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After 1550, there
was a lot of new trouble brewing in the British Isles, fermented by a Christian
sect called Puritans. Ten years later, the Puritan movement was gaining ground.
A militant minority of the Calvanist movement, Puritans demanded a wholesale
"purification" of the Church of England, for what they considered "popish
(Catholic) abuses." Instead, Puritans encouraged a direct personal religious
relationship with God, sincere moral conduct, and simple worship services.
Worshipping was the area the Puritans tried to change the most, by directing
their efforts towards an intense theological conviction and definite expectations
on how seriously Christianity should be taken. They focused human existence
on how seriously their convictions were. Poverty and fear so pervaded England
that no one could avoid feeling anxious over the future. Unemployment and
low wages constantly tempted the hard-pressed to become "unholy" thieves
and cheats. Even honest, devoted individuals had difficulty showing charity;
life was so insecure. Puritanism called for spiritual rebirth through a tightly
developed, idealistic code of ethics. This belief would lead many followers
to Massachusetts Bay, and Virginia, the New World, in 1607. After King James
I granted a charter authorizing overlapping grants of land in Virginia
to two separate joint-stock companies, one based in London and the other
in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Those companies advertised in England, appealing
to adventurers, skilled laborers, and fortune hunters to colonize Virginia.
From the London Company, gentry and adventurers were dispatched to the colony
of Virginia.
 The London Company chose a site
on the James River and named it Jamestown, in honor of their King. This was
the first time an Anglo-Saxon name, had been permanently applied to a place
outside the British Isles. Before its final demise, this settlement almost
did not survive on several occasions. Settlers quarreled with one another,
or searched for gold, silver, instead of spending their time growing crops
necessary for their survival. After the severe winter of 1609 - 10, settlers
almost abandoned the site, but arrival of a new leadership, supplies, and
additional men, kept them there and their spirits high. The people of Jamestown
had made allies with the Indians’ of the Powhatan Confederacy, who educated
them in native plants to be harvested as food. Yet in 1622, the settlers
had managed to turn the Indians against them, because of brutal encounters
by both factions. On March 22, of that year, three hundred forty-seven people
were killed in a massacre. Two years later, the crown, revoked the London
Company’s charter and the colony came under royal control. Even though
the site was burned to the ground in 1679, during Bacon’s rebellion,
Jamestown remained Virginia’s capital until 1699, when Williamsburg
became the seat of government and Jamestown fell into decay. In the next
thirty five years, there were fifteen thousand settlers residing in Virginia.
My ancestry can be traced back
eleven generations to John Lewis, born in 1640 in Virginia, in probably the
first generation born in the New World. He was most likely of Puritan stock,
for the Puritans dominated colonization in Virginia, from 1607 to 1660. If
not Puritan, then his family may have been adventurers or indentured servants.
