Lilburn Lewis and Isham Lewis, sons of Lucy Jefferson Lewis (1752 – 1810) and Charles Lewis (1747-1831) and brothers of Jane Lewis Peyton (1777-1822)
If books are written about you 150 years after you’re gone, including one by a Pulitzer Prize-winner, you were either very very good or you were horrid.
Welcome to horrid. Isham and Lilburne Lewis, sons of Lucy Jefferson Lewis and brothers of Jane Lewis Peyton, were born into the Virginia gentry. Lucy was the sister of President Thomas Jefferson. The Lewis family looked impressive from the outside but, by the time Isham and Lilburne were born, it was falling apart on the inside.
First, the Lewis family was terrible with money. The family was essentially broke by the time Isham and Lilburn were teenagers. Broke or not, the Lewises continued to spend extravagantly and carelessly. Second, there was an above-normal amount of mental illness in the Lewis family (a long story not told here). Third, the younger generation of Lewises learned little of “practical matters” and work, focusing instead on lifestyle and entertainment.
Financially desperate, in 1808 Lucy, Charles, Lilburn and another son (Randolph) borrowed money and bought frontier land in Kentucky, with hopes of a fresh start and a money miracle. They left behind the family and friends who they’d known for decades. The group (totaling 18, mostly children) floated on barges down the Ohio River to western Kentucky, leaving the comforts of Virginia behind. Isham, unable to hold a job elsewhere, soon followed his parents and brothers to Kentucky.
The dream soon began to turn into a nightmare. First, Lucy passed away. Then Randolph, Randolph’s wife and Lilburn’s wife died in short order. Lucy’s husband Charles developed dementia. These deaths left one responsible adult, Lilburn, to run the farms and care for 16 children, as Isham was useless.
And there was more bad news. Lilburne’s unpaid debts and broken agreements caught up with him, bringing him into court multiple times. The local Kentuckians, who already resented the Lewises, despised Lilburne.
The strain of it all pushed Lilburne over the edge. His hidden mental illness reached the surface and his behavior became strange and abusive. Isham’s response was heavy drinking. Lilburne’s mental breakdown worsened, reaching a climax shortly before Christmas when a young slave named George tripped and accidentally broke a pitcher of water.
Lilburne dragged slave George into the kitchen and called the other slaves and Isham into the kitchen. Lilburn then killed George with a hatchet and began cutting apart his body.
Murder, whether the victim was free or slave, was a crime punishable by death in Kentucky. Lilburne ordered the slaves to finish dismembering George’s body and burn it in the fireplace, which they started to do.
Astonishingly, before they could finish, a massive (magnitude 7.7) earthquake struck western Kentucky. The quake, which was the first in peoples’ memory, scared everyone. It also collapsed the fireplace chimney and stopped the burning of George’s body. The next day Lilburne and the slaves repaired the chimney, hiding George’s body amongst the chimney stones.
The body remained hidden and the witnesses silent for seven weeks, until a final and extreme earthquake hit. The magnitude 8.0 New Madrid earthquake, the most powerful in history in the eastern U.S., toppled the chimney and exposed George’s body. A nearby family dog, possibly Lilburne’s, grabbed part of George’s body and dragged it away to a ditch next to a road. The next day a passerby saw the dog and the body part in the ditch and contacted the sheriff.
The sheriff investigated and quickly learned what had happened. He arrested Lilburne and Isham for murder. The brothers were then released on bail to await trial and so they returned home. At home they decided that their only recourse was for the two to commit suicide.
That night the two walked to the Lewis family cemetery. They decided to kill each other by simultaneously firing rifles at each other’s heart. As they prepared to shoot each other Lilburne decided that there might be a gun misfire so they needed a Plan B.
Plan B was that a survivor would point the rifle at his chest and use a stick to poke the trigger. Isham was unsure how that would work so Lilburne decided to demonstrate. Lilburne pointed his rifle at his chest and extended a stick near the trigger. It was dark so Lilburne couldn’t quite see where he was poking his stick. He accidentally hit the trigger, firing the gun, shooting himself in the chest. He fell next to his first wife’s grave.
Lilburne died quickly. Isham did the right thing and reported the events to the sheriff. The sheriff locked up Isham and began his investigation into yet another death. Several days later Isham escaped from jail and disappeared, never to return.
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It is not known for sure what happened to Isham. Several historians think that he went to New Orleans and lived under an assumed name.
The fates of the 16 children were sad. Most were scattered across western Kentucky as apprentices and adoptees, never again to live as one family. They were families gone with the wind.
Your ancestor Jane Lewis, daughter of Lucy, had a better fate. Jane stayed in Virginia and married a very good man with an odd first name, Craven Peyton. The Peytons lived good lives and raised good children, one of whom, Lucy Jane Peyton married and migrated to Mississippi.
Finally, there is an excellent book, Jefferson’s Nephews: A Frontier Tragedy which provides great detail about the decline and fall of the Lewis family. History books can be dull but this one is well-written and well-researched.
http://www.amazon.com/Jeffersons-Nephews-Boynton-Merrill-Jr/dp/0803282974
Further reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_Jefferson_Lewis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave_George
http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-01-02-0139
https://franceshunter.wordpress.com/2009/10/08/murder-and-madness-in-the-lewis-family/
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