Lewis

FOREBEARS This name was brought independently to New England by many bearers from the 17th century onward. William Lewis was one of the founders of Hartford, CT, (coming from Cambridge, MA, with Thomas Hooker) in 1635. The explorer Meriwether Lewis (1774–1809) was a native of Albemarle Co., VA, where he was a neighbor of the Jeffersons, Randolphs, and other prominent families. His family also had plantations on the Broad River in Oglethorpe Co., GA. The Lewis family in VA date back to Robert Lewis, a native of Brecon, Wales, who settled in what is now Gloucester Co., VA, about 1635. Another early bearer of this very common British surname is Francis Lewis, a New York merchant and signer of the Declaration of Independence, who was born in 1713 in Llandaff, Glamorganshire, Wales.