Lewis was married to a Dutch wife, Geesje Barents, a member of a prominent and well-known family in this city. He had several children. One of them, Thomas Lodewicksen, Jr., married Frances, daughter of the famous Jacob Leisler, head of the colony, which is another indication of his father’s social prominence.
Lewis died here, on September 14, 1685, and his widow was named executrix of his will by Governor Dongan, April 1, 1686. There are many of his descendants among the various Lewis families scattered over this state, but few of them, perhaps, know that their ancestor was that “Thomas the Irishman” mentioned so frequently in the old Dutch records of Stuyvesant’s time.
AN INTERESTING PIONEER FAMILY.
James and Isaac Savage and their two sisters, came to America from Ireland. Afterward, about 1763, their father, James Savage, being then an aged man, came to this country to Newton, Mass., where the two daughters had settled. There he died and was buried.
His sons, James and Isaac, settled at Woolwich, Me., where James was early killed by the Indians. Isaac married and had a large family. His wife’s name is not known. Among their children was a son, who settled at Wiscasset, Me., another son who settled at Woolwich and another son, James, who also settled at Wiscasset. James (3) married Mary Hilton, who was born at Berwick, Me., in 1721, and lived to be 100 years old. James and Mary had seventeen children. Order of birth is not known.
They were as follows: Isaac, who married Deborah Soule; Abigail, married, June 13, 1765, Robert Lambert; Lydia, married, February 1, 1776, Daniel Ring; Hannah, born 1745, married Thomas McFadden; James, married Annah Young; Ebenezer, born 1753, married Sarah Chase; Abraham, married, in 1783, Patience Young; John, married, in 1783, Susannah Tinkham or Pinkham; Jacob, born in 1759, married, in 1781, Hannah Gray; Mary, married, in 1795, John Card; Charles, married, in 1784, Margaret Corillard, and married, second, about 1785, Margaret Rose Lovejoy; Catherine, died April 24, 1800, unmarried; Edward, born 1776, married, June 6, 1790, Sarah Smith; Andrew, born 1769, married Tamson Tibbetts; Christiana, Daniel, Ann.
EDWARD O’BRIEN’S SCHOOL DICTIONARY.
An interesting historical paragraph recently contributed, states that in 1798 Edward O’Brien printed in New Haven, Conn., his “School Dictionary: Being a compendium of the latest and most improved dictionaries,” which exists in two copies—the British Museum copy (perfect) and the Yale College Library copy (lacking ten pages). This was the first dictionary by an American author published in this country. It has no date, but is thought to have been issued towards the end of 1798. Its author, who taught school in Guilford, Conn., was born there March 10, 1757, and died there August 20, 1836. Soon after its publication its author and the Rev. John Elliott (1768–1824, great-great-grandson of John Elliott, the Indian apostle) prepared the second American dictionary, which was copyrighted in June, 1799, and published in January, 1800.
A PATRIOT OF THE REVOLUTION.
James Stevenson, a native of Ireland, was born in 1750 and was brought to this country when a child. During the Revolutionary War he served as a sergeant in Colonel Evans’ Pennsylvania regiment, was captured by the enemy and held for a year in the notorious British prison ships.