A History of James Stapleton Lewis Part 1 - Early Life

In 1986 I wrote a history of James Stapleton Lewis, my third great grandfather. I have decided to post that history on this blog in several sections to keep each part manageable. Some of this content will repeat from other blogs.

James Stapleton Lewis was an early and faithful member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He was both a Mormon and an American pioneer whose life encompassed events we now read only as history. My grandmother, Celecta Ottley Haroldsen, has recounted her memories of “Grandfather James Stapleton,” so, even though he is my third great grandfather, he does not seem so far removed from me.

Several years ago, I wrote a brief history of James Stapleton Lewis. Since that time, I have found more information about him. This is a more extensive biography of his life, but is still a scanty outline of a fascinating man.

In 1935 to 1936, a Lewis Family Newsletter was edited by Arthur K. Love, a Methodist Episcopal minister from Hagertown, Indiana [a great grandson of James’ brother Joel Lewis, Jr.] Its purpose, among other things, was to furnish accurate and authentic information concerning the origin of the Lewis families. Three branches of the Lewis family are chronicled in this newsletter. One of these is the James Stapleton Lewis family.

The newsletters used family Bibles, court and land records, family tradition, and oral history as sources. Generally these newsletters seem to be accurate when carefully typed. The newsletter account of Joseph Lewis, breeder of fine horses, as the father of Joel Lewis, Sr. continues to be controversial. When stating information from the newsletters, I will indicate the edition date in parentheses.

James Stapleton Lewis was a journal keeper, possibly for as long as seventy years. After his death, these journals went to various descendants. In 1964, the living grandchildren decided to make a typed copy of the three surviving volumes of his journals. A copy is located in the Idaho Genealogical Library in Boise. Extensive quotes from this journal will be used in this biography so that the reader may get a more personal glimpse of James Stapleton Lewis. (Punctuation has been added to facilitate reading.)

Other verifying sources will be indicated throughout the history. The book Joseph Smith and the Restoration by Ivan J. Barrett has been used to verify LDS Church history mentioned in this account.

James Stapleton Lewis’ father was Joel Lewis [usually called Sr. to differentiate him from his son Joel.] James seemed to be very proud of his pioneering father and wrote the following about him.

              “My father, Joel Lewis, Sr., was born February 1, 1776. 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 settlements from the merciless Indians who were hired and furnished with firearms and other war material to harass the unprotected settlements of American pioneers. This done by the British Government to recover her suppressed rights which she had lost in the war of 1776, but this was only a blot added to another blot on her civilization which she would now in 1900 be glad to wipe out of history.

              “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 wolf’s howl or the Indian yell. Now the Indians of which I write are not like the half starved and dwarfed Indians of these Mountains. They are 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 protected 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.

              “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.”

He further wrote:

              “My father . . . 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 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 . . . . 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.”

Writing of his mother, James said:

              “My mother, Rachel Stapleton Lewis, was born 1773 in the state of Maryland. Was early left an orphan, the youngest of four daughters. Her parents were slave holders but when she was of age   there was but little left for her. She was baptized in the Church of England, taught her children to believe the Bible. She had eight children, only four that lived to be grown, two sons and two daughters. Died near Logansport, Indiana. Was seventy-three years old. My father, Joel Lewis, Sr., also died near Logansport . . . age sixty-four years.”

When Rachel Stapleton’s father died, the three oldest daughters were bound out. Rachel, as the youngest, remained with her mother. According to the February 1936 newsletter, the court recorded this action on August 6, 1777, in Rowan County, North Carolina, court minutes.

Marriages of Rowan Co., North Carolina: 1753-1868 records the marriage of Joel Lewis and Rachel Stapleton in January, 1795. Joel and Rachel stayed in Rowan County for several years where four children were born. Joel Jr. was born in 1806 at Crab Orchard, Kentucky. This birth at the terminus of the famous Wilderness Road indicates the family’s westward migration. The family continued to Sugar Creek Township, Greene County, Ohio, where others of the Lewis and Stapleton relatives were settling (Newsletter, November 1935.)

Three more sons were born in Greene County. The last was James Lewis (he added the Stapleton in later life) who was born on February 22, 1814 (TIB James Stapleton Lewis.)

James’ only living brother, Joel Jr., who was nearly eight years older than James, ran away from home as a young teenager. As a protest against doing what he considered “girls’ work,” he joined a band of roving Miami Indians. When he reappeared six years later in all the trappings of an Indian brave, James was fascinated. He enjoyed reciting the tales told him by his brother. (Newsletter, November 1935.)

When only James and his parents remained at home, the restless spirit came to Joel Sr. again. The family moved further west to Clay Township, Cass County, Indiana, sometime between 1830 and 1832. Two of their married children were already in Indiana and the third joined them a few years later. (Newsletter, December 1935.)

In 1831, James Lewis’ future was forever changed when he was converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. His conversion only fifteen months after the Church was organized is recorded more than once in his journals. The following is a combined account of his writings.

