846.
"Died- In Berlin, on Tuesday morning the 9th instant, Capt. John Lewis
in the 75th year of his age."
THE DEMOCRATIC STANDARD,DELAWARE,OHIO, THURSDAY DEC.14.,1848
"Married on the 30th inst. by H. Hodgden, Esq., Mr. Reuben C. Gardner to
Miss Ldia Roloson all of Berkshire TP."
THE LOCO FOCO, NOV.23,1848;
"D. on Sat. 11th inst. Miss Jane Beardsly of Berlin Tp. age about 22
years.
THE LOCO FOCO, JANUARY 8, 1848;
"Died- In Berlin tp. on the 13th ult. Mr. George Bockover, a
respectable citizen, generally esteemed, in the 74th year of his age."
THE DELAWARE GAZETTE, DELAWARE, OHIO, OCTOBER 11,1867.
the 20th Annual Delaware Co. Ohio Fair held- therefore the County Fair
began in 1847.
THE LOCO FOCO , JANUARY 27,1848
"Died- On the 19th inst. In Berlin Tp., Mr. William Smith aged about 80
years."
THE DELAWARE GAZETTE, DELAWARE, OHIO, JANUARY 9, 1863;
Berlin Tp:- Delinquent Tax list
case, Riley R. 18 Tp. 4 Sec.3
161/2 acres
value $302.00
THE DELAWARE GAZETTE, DELAWARE, OHIO, AUGUST 7, 1868;-
"Grand Club in Berlin- The Republican Union voters of Berlin Township
are requested to meet at the Town House on Friday evening August 21st at
7 o'clock to organize a Grant Club. speakers will be present. G.L.
Sackett,Chr.
May 15,1868:- Teachers certificate, Lewis Center April 25 Anna Gregg,
Tanktown 12
At Delaware April 18 Ophelia Andrews Constantia.
THE DELAWARE GAZETTE, DELAWARE, OHIO, MAY 8,1868;-
Income taxes except on Government officials salaries and bank stock, the
highest paid amounts include the name of H.J. Eaton with $118.08
APRIL 17,1868;- Cheap As the Cheapest
and
Not to be Undersold!
At the One Price Store, of J.W. Place, in Cheshire, you will find a
select stock of Dry Goods, Notions, Groceries, Tin and Crockery ware,
mails, Glass, Paints, Oils, Brushes, etc., In short everything usually
kept in country store. All kinds of country Produce taken in exchange.
Also Wilson's Patant Steel tooth Harrow & Plow for sale at the
One Price Store
JUNE 1, 1860;- A farm belonging to George Bigelow 50 acres farm in
Berlin Twp., for sale on 9th day of June 1860 Elam A. Vinig, Admr.
AUGUST 10, 1860;- Republican County Convention met at Templar Hall.
There were three on the credentials committee- James Eaton & Joel
Cleveland were two. James Eaton also served on the resolution
committee.
THE WESTERN INTELLIGENCER, WORTHINGTON, OH., SEPT.11,1811;-
An exhibit of the different allowances made by the Commissioners each
year, from June 1804 to June 1811 (Franklin Co.) Paid Joseph Cowgill for piloting the views of a road from Berkshire down to Walnut Creek $1.50.