BIOGRAPHY OF FORD LEWIS
By (Mrs. D. S.) H. Virginia Lewis Dalbey
As my father, Ford Lewis, was one of the pioneer land owners in Nebraska and assisted actively in settling the southeast part of the state, I have been requested to give a brief sketch of his life and early experiences in this state. My only regret in writing this is that he is not here to speak for himself. Ford Lewis was born in Deckertown, New Jersey, July 25, 1829, son of Phoebe and Levi Lewis, the latter engaged in mercantile business both in Hamburg and Hackettstown, New Jersey.
After finishing his education at William Rankin's Classical School and studying under Chris Marsh, author of double entry bookkeeping, he assisted his father in the mercantile business for some time. However, he preferred other pursuits and after a successful test of his judgment in real estate, started west. At Syracuse, New York, he was induced to engage in partnership under the name of Chapman & Lewis, watch case manufacturers and importers of watch movements; keeping standard time for the New York Central and other roads and supplying railroad officials, conductors, and engineers with the highest grade of watches.
Selling his interest in 1856, he accepted the general agency of the Morse Publishing House, New York, making his headquarters at Charleston, South Carolina, in winter and at Cleveland, Ohio, in summer, until 1859, when he went to Jerseyville, Illinois, with his parents and sister, buying and selling real estate in that city and Jersey county until 1867, when, with Congressman Robert M. Knapp, he visited Nebraska, and made his first investment in government land, many of his United States patents being signed by Presidents Grant and Johnson.
Ford Lewis was in pioneer days one of the largest owners of farm lands in Nebraska, his holdings being chiefly in Pawnee, Otoe, Gage, Johnson, and Lancaster counties. On one of his advertising cards he states that, "occupied for eighteen years past in the purchase and sale of over 80,000 acres of other lands, these, on account of their well known intrinsic value have been reserved intact."
Mr. Lewis founded the towns of Lewiston in Pawnee county and Virginia in Gage county, naming the latter in honor of his daughter.
At a meeting of the Nebraska legislature held at Omaha in 1867, Mr. Lewis was an interested spectator, and before the capital of the state was changed he predicted its location in the salt basin, almost on the spot where Lincoln now stands. He accordingly purchased property in the vicinity of what is now Beatrice, making a comfortable fortune as the result of his wisdom and foresight. By Ford Lewis' liberality to those purchasing land from him, in selling at reasonable prices, and extending their contracts during hard times, instead of making purchasers forfeit their land because of inability to meet their payments, he encouraged and assisted many settlers who are now some of Nebraska's most prosperous farmers to keep their land, which is now the source of their prosperity. During the period when he was borrowing money for his investments in Nebraska land, many Illinois people remarked that Ford Lewis was "land crazy," but have since wished they had had his vision, and courage to hold their purchases through the crop failures and drouths which are sometimes the portion of every community: those who followed his advice now "rise up and call him blessed."
That he was not alone in his judgment is evidenced by the large land holdings of the late Lord Scully of England and the late John W. Bookwalter of Springfield, Ohio, who recently died in Italy, and was a warm personal friend of my father's, having purchased some of his land from him.
Mr. Lewis married Miss Elizabeth Davis of Jerseyville, Illinois, in 1864. She was the first girl baby born in that town, her parents being among the earliest pioneers there from New Jersey; so her childhood memories of bears, Indians, and slave refugees during the civil war, and roaming the woods surrounding their home prepared her to be a capable and sympathetic helpmate for my father during his many pioneer trips to Nebraska.