Note the introduction of several key people in his life. “Squire John Jones,” his future father-in-law; Anna Jones, his future wife with whom he was obviously already acquainted; Elizabeth Jones Jackson, Anna’s sister. The Elder Jackson mentioned possibly was Elizabeth’s husband, Henry S. Jackson. James’ sister Rachel was married to William Fallis and his brother Joel’s wife was Mercy Fallis. Whether the Elder Fallis mentioned was related to these Fallis families is unknown. However, no mention is ever made of any of James’ family having joined the LDS Church.

              “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. My mother was baptized into the Church of England when quite young. She taught me to revere the Bible above all other books. When I was a boy at school, a Book providentially fell into my hands called the American Antiquarian, which had an influence with me in determining my course in life. By it I learned that America had surely been peopled by a race of inhabitants far more civilized than the present race of Indians.

              “All civilized nations keep records. The question with me was, were they Christian and of what kind? As to the religious matters, my mind was curiously worked upon. I believed the Bible, but as far as the sects were known to me, I was infidel. At my age, I was disgusted with much that was called    religion, and promised myself never to engage in any religion that I did not know to be true. And if I obtained that fact, I never would depart from it as I had seen many do – join the church in an excited time and soon after become dissatisfied and more wicked and corrupt than ever before. A secret something seemed to whisper that I was young and in the course of my days would see something of as good authority as in the days of the apostles of old.

              “When about seventeen years of age, a man, an ex-preacher, came near where I was staying, late in the evening, did not dismount but said he had rode forty miles that day to overtake two mormonite preachers that have a golden Bible taken out of the earth, that they were preaching the ancient apostolic doctrine and that next Sunday they would preach in Mock’s barn. All of this was said almost without taking a breath. My own thoughts I cannot explain, but my first thought was that this is the very thing I have thought would come in the course of my days. The words I had heard went through me in every part of my system. I remembered the Bible, also what I had learned of the ancient peoples of America, and above all the secret whispering now settled more strongly than ever before.

              “Mr. Mock was a wealthy Dutch farmer at whose house I was very intimate, accordingly I went to hear the strange men. When I arrived there to my great surprise there was already gathered the greatest congregation I had ever seen in the country. Thomas B. Marsh was preaching from the prophecies of Isaiah some of which I remember to this day 1896. After he had finished his discourse his traveling companion Selah J. Griffin arose and bore testimony to what had been said and related the manner in which the Book of Mormon or the plates from which it was taken was translated and the testimony of the witnesses Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and Martin Harris and also of the eight witnesses. . . .

              “Squire Jones, an ex-preacher, was put forward to talk to them. False reports had not yet reached there. Squire Jones could ask questions they could not answer, but they answered many questions he had never heard answered before. And my father-in-law, Squire John Jones, went home a wiser and better man than he came, for he never raised his voice against their doctrine.

              “In the afternoon preached at Father Lindsey’s, a Methodist, where they held Methodist meetings. And it being their day, their preacher came riding up in good style, did not dismount, called Father Lindsey out, insulted and abused him for allowing those deceivers to preach in his house, altho he  was aged enough to be the preacher’s father. The Elders passed on down the Missouri river.

              “Soon after, two other Elders came, Levi W. Hancock and Zebedee Coltrin, and began baptizing my associates and many others, sometimes a dozen at a time. I was sorry to see them so forward, for they went out of the church very much as they came into the church. Of myself, I think I was better prepared to endure than many of my own age. The Elders quoted liberally from the scriptures. I was careful to see every one of them with my own eyes and knew they were in my mother’s Bible.

              “Taking in all of the evidences of scriptures and my antiquarian evidence of older nations of our own   American country, and above all those sacred whisperings that no human could give, the last of the baptisms in our place was Sister Jackson, her sister Anna Jones, and myself. I was baptized by Levi W. Hancock in water and the Holy Ghost before I set my feet on dry land, where I was confirmed by Zebedee Coltrin July, 1831, Randolph County, State of Indiana . . . . The Elders . . . continued until they had baptized eighty members including myself.

              “I will state one case of baptism, that of a young lady who had been confined to her bed with sickness for two years under the care of two doctors. In December the snow was on the ground. She was carried to the water over two hundred yards and was carried into the water and was baptized. She walked back to the house. In the spring following went five miles to meeting and rode behind me on a horse. The two doctors and all the citizens of Winchester beheld a miracle they could not gainsay. Her name was Charlotte Lindsey, since died in faith speaking in tongues.”

The two sets of missionaries who taught and then baptized James were divinely commissioned. See Doctrine and Covenants 52:22, 29 and 56:4-6. On August 13, 1831, the Prophet Joseph Smith en route to Kirtland after his first visit to Jackson County, Missouri, met several Elders on their way to Zion. Joyful salutations were followed by the receiving of a revelation of encouragement (D & C 62.) The missionaries’ labors had met with much success. Two, Levi W. Hancock and Zebedee Coltrin, had baptized one hundred persons. (Barrett p. 163; Ensign, October 1992 “The Saints of Winchester, Indiana”)