The Importance of the Lewis Gravesite

Dr. A. W. Lewis provided the attendees of the 2017 First Quarter King and Queen County Historical Society meeting an understanding of why the Lewis Gravesite is important not just to his family, but to the county. It is the oldest gravesite found in King and Queen County, dating to the death of the Welsh immigrant John Lewis on the 21st of August 1657 at the age of 63 years. Decades ago the site was uncovered by Dr. Malcolm Harris of West Point, a noted Virginia historian. Subsequently, further exploration by Dr. Harris uncovered more gravestones. The crest on one of the stones led to a connection to the Lewis graves at Warner Hall in Gloucester. In addition to the gravestone for John Lewis the elder, those for his daughter-in-law Isabella Lewis Yard, and William Lewis, her grandson, Dr. Harris uncovered stones for Captain Edward Lewis, brother to the John Lewis buried at Warner Hall, and two of his children, John Lewis, who married the sister of Augustine Washington (George’s father), and Ann Lewis Skaife, who is buried with two daughters, one a newborn. Captain Edward Lewis’s stone had the Coat of Arms.

In 2006 the property on which the Lewis graves were uncovered was sold and the owner deeded a half-acre of land to the King and Queen Historical Society to preserve the site. A committee of members of the Society and the Lewis family was established to raise funds and to be stewards for the gravesite. A post and chain fence has been erected that encompasses the property. Ground penetrating ultrasound has been used to determine the number of graves at the site, as many as thirty have been found. In summer 2016 the Chicora Foundation of South Carolina was hired to do restoration and preservation work on the stones themselves. Future plans include constructing a brick enclosure for the gravesite that would be designed to be like the one at Warner Hall in Gloucester. The connection to important figures in our nation’s early years makes this particularly important to preserve.

Dr. Lewis is a descendant of John Lewis. He has lived for the past 40 years in the King and Queen house where his grandfather began his medical practice in Bruington. He was a family physician practicing in Aylett from 1974 to 2010, and is now on the faculty of the St. Francis Family Medicine Residency. He is on the Board of the Cornerstone Free Clinic and Food Bank. Dr. Lewis comes from a line of physicians and teachers and has been honored to receive service awards from the Medical Society of Virginia Foundation, The Medical College of Virginia Alumni Association, the Virginia Academy of Family Physicians, and the AOA Honor Society and teaching awards from the VCU School of Medicine and the Virginia Academy of Family Physicians. Dr. Lewis is married to Elizabeth Christeller and has three children.

See the 2017 Spring Tales From The Tavern Newsletter for more detail.