And, he must have been very healthy. From 1618 to 1622, most of the three
thousand, five hundred immigrants entering Virginia, died from malnutrition,
salt poisoning, typhus, or dysentery contracted when they drank the polluted
water of the lower James River. Unhealthy sanitation and the use of the river
as a waste disposal site, led to a breeding ground of disease. Jamestown,
Williamsburg, and Henrico, were the only three towns in 1640, so it is safe
to say that John Lewis was born in the proximity of these areas. He died
in 1726, at the age of eighty six, leaving behind a son, David, born in Virginia
on May 5, 1685. But life was not easy. In fact, the colony would have failed
had it not been for the discovery of a native plant, tobacco. This wild tobacco
did not have a pleasant flavor, so it was difficult to sell. Tobacco plantations
developed at a steady rate after 1619. John Rolfe, an Englishman, spent several
years perfecting a tasteful tobacco by curing it in a smoke house. Middle
Eastern tobacco did not carry such a distinctive flavor. Virginia’s
tobacco impressed many Englishmen with its flavor and soon possessed most
of the English market. These coastal plantations were self-sufficient little
colonies, each was next to an inlet or on a river, so ships could anchor
off their front yards. Planters did not have to pay for transportation over
land for their products. Docks were built into their front yards and double
as landing during harvesting. By 1660, there were at least sixty five plantations
in Surry County alone, along the James River or tide regions. Tobacco prices
fell drastically in the 1620’s and by 1660 prices had fallen below the
break-even point. Prices were below a penny a pound, and so started a depression
that lasted over fifty years. Most landowners grew crops or raised cattle
to sell to the West Indies, because of the very large slave population and
growing plantations that were not self-sufficient in food. To survive, large
plantations lived off the labor of their servants. During this depression,
the typical servant family lived in a shack, about twenty feet across by
sixteen feet wide. Few owned no more property. Typical was the man who died
in 1698, leaving "Three mattresses without bedsheets, a chest, a barrel that
served as a table, a chair, two pots, a kettle, a parcel of old pewter, a
gun, and some books." Having fled England for the promise of a better life,
common immigrants found utter destitution in Virginia. Released indentured
servants after 1660, fared even worse. The depression had slashed wages below
the level needed to accumulate savings to buy land. Before this depression
upward mobility in the social classes was achievable. The separation of the
upper and lower classes increased. Times were very difficult.
Anne (Betty) Terrell, David’s
spouse, was born in 1687 in New Kent County, Virginia, which had been established
in 1654. By 1697, seventy thousand people lived in the Royal Colony of Virginia,
commonly referred to as the Old Dominion. William Terrell Lewis, born in
1687 in Virginia, was the son of David and Anne Lewis. David Lewis died in
Albemarle County, Virginia in 1779, at the age of ninety four There is no
record of Anne’s death. By 1700, all of Chesapeake Bay had been settled.
Towns like Fort Henry (Petersburg), Norfolk, Hampton, and Yorktown were growing
in population. Settlers had spread virtually throughout the tidewater area,
and as far east as the Fall Line; a natural barrier running the length of
the Appalachian mountains. William Terrell Lewis married Sarah Martin in
1739. She’d been born about 1720 in Surry County, North Carolina. The
two had a daughter they named Susannah. Born in 1740, in Hanover County,
Virginia, Susannah is the last "Lewis" in my lineage. Her father died in
Nashville, Tennessee in 1802, at the age of one-hundred and fifteen years
old; if the records are correct. There are no records of her mother’s
death. By the time of their deaths, however, Susannah had married.
Susannah’s husband, Thomas
Benge, was born in Virginia, sometime in 1734. By 1743, Virginia’s
population had grown to one hundred and thirty thousand. Albemarle County
was established from Goochland County land, in 1744. Before 1760, Thomas
Benge married Susannah Lewis and in 1760 they had a son David, also known
as "King David." In either 1762 or 1763, the family moved southwest into
Wilkes County, North Carolina, a county formed in 1777 from the larger Surry
County. They had moved closer to where her parents may have lived at this
time. Thomas Benge and his family were "yeomen" farmers. Yeomen farmers were
independent landowner who worked hard to support their families by growing
tobacco, corn, wheat, or raised cattle. From information obtained from his
last will and testament, Thomas may also have raised cattle. He owned over
four hundred acres and had the assistance of three slaves to maintain the
land. Thomas and Susannah had twelve children: David in 1760; James in 1763;
William in 1765; Thomas Jr. in 1767; Richard in 1769; Nancy in 1771; Mary
in 1773; Elizabeth in 1775; Anna in 1775; Sarah in 1777; Susannah in 1779;
and George in 1781.
The beginning of the American
Revolution came when England issued the Proclamation of 1763, by which it
asserted direct control of land transactions, settlement, trade, and other
activities of non-Indians west of the Appalachian crest. Colonials did not
receive this meddling in their affairs cheerfully. Over the next twelve years,
England passed several laws, putting much more control of citizen affairs
into the King’s hands. The Sugar Act, Stamp Act, Declaratory Act, New
York Suspending Act, Revenue "Townshend" Act, Tea Act, Coercive Acts, and
the Quebec Act, are all examples of how Great Britain tightened the hold
around their colonials necks. In 1774, the First Continental Congress, made
up of two delegates from each of the thirteen colonies, convened in Philadelphia
to lobby the King; to no avail. By 1775, revolutionary thinking had ended
and the war was about to begin.
