Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1892, volume 3).djvu/744

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LEWIS
LEWIS

to Bishop Lewis as an expression of appreciation of his services to the cause of literature and sci- ence. He is the author of many essays, sermons, and reviews.


LEWIS, Lawrence, lawyer, b. in Philadelphia, Pa., 20 June, 1857. He was graduated at the Uni- versity of Pennsylvania in 1876, read law, and was admitted to the Philadelphia bar in 1879. He has contributed articles to various periodicals, and has been one of the editors of " Weekly Notes of Cases " (Philadelphia) since 1877, and sole editor of " American and English Corporation Cases " and "American and English Railroad Cases" (New York, 1880-6). He is the author of the '• Courts of Pennsylvania in the 17th Century " (Philadelphia, 1881) ; " History of the Bank of North America " (1882); "Memoir of Edward Shippen, Chief Jus- tice of Pennsylvania" (1883).


LEWIS, Mathew Gregory, author, b. in Lon- don, 9 July, 1775; d. at sea, 14 May, 1818. He was educated at Christ church college, Oxford, and lived for some time in Germany. By the death of his father he inherited a large property and planta- tions in Jamaica, which, says Sir Walter Scott, " he twice visited in the cause of humanity in or- der to ameliorate the condition of his slaves." After the appearance of his first novel he was popularly known as " Monk Lewis." Some of his works were of so profligate a character that he was threatened with prosecution by the government. They include " The Monk " (London, 1795) ; " Tales of Wonder," with Sir Walter Scott (1801) ; " The Bravo of Ven- ice" (1804); "Timour the Tartar" (1812); many foems and dramas, and " The Journal of a West ndian Proprietor," published after his death (1834), of which Coleridge says : " It is delightful, and almost the only unaffected book of travels I have read of late years."


LEWIS, Meriwether, explorer, b. near Char- lottesville, Va., 18 Aug., 1774; d. near Nashville, Tenn., 8 Oct., 1809. He was a great-nephew of Fielding Lewis, noticed above, and inherited a for- tune from his father, who died when the son was a child. Meriwether, who was of a bold and ad venturous dis- position, left school at eighteen years of age, and in 1794 volunteered in the troops that were called out to quell the whiskey insur- rection in western Pennsylvania. He entered the regular service in 1795, be- came captain in 1800, and in 1801-'3 was private secre- tary to President

Jefferson, who in

the latter year recommended him to congress to command an exploring expedition across the continent to the Pa- cific. He set out in the summer of 1803, accom- panied by his associate, Capt. William Clark, and a company that was composed of nine young men from Kentucky, fourteen soldiers, two Canadian boatmen, an interpreter, a hunter, and a negro servant of Capt. Clark. They began to ascend Missouri river in the spring of 1804, passed a sec- ond winter among the Mandans in latitude 47° 21' N., and on 7 April, 1805, continued to ascend the Missouri until the middle of July, when they reached the great falls. Near the close of this month they attained the confluence of three nearly equal streams, to which they gave the names of Jefferson, Madison, and Gallatin. They ascended the Jefferson to its source, travelled through the mountains from August till 22 Sept., when they entered the plains of the western slope, in October embarked in canoes on the Kooskoosky, a branch of the Columbia, and on 15 Nov. reached the mouth of that river, after travelling more than 4,000 miles from the confluence of Mississippi and Missouri rivers. They passed the following winter on the south bank of the Columbia in an in- trenched camp, in March, 1806, began to ascend the Columbia on their homeward journey, and in May left their boats and made a difficult journey on horseback across the mountains to the Missouri, upon which they re-embarked in August, reaching St. Louis in September, after an absence of two years and four months. Congress made grants of land to the men of the expedition and to their chiefs, and Lewis was made governor of Missouri territory. He found the country torn by dissen- sions, and, although his impartiality and firmness soon restored comparative order, he "began to suffer from hypochondria, to which he had been subject from his youth. During one of his attacks of de- pression he was called to Washington, and at a lodging-place in Tennessee he put an end to his life. Lewis and Clark, a county of Montana, is named in honor of the explorers. President Jeffer- son said of him : " He was courage undaunted, possessing a firmness of purpose which nothing but impossibilities could divert from its direction, and was intimate with Indian character, customs, and principles." A narrative of the expedition of Lewis and Clark, from materials that were furnished by the explorers, was prepared by Nicholas Biddle and Paul Allen, with a memoir of Lewis by Thomas Jef- ferson (2 vols., Philadelphia, 1814; new ed., with additions by Alexander McVickar, New York, 1843).


LEWIS, Samuel, educator, b. in Falmouth, Mass., 17 March, 1799; d. in Cincinnati, Ohio, 28 July. 1854. In his youth he made several voyages as cabin-boy with his father, who was captain of a coasting vessel. The family removed to Ohio in 1813, the father and his five sons walking from Falmouth to Pittsburg, Pa. Samuel was successively a farm-laborer, mail-carrier, and carpenter, and at tvtenty years of age obtained a place in the clerk's office of the Hamilton county court. He was admitted to the bar three years afterward, and in 1824 was licensed as a local preacher in the Methodist church. He aided efficiently in forming the Western college for teachers in 1831, was ac- tive in promoting common-school education in Ohio, and in 1837 he was elected by the legislature superintendent of schools. His measures for the improvement of educational systems were adopted. He was reappointed a second term, and became at the same time editor of the "Common School Di- rector," but the failure of his health compelled his resignation of both offices. From 1841 till his death he was the favorite candidate of the Anti- Slavery party for the state senate, for congress, and for governor. He was zealous in the cause of tem- perance and kindred reforms, and to his efforts were due the founding of Woodward school, and Hughes high-school in Cincinnati.


LEWIS, Tayler, scholar, b. in Northumberland, Saratoga co., N. Y., in 1802 ; d. in Schenectady, N. Y., 11 May, 1877. His father was a Revolutionary officer. Tayler was graduated at Union in 1820, studied law, and began practice at Fort Miller, N. Y. He gave a large part of his time to