My Genealogy Hound

JOHN M. LEWIS, the subject of this biographical sketch, was born in Wayne county, Ind., March 19, 1838. His father, Caleb Lewis, a farmer by occupation, was born in West Virginia, February 22, 1793. His mother, Polly (Willitts) Lewis, was a native of Indiana, and was born March 6, 1803. There were ten children in the family to which our subject belonged, three boys and seven girls.

George Lewis, the paternal grandfather, was a native of Virginia, and was born January 8, 1762. Leah Lewis, the paternal grandmother, was also a native of Virginia, and was born November 12, 1769. There were eleven children in their family.

John M., the subject proper of this sketch, attended the neighboring schools in early life and worked the farm until his father’s death, which occurred in 1870, after which he settled up his father’s estate. In 1876 he moved to Illinois, and worked on a farm for his brother in Mercer county, where he worked till January, 1878, when he emigrated West and settled in Kearney county, Nebr., homesteading the eighty-acre tract on which he still lives, in section 14, township 6, range 15. At the same time he took a timber claim of one hundred and sixty acres in section 22, township 6, range 15, which he still owns. The country was wild and unbroken, and one mile from where the city of Minden now stands were only one store and a schoolhouse, and where scores of good farm houses are now were then only small sod huts. Wild game was plentiful, and antelope roamed over the unbroken prairie in herds. The first year Mr. Lewis erected a small frame house, twelve by fourteen feet, and broke out forty-seven acres of sod, on which he harvested an abundant crop, he has been very prosperous since coming to Nebraska, and the elegant residence and other buildings which adorn his place show his success.

Mr. Lewis was married, October 3, 1879, to Nancy A. Robbins, who was born in Hamilton county, Ohio, August 16, 1840, and is the daughter of Abram and Nancy (Johnson) White, both natives of North Carolina, but no children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Lewis.

Politically, he is a republican.