to Florida and began teaching school at Newmansville.
In '74, Governor M. L. Sterns commissioned him justice of the peace for his county. From this time till '77 he held the offices of mayor of Newmansville and postmaster of the town. In 1878, after admission to the bar, he began the practice of law in the 5th Judicial circuit of his adopted state. In '82, he was elected to the legislature, in which capacity he accomplished some good work in the interest of education, among his race. In the same year he was married to Miss Bessie H. Chestnut, of Gainesville, Florida, where he has lived ever since, pursuing the practice of his profession.
In 1887 he founded The Florida Sentinel, a weekly journal published at Gainesville, Florida, in the interest of his people. Before the close of the year the paper grew to exceptional popularity throughout the state. The Sentinel is warmly Republican in politics, but not so hide-bound in partisan proclivities that it forgets to resent an insult to the race from a Republican, whether black or white.
The Sentinel has developed within two years to an extent that will compare favorably with any negro journal of the South. M. M. Lewey is sole editor and proprietor, and owns an outfit worth $3000, all new material. He runs a No. 2 Campbell's improved power-press, capable of 800 impressions per hour. His job department is complete with a quarter medium favorite job press, and is doing his full share of work among all classes of people, notwithstanding there are two daily papers in the city, with job offices connected.
Filling the columns of The Sentinel with news is not all of Mr. Lewey's ambition in the field of journalistic pursuits, for when the reader scans the editorials of that paper, he is at once struck with the ability displayed, and the very practical way in which the editor deals with questions affecting the educational and political interests of his race. The author
