James Stapleton Lewis’ Father was Joel Lewis

Early Life

Family records often list him as Joel Lewis Sr. since one of his sons is also named Joel Lewis. The information we have on Joel comes primarily from journal entries of his son James, from information in the Lewis Family Newsletters of the 1930s, and from court records. There is conflicting opinion on the name of Joel’s father (that’s an issue for another blog post), but his mother was Sarah Lewis. We have Joel’s birth date from JSL’s journal: “My father, Joel Lewis, Sr., was born February 1, 1776.” Joel was born in what was then Rowan County, North Carolina (now Davie County) where his parents and at least one set of grandparents lived.

When Joel was eleven years old he was placed under the guardianship of Daniel Lewis as recorded in the Rowan County Court minutes book of February 6, 1786: “Daniel Lewis is appointed Guardian of Joel Lewis an orphan – with Stephan Noland, Security, in the sum of $50.00.” It is most likely that the Daniel Lewis mentioned was Joel’s grandfather, not his uncle who was also named Daniel Lewis. Joel’s mother Sarah Lewis had married John Hendricks in 1780. The court record gives no reason for the guardianship; perhaps the guardianship was to give Joel some type of legal status.

At age 14 Joel came into the possession of 149 acres situated on Dutchman's Creek for which he paid his grandfather "seventy-five pounds lawful money of the State of North Carolina." (Deed Book 14, page 287 or 387 [my notes are unclear]) The description of the land was “Beginning at hickory running from thence North thirty nine chains and ninety links to a black oak grub, thence east ten chains to a sassafras stake in a bunch of stones, thence South sixty-three Degrees East; thirty nine chains and twenty five links to a black Oak Giles corner; thence West to the beginning.” The deed was dated blank in the year 1790 and was recorded at the February session of the Rowan County Court of 1797 when Joel was 21.

Military Service

Before his marriage, Joel participated as a very young man in military activities under General “Mad” Anthony Wayne building forts in the wilderness in the period preceding the War of 1812. James was obviously proud of his father’s participation in the effort to establish the series of forts because he mentioned it several times in his journal and correspondence.

JSL recounted, “My father served in the war of 1812 under General Anthony Wayne. Employed in building Forts through the Northern parts of Indiana and Ohio – Fort Greenville, Fort St. Maryes, Fort Defiance and Recovery, and Fort Wayne through which was all a dense forest of unbroken wilderness. This line of Forts was to keep back or protect the white settlements from the merciless Indians who were hired and furnished with firearms and other war material [by the British] to harass the unprotected settlements of American pioneers.” He also recalled seeing palisades built by his father, “When a boy seven years old, I passed through Fort Greenville with my father. Many pickets were [still] standing--they were logs about fifteen feet long set on end in the ground close together.”

The following information in italics is from http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=398 . American Revolutionary War hero General Anthony Wayne ordered the construction of Fort Greene Ville in late 1793. It was named for his Revolutionary War comrade Nathaniel Greene. Wayne’s campaign against Native Americans at the time was along the Maumee River. This fort had ten foot high walls enclosing a stockade of about fifty acres. Wayne’s army used the fort as his encampment during the winter of 1793-1794 and as a staging area for his attacks in 1794.

On November 4, 1791 the U.S. Army under General Arthur St. Clair had suffered the greatest defeat ever of the U.S. Army by American Indians when only 24 of 1000 soldiers escaped from the battle unharmed.

Joel Lewis’ future brother-in-law was part of this episode. The Lewis Family Newsletter of April 1936 includes this account quoted from an old newspaper account kept by a descendant. “Mr. Sackett was living with Colonel Smith, the famous Indian fighter when St. Clair began raising his army of 2000 men to go against the Indians of the Northwest. He (Cyrus) joined the expedition which set out from Fort Washington, now Cincinnati, and pushed its way toward the head waters of the Wabash. The trails were much too great for many of the Kentucky militia, and like Gideon’s Band, many turned back, so that when they reached the point where old Fort Recovery was afterward established by the victorious Wayne, but 1400 men remained with St. Clair. Among them, Cyrus Sackett remained faithful. Here however they suffered defeat, being suddenly attacked by Little Turtle and his warriors in the early morning of November 4, 1792. The army was thrown into such a confused state by the sudden attack of the Indians with their hideous war whoops that, although the American officers bravely endeavored for three hours to repulse them, the army became disorganized, suffered heavy loss, and fled in confusion. Sackett ran for a distance of nine miles expecting to fall into the hands of the red men all the while. He halted once in an open glade and seeing his pursuers were gaining upon him, and being greatly fatigued he took his knife from his belt and cut his blanket loose from his body, leaving it with all the food he had left, a hard dry cake, and ran with renewed vigor until out of the reach of the savages. He, with his companions reached Fort Jefferson about dark of that fatal day. He returned with the rest of the disappointed army to Fort Washington from whence they had set out, and thence to Kentucky.”

