LEWIS, Jesse M.

LEWIS

Posted By: Karon Velau (email)
Date: 5/31/2021 at 14:36:25

Jesse M. Lewis
born Nov 22, 1845

Jesse M. Lewis, a farmer and stock-raiser of Maple Township, Ida County, Iowa, was born in Steuben county, New York, November 22, 1845, a son of Samuel Lewis and Fannie (Compton) Lewis, the former a native of Vermont, and the latter of New York, Steuben county. The father was of Welsh ancestry, and his grandfather was a soldier in the Revolutionary war for seven years. Runyan C. Lewis, an older brother of the subject of this sketch, was a soldier in the war of the Rebellion (private) Company E, Twenty-seventh Regiment Iowa Volunteer Infantry, died at Jackson, Mississippi, February 7, 1863, of typhoid fever, in consequence of which, under act of June 27, 1890, Samuel Lewis, his father, was granted a pension of $12 per month. Jesse M. Lewis removed with his parents to Scott County, Iowa, when a boy, in 1855, locating ten miles from Davenport, where he was reared and educated. From 1870 until 1873 he resided in western Iowa and Nebraska, and in the latter year he purchased eighty acres of wild land in Maple township, Ida County, Iowa. He has improved and added to this place until he now owns 450 acres, located three and a half miles west of Battle Creek, all of which is under a fine state of cultivation. He has a one and a half story residence, a barn, 42 x 70 feet, with a 16-foot basement, a grove, an orchard of eight acres, modern windmill, stock scales, and everything necessary for a well-regulated farm; he also has forty acres located between the towns of Tama and Toledo, Tama County, Iowa.
Mr. Lewis was married in Ida County to Esther Bingham, who was born and reared in Ohio, a daughter of David and Nancy Bingham. To this union was born seven children: Mary A., Geneva, Jessie, David A., Janet, Mabel V. and Ernest Eugene. The wife and mother died in April, 1889, and Mr. Lewis afterward married Miss Alnetta A. Hiatt, a native of Tama county, Iowa, and a daughter of John W. and Martha Y. (Gray) Hiatt. John W. Hiatt, father of Mrs. Alnetta A. Lewis and husband of Mrs. Martha Y. Hiatt, enlisted in the civil war, August 15, 1862, in Company F, Twenty-eighth Regiment, Iowa Volunteer Infantry, was First Corporal; wounded at the battle of Champion Hills, May 16, 1863; died of wound June 7, 1893. Mrs. Lewis was a successful teacher of this county before marriage. Mr. and Mrs. Lewis have one child, a babe, Martha Frances. In his political views, our subject is a third-party man, and his first presidential vote was cast for General Grant. Both he and his wife are members of the Presbyterian Church, and the former was also the organizer and President of the Farmers’ Alliance. Mr. Lewis takes an active interest in everything for the good of his township and county.
Source: Biographical History of Crawford, Ida, and Sac Counties, Iowa, 1893, p.578