Lt. William Lewis

Lieut William Lewis

• BIRTH 1748 - Virginia, USA
• DEATH 14 Nov 1779 (aged 30–31) - Albemarle County, Virginia, USA
• BURIAL Clover Fields Cemetery, Keswick, Albemarle County, Virginia, USA
• MEMORIAL ID 7188221 · View Source

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/7188221/william-lewis

William Lewis was the father of Capt. Meriwether Lewis of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

The dates on his gravestone, erected by the DAR many years after his burial, are questionable. He probably was born between 1734 and 1738. His wife Lucy (Meriwether) stated that he died on 14 Nov 1779 and she remarried in 1780. The existence of the 1780 inventory of his estate, the tends to confirm the 1779 date.

William Lewis (1733-1781) and Lucy Meriwether (1752-1837) married in 1768 or 1769 and lived in Albemarle County, Virginia.

DAR A 070178, Lt. VA.

http://ead.lib.virginia.edu/vivaead/published/lva/vi01113.document

In November 1779, Lieutenant William Lewis spent a short leave from the Revolutionary War with his family at Cloverfields, a Meriwether family plantation where his wife, Lucy, had grown up. He said his goodbyes, swung onto his horse, and rode to the Secretary's Ford of the Rivanna River, swollen in flood. Attempting to cross, his horse was swept away and drowned. Lewis managed to swim ashore and hiked ack to Cloverfields, drenched. Pneumonia set in, and in two days he was dead.