Samuel C. Lewis

      Samuel C. Lewis was born in Poultney, Vermont, June 5th, 1796. At the age of seventeen he enlisted in the United States Army as a soldier in the war of 1812, and served in a company commanded by Captain Miller, who was founder of the sect since known as Millerites, or Second Adventists. He was in the battle of Plattsburgh, and at French Mills. He served in the army about two years.
      In February, 1816, in company with his brother Gideon, Roswell and Amos Clift, Elias Clift, and their sister, Esther Clift, who afterwards married Guy C. Merrill, he came in a lumber wagon drawn by two yoke of oxen, from Poultney, Vermont to Gaines, being twenty-five days on the road, arriving in Gaines march 19th, 1816.
      Arba Chubb, a brother-in-law of the Lewises, with his wife and child, arrived in Gaines the day before Mr. Lewis and company, and moved into the log house built fy Mrs. Burgess, near where Judge Anderson now resides. The house ha not been occupied for some time previous, and was not in good condition to inhabit; but it was the best they could get, and the three Lewis brothers went there to stay with Mr. Chubb. They had cleared away the snow and got s good supply of fuel for their fire heaped up against the stoned up end of the house, which served as a chimney the night after their arrival, as the weather was stormy and cold, and the house had large crevices open between the logs.
      Mr. Chubb and his family had a bed in a corner of the room, while the three young men lay on the floor with their feet to the fire. in the night the great fire thawed out the old chimney, and the whole pile fell forward into the room, luckily, however, without crushing any of the persons sleeping there. Next morning they piled the stones back in their places and made a chimney that answered their purpose.
      Mr. Lewis and his brother bought of Lansing bailey, an article for one hundred and twenty-five acres of land, lying at Gaines Basin, on which Mr. Bailey had built a lot house, which had not a shingle or nail in it, all pieces being fastened with wooden pins. On this lot they labored clearing land the next summer, occupying their house, and getting their cooking and washing done in Mr. Bailey's family, on an adjoining lot, for which they worked for Mr. Bailey every seventh day that season to pay him.
      Samuel C. Lewis married Anna Frisbie, in March, 1819. She died the next year.
      January 30th, 1824, he married Anna Warner, of Cornwall, Vt., She died April 10th, 1841.
      Mr. Lewis retains and resides on the lot of land on which he first settled.
      He has walked and carried his knapsack on his back, twelve times the whole distance between Gaines and Poultney, Vt. Once he performed the journey on October, in six days, walking on an average nearly fifty miles a day.
      In the year 1819, he had a tax to pay and wanted a dollar to make the sum required. To raise the money, he cut four cords of body maple wood and drew it a mile and sold it to Oliver booth for twenty-five cents a cord, and so paid his tax.



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