Rev. H. R. Lewis 1821-1914

LEWIS, GOULT, MYERS, MCCLURE, HAINLINE, STUTSMAN, FLEMING, PRUGH, GRAGG, NELSON, MATHIAS

Posted By: Mike Miller (email)
Date: 2/28/2009 at 12:25:29

Rev. H. R. Lewis

A telegram was received here Sunday informing Mrs. E. Lewis Stutsman and family of the death of her father, the Rev. H. R. Lewis of Wamengo, Kansas.
Rev. Lewis was the founder of the Presbyterian church here and was an able minister. An obituary sketch will be published next week.
Mrs. Stutsman, and Mrs. Xantippe S. Blackford and daughter, Chaminade, started to Kansa Monday to attend the funeral service which are to be held Wednesday.

Rev. H. R. Lewis

Hezekiah R. Lewis was born of new england parentage near Trumansburg on the west side of Cayuga Lake, new York, on the 25th of October 1821. died at his home on East Sixth Street. Wamego, Kansas, on Saturday night, March 28, 1914.
The Rev. Lewis began to teach when, as we would say, he was a mere boy--only a few months over fourteen years of age. The salary paid for teaching a large school was a dollar and a half a week and board around.
Upon leaving home he spent a year in New York state and then started west. In Ohio he taught school and attended the academy just opened in Ashland, In this formative period of his life he received great encouragement from a Presbyterian elder named John Goult, an elderly Baptist minister, Rev. Myers, and the young lawyer then at the head of the Ashland Academy, Sam. W. Mc Clure, to whom he bore grateful testimony. From 1839 to 1848 he taught and studied in Indiana and Kentucky, removing in the latter year to Illinois. His stay in Kentucky was memorable for three important events; his reception into the Cumberland Presbyterian church, his licensure (sic) to preach, and his marriage, September 2, 1846, to Miss Priscilla A. Hainline. To this union six children were born, three dying in infancy and three still living--Mrs. Emma Stutsman, of Bonaparte, Iowa; Ennis Lewis of Grand Junction, Colo., and Edgar Lewis, of Wamego; eight grand children and three great grand children.
In Illinois his work as a minister of the gospel began--just sixty-five years ago this spring--at Cambridge, county seat of Henry county. In the fall of 1854 Rev. Lewis joined the Old School Presbyterian Communion; serving the churches of virginia, Taylorville, assumption, West Okaw, Mowegua and Hacon. From the autumn of 1862 until January 1865 he served in the army as chaplain of the 45th Ill. Regt.

On leaving the army he went direct to Bentonsport, Iowa. While there he organized the church at Bonaparte. In 1873 Rev. Lewis came to Kansas, locating at Valley Falls. While there he gathered and organized the church in Nortonville. In 1876 he came to Wamego, which has since been his home. He was pastor of the local church for four years, following which he labored in various fields helping Clay Center, then a struggling field to get out of debt, preaching at Neosho Falls, doing mission work in the Ozarks and in Indian Territory, and last of all organizing and building the church at Belvue.

In 1887 his wife died and three years later he married Miss Celia E. Fleming of Zenia, Iowa, who has faithfully and lovingly ministered to his comfort in the later years of his long and active life.

Funeral services were conducted at the home by Rev. I. H. Prugh, Wednesday afternoon.

Dr. Gragg, Synodical Missionary, of Lawrence, Rev. Nelson, of Topeka, and Rev. Mathias, of Clay Center, gave addresses. The pall bearers were Presbyterian ministers. -- Warmego, Kansas, Reporter.