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Writer's picturePatricia Fanning

Nathaniel, Experience, Lucy & Joseph: A Revolutionary Family

Nathaniel Lewis, Jr. (1731-1790)

Experience Hartshorn Lewis (1735-1830)

Lucy Lewis (1758-1761)

Joseph Lewis (1773-1824)

 

Born in Dedham on July 4, 1731, Nathaniel Lewis, Jr. was the son of Nathaniel Lewis and Miriam Draper Lewis.

 

On 29 January, 1754, Nathaniel married Experience Hartshorn. She was the daughter of Ebenezer and Rebeckah Hartshorn of Boston. Experience was born on December 15, 1735. Nathaniel and Experience had seven children: Lucy, Nathaniel III, Olive, Rebecca, Jabez, Joseph, and Asa.

 




Nathaniel Lewis was one of dozens of South Parish men who answered the call to arms on April 19, 1775 and mustered at Dedham. At that time, he spent 10 days on duty in the Company of Capt. William Bullard. Lewis also answered the alarm on March 4, 1776, the day that George Washington and his troops took Dorchester Heights. That victory forced the British to abandon Boston within weeks.

 

Nathaniel Lewis died “very suddenly” on November 30, 1790 at 59. Experience Hartshorn Lewis died on January 4, 1830; her death was attributed to “old age” at 94.

 




Lucy Lewis, Nathaniel and Experience Lewis’s first child, was born on March 23, 1758. She died on February 2, 1761 in her third year. Her stone (lot 161) is situated near the graves of her grandparents Nathaniel and Miriam Lewis (lot 163, 164) and her aunt, Rebecca Lewis Richards (lot 162).



 

Joseph Lewis, the son of Nathaniel and Experience, was born on May 7, 1773. On April 24, 1804 he married Sybil Morse, born in 1791, the daughter of Sibbel Ellis and David Morse. They had one child, Sybil E. Lewis. Joseph Lewis died on August 10, 1824. According to Dedham Records, he “dropped dead in a neighbor’s house.” He was 51. He is interred in lot 260, next to his parents. The burial site of his wife, Sybil Morse Lewis is unknown.



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