LEWIS, John

LEWIS, HULL, VANVOLTINBURG

Posted By: Gordon Felland (email)
Date: 4/25/2009 at 12:37:39

John Lewis, one of the early settlers of Mitchell county, came here in 1854, bought 480 acres of land in Lincoln and Douglas townships, and the following year 240 acres on section 31, Lincoln township. The latter was the Hart claim, and prob­ably the first made in the county.

In the spring of 1855 he came from Illinois, and settled on the southwest quarter of section 31. He was born in Hartford, Conn., Oct. 22, 1817. His parents were Samuel and Mary A. (Hull) Lewis, his father a native of Denmark, and mother of Poland. His father, when John was one and a half years old, moved to Pottsville, Penn., remained there two years, then moved to Athens Co., Ohio, bought a farm and engaged in farming and also harness and saddle making, that being his trade. Here the father, aged sixty-one, was killed, in 1825, by the falling off a bridge. John lived with his mother until he was fifteen years of age, then spent eighteen months at the shoemaker's trade in Nelsonville, and in the winter driving team on the Hocking canal. In company with another man he cleared $600 by a contract of construction on this canal. He then bought and still owns 130 acres of land in Athens Co., Ohio. He then spent a year and a half in buying cattle for certain contractors in Virginia, after which he took a flat boat load of tan bark down the Ohio, selling boat and bark at Cincinnati, then went to Louisville and was employed as ship carpenter.

In 1834 he went to Florida in a United States steamboat, and in company with sixty others purchased three condemned war vessels from the government, and went on a whaling voyage, which he followed for six years. In 1842 he went to Texas on an exploring expedition in search of land. On the 27th of February he left Texas and arrived at Keokuk, Iowa, the 7th of June, having walked the entire distance, in company with William Waters, then went to Elizabethtown, Jo Daviess Co., Illinois, engaged in carpentering and was married there, Dec. 7,1843, to Mary Vanvoltinburg. Here he bought land and engaged in farming, stock buying and also ran a saw mill. In 1854 he sold out there and came to this county. He has a good frame house, barn 40x60 feet, with wing 24x76 feet, with basement under the whole. He now owns upwards of 1,000 acres of land, and is extensively engaged in stock raising.

He is widely known in the county, and has taken a lively inter­est in town and county affairs. Mr. and Mrs. Lewis have had thirteen children, eleven of whom are now living—Henry, Seth, Silas, Sarah, Mary A., Wellington, John, Rose, Sidney, George, Leeth and Charles. The first child died in infancy; Rose died when three years of age.

Source: History of Mtchell and Worth Counties, Iowa, 1883, page 347.