Fort Recovery was built on the site of St. Clair’s Defeat or the Battle of the Wabash River. Wayne ordered the building of this fort in December 1793 so he could use it for his planned assault against the native warriors in the spring of 1794.

On June 30, 1794, 1,500 Shawnee Indians, Delaware Indians, Ottawa Indians, Miami Indians, and Ojibwa Indians attacked a pack train returning from Fort Recovery to Fort Greene Ville. Little Turtle, Blue Jacket, and Simon Girty led the assault. The attack was made less than one thousand feet from Fort Recovery. Of the 140 American soldiers escorting the wagons, the natives killed or wounded fifteen. They also seized three hundred horses. Indian casualties amounted to three dead warriors. Soon after this attack, the Indians, emboldened by their earlier success, launched a night attack against Fort Recovery. The 250 American soldiers succeeded in defending the fort but lost twenty-two men. The natives suffered forty dead and twenty wounded.

Fort Defiance was built in August 1794. An officer in Wayne’s army, Lieutenant John Boyer, claimed that the fort could protect the American soldiers from "the English, the Indians, and all the devils in hell."

As the last in the series of forts, the United States Army built Fort Wayne at the junction of the St. Mary's, St. Joseph, and Maumee Rivers. [http://www.oldfortwayne.org/index.php]

The question that comes to mind is: What part exactly did 17-year-old Joel Lewis play in this episode of American history? Apparently he was not in the Army at this time – at least I haven’t found record of military service by Joel in this time period. JSL says he was “employed in building” the forts so perhaps he was a civilian laborer participating in the effort. I don’t think everyone involved in the fort building would have been soldiers, but I may be incorrect. That it was dangerous work is intimated by the following description James included in one account of his father:

“Now the Indians of which I write are not like the half-starved and dwarfed Indians of these Mountains [of the Western U.S.] They were in a country where game was plentiful. They were well fed and large and fully developed, ranging from six to six and a half feet in height and capable of great endurance, wily and artful in war. These were the allies Great Britain employed to harass our unprotected frontiers with whom we had to contend and guard against, not like the strife of the battlefield where it is Turk against Turk, but the most cruel savage who knows no mercy but watches for his defenseless prey and darts upon it as a Tiger. And woe be to the captive a far worse than immediate death awaits him or her as the case may be. No tongue can tell, no pen can describe the experience of our fathers and mothers in the history of the early part of the century.”

Married Life

In January 1795 Joel Lewis married Rachel Stapleton in Rowan County, North Carolina. Joel would have been recently returned from his fort building service. Today we might think a not quite 19-year-old a little young to marry, but he had certainly shown that he could perform a man’s responsibilities and workload. Rachel was slightly older at 22.

They began married life in Rowan County where four children were born: Sarah (1796- 1853), Joseph (1799-1802), Richard (1801-1803), and Rachel (1802-1878). Rachel’s sisters had begun to migrate to Ohio, and Joel and Rachel Lewis decided to join them. According to land records, their farm in North Carolina was sold in December 1803. It seems likely they would have waited until spring and better weather before beginning their journey to Ohio though I have come across accounts that state traveling was easier when the roads were frozen rather than wet and muddy.

The Lewis family followed the Wilderness Road through the Cumberland Gap into Kentucky. Their son Joel Lewis Jr., was born in Crab Orchard, Kentucky, on September 8, 1806. Crab Orchard was a settlement along the Wilderness Road. Their son Richmond was born in March 1808 and died in May, but whether this was in Kentucky or in Ohio is unknown. A reference found in Robinson's History of Greene County, Ohio, page 262, under a heading, 'Greene County Pioneers From 1803 to 1840' states: “Joel Lewis, Sugar Creek, 1809.” It is possible that Joel Lewis and his family were traveling from North Carolina to Ohio between the years of 1804 and 1809 and possibly living in Kentucky for part of that period.

Joel’s wife Rachel Stapleton Lewis had three sisters. They, with their spouses, had already settled in Greene County, Ohio where the first white settlement was in 1796. (Nancy Anne Stapleton and Cyrus Sackett and Avis Stapleton and Abraham/Abram Van Eaton settled perhaps as early as 1799 and at least by 1801; Hannah Stapleton and Daniel Lewis, Jr. arrived between 1804-1806.­) I have located numerous records of land transactions for these three men in this early time period. However, I haven’t located any for Joel Lewis. I wonder if perhaps he and Rachel resided on the property of one of his brothers-in-law. He did not stay in the area as the other families did.

Greene County, Ohio

Bellbrook, Green County, Ohio as it appears today.