April 19, 1775, in Concord,
Massachusetts, seven hundred British soldiers raided the town and tried to
confiscate all firearms. The local Minutemen resisted, them retreated, along
sixteen miles of road to Boston. By the next evening, over twenty thousand
New Englanders were besieging the British garrison in Boston. This action
was the start of the war.
At the age of nineteen, the
Benge’s oldest son, David, enlisted as a private in the North Carolina
Militia. He served under Major Micajah Lewis, possibly a relative. Later
in 1779, David transferred into Captain Gordon’s company, within Colonel
Armstrong’s regiment. On August 14th, 1779, the newly formed Continental
Congress approved a peace plan with England, including stipulations as: the
complete British evacuation from American territories, independence, boundaries,
and rights to the navigation of the Mississippi River. The following year
in February, the British fleet, illustrated their power arriving off the
South Carolina coast. Sir Henry Clinton, a British general, and eight thousand,
seven hundred troops, marched toward Charleston, South Carolina, in a move
to greatly expand England’s southern beachhead. On April 8th, General
Clinton initiated the attack on Charleston, by entering its harbor. After
thirty four-days of fighting, in the largest defeat of the American Revolution,
Major General Benjamin Lincoln surrendered the city to British forces. David
Benge, along with approximately five thousand, four hundred other men, was
taken prisoner. Later, David was either released or escaped, and entered
Captain Joseph Lewis’ company in Colonel Cleveland’s regiment.
Major Micajah Lewis’ regiment and the regiment of Captain Joseph Lewis,
fought at the Battle of King’s Mountain, North Carolina. There, with
American frontiersmen led by Colonel William Campbell and Colonel Sebly,
they captured the eleven-hundred-man British loyalist force led by Major
Patrick Ferguson. News of this loss forced British General Lord Charles
Cornwallis to reconsider his invasion of North Carolina, and he withdrew
his forces. Both Major Micajah and Captain Joseph Lewis, brothers, were wounded
in that battle. Major Micajah Lewis was later shot and killed by the enemy,
and Captain Lewis’ company transferred to the control of Colonel Benjamin
Herdon in 1781, when help was needed by frontier settlers to ward off attacks
from the Cherokee Nation.
The last battle of the American
Revolution was fought in Yorktown, Virginia, not far from Jamestown. Cornwallis
had established a six-thousand-man base camp on this peninsula. General George
Washington, commander of the Continental Army, and allied French soldiers
secretly moved their troops to surround the British by land and sea. Eight
thousand, eight hundred Americans and seven thousand French troops layed
siege on Yorktown. General Cornwallis held off their invasion for almost
two months, finally surrendering on October 19, 1781. Less than a year later,
a peace treaty was signed, making America a sovereign country.
Sometime before 1786, David was
discharged from the Continental Army, North Carolina Militia. That same year,
he married Lucinda, or Lucreta, Perry; lack of information on his wife gives
no history. They had eleven children. Joel, their oldest, was born in 1786,
in North Carolina. Between his birth and 1787, the family moved to Madison
County, Kentucky, where Sarah was born in 1787; Elizabeth in 1790; Ann in
1795; John (Jack) in 1797; William in 1799; Thomas in 1801; Micajah in 1802;
Lewis Franklin in 1805; Nancy in 1807; and Lucinda in 1809. Thomas, the ninth
child, named for his grandfather, was born January 31, 1801, in Madison County,
Kentucky.
Sometime in 1811, David’s
father Thomas died at the age of seventy-seven, and was buried in Wilkes
County, North Carolina. Susannah is buried there also, but no dates for her
life or death have yet been located. Thomas left his Last Will and Testament
in county records: |
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