Shortly after their arrival in Greene County, Ohio, hostilities with the Indians again arose. This account, given from the viewpoint of Joel Lewis, Jr., is found in the Lewis Family Newsletter of November 1935. “When the boy was eight year of age [I think this should be 6, not 8] an event occurred which greatly excited the settlement and made an impression upon his memory so vivid that time failed to dim its dramatic clearness. General Hull, the American commander at Detroit, basely surrendered to the British, August 16, 1812. As Detroit was the chief defense from invasion from the North all of Ohio was endangered. The news of the surrender at Detroit reached Dayton on Saturday the 22^nd day of September. Riders were at once dispatched all over the adjacent country summoning the captains of militia to gather their men and march to Piqua where war materials were stored.  In the village street of Bellbrook, on the quiet Sabbath morning of the next day, Joel [Jr.], wide-eyed, looked upon a company of seventy grim-faced pioneers drawn up in military formation, every man with his trusty rifle on his shoulder and his hunting knife in his belt. Among them was his own father, one of the heroes of Wayne’s army in its Indian campaign. Monday morning seven more companies were there. Many of them, including the company from Xenia, belonged to the First Regiment, Ohio Militia, of which Duncan McArthur was colonel, and James Denny and William A. Trimble, Majors. The soldiers departed in a cloud of dust for Piqua. Arriving there, by their show of force, they convinced the restive Indians of the futility of the latter’s design to seize the military stores kept there and to use them against the Americans should the British invade the state. The supplies were taken to Dayton under heavy guard and the militia returned to their homes. Later they were called out several times for patrol duty and when Fort Meets was besieged in May, 1813, Greene County furnished 700 troops, mostly mounted.

The muster record shows that Joel Lewis was in active service from October 18, until November 20, 1812, and from August 10, until September 5, 1813, as a soldier in John Clark's [Sugar Creek] Company in the First Regiment.

"I do hereby certify that Joel Lewis did volunteer under the proclamation of the Governor and the Circular of General Harrison, on the 15th day of September 1812, and the said Joel Lewis did act the part of a faithful soldier during his continuance in my company, and is hereby discharged. Given under my hand this 5th day of January, 1813. John Clark, Captain."

On April 15, 1812 another son was born to Joel and Rachel named Greene. He lived to eight years of age and died in 1820. The last child in the family was born February 22, 1814 in Greene County, Ohio. This was their son James, my great, great, great grandfather.

In 1815 Sarah Lewis became the first of the Lewis children to marry when she married widower John Hale. Daughter Rachel followed in 1818 with her marriage to William Fallis. Both marriages were in Greene County, Ohio. It was following the marriages of the two sisters that Joel Junior joined the roving band of Miami Indians rather than have to do what he considered “women’s chores” around the Lewis homestead.

In 1819 or 1820 Joel and Rachel and their son James ventured further west into Indiana according to the writings of Arthur K. Love, editor of the Lewis Family Newsletter. Land records indicate purchase of land in Randolph County, Indiana, in 1833, however, I think this was a land purchase by Joel, Junior following his 1825 marriage in Greene County, Ohio, to Mercy Fallis and his subsequent migration to Randolph County, Indiana.

James described his father’s work during that period of his life in this way, “My father afterward carried the United States mails through this Indiana wilderness country, crossing the Wabash and other rivers without a house on either side, without bridge or boat, sometimes swimming his horse from bank to bank. At night lay down in wet clothes covering with a saddle blanket, wet too, and take comfort at the music of the wolfs howl or the Indian yell.”

“My father, Joel Lewis, Sr., also died near Logansport, Cass County, Indiana, and age sixty-four years.” This was on January 20, 1839. According to Arthur K Love he was buried in the 9^th Street Cemetery in Logansport, but I cannot document that fact.

Tributes to Joel Lewis by his son

“Periled his life in many ways to assist in securing his country's freedom and blessing of peace for himself and his posterity after him, not being associated with any class of religious faith. He was a firm believer in the Bible and read it much.”

“I, James Stapleton Lewis, will say of my father, Joel Lewis Sen., that he was a great reader of the Bible, but was not a professor of the religion of his time.”

“I am proud this day to say of my father, he was a man far above the principle of deception or hypocrisy, a lover of truth and fair dealing with all men. His integrity was above suspicion, brave and generous to a fault. Was a pioneer of no small ability, penetrating far into the unknown dense forests of the wilderness of the great western wilds of North America. Civilization has followed in the path of the brave pioneers and leaves the world to write their history which to say the least alas. A hundredth part is never done. They of which I now write have gone to the great beyond with a consciousness that they have served their country in its most critical and trying hour. In the midst of invasion by a powerful nation, both by sea and land, whose sole object was tyranny and oppression to rob us (their posterity) of the rights which Heaven gave, not only this formidable force on one side. Our would be oppressors hired the then powerful tribes of Indians, furnishing them with arms and ammunition, to harass all our frontier country which was then all exposed to their merciless and cruel warfare as death by torture--who can write the fearful facts of those early pioneers or give the credit that is due to them impossible. My father, Joel Lewis was there--my mother was there.”

“No tongue can tell, no pen can describe the experience of our fathers and mothers in the history of the early part of the century. My father, Joel Lewis, Sr., gave all that he could give for his country and his posterity but his life and did not withhold the offer of that. Were it possible to describe the experience of the past, it would be more like explaining the beautiful colors of the rainbow to a person that had never seen the light of day.”