Surname Saturday ~ LEWIS of Saco, Maine

The Saco River in Maine

LEWIS

Thomas Lewis (1590 – about 1640), my 10^th great grandfather, was a draper and a wine merchant, educated at the Shrewsbury School between 1600 and 1605.  On 12 February 1629 in London the “Council for the Affairs of New England in America” granted him and Capt. Richard Bonython land north of the Saco River. Thomas Lewis came to Maine on the ship Elizabeth in 1631.  His wife and children came from England to Maine in 1637.

In 1640 the executors of his estate left his daughters Judith (Lewis) Gibbons of Saco, Maine and Elizabeth (Lewis) Haywood of Barbados, part of the estate originally held by Richard Bonython and Thomas Lewis.  Judith Gibbons is my 9^th great grandmother.   She inherited 32 square miles of the great Saco patent.  Her husband, James Gibbons acquired another 100 acres of the Biddeford side of the Saco River in 1642.

There is a book The Ancestry of Charity Haley, 1755 – 1800, by Walter Goodwin Davis, 1916 that describes Thomas Lewis, his property in Maine, and Judith’s descendants.   The English ancestry of the Lewis family at St. Chad’s church in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England was published in the New England Historical Genealogical Register Volume 101, 1947, pages 3 to 23 in the article “Ancestry of Thomas Lewis and his Wife Elizabeth Marshall of Saco, Maine” by Walter Goodwin Davis.  There is a great sketch of Thomas Lewis in The Great Migration Begins, by Anderson, Volume II. 

My LEWIS genealogy:

Generation 1:  Thomas Lewis, son of Andrew Lewis and Mary Herring, born about 1590 in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England, died before 28 April 1640 in Maine; married 29 August 1618 at St. Chad’s Church, Shrewsbury, Shropshire to Elizabeth Marshall, daughter of Roger Marshall and Katherine Mytton.  Eight children.

Generation 2: Judith Lewis, born 1626 in Shrewsbury, died 1699 in Saco, Maine;  married about 1646 in Saco to James Gibbons.  He was born about 1614 in England and died after 1692 in Maine. Eight children.

Generation 3:  Hannah Gibbons m. Robert Mace

Generation 4:  John Mace m. Sarah Frost

Generation 5:  Ithamar Mace m. Rachel Berry

Generation 6:  Abigail Mace m. Simon Locke

Generation 7: Richard Locke m. Margaret Welch

Generation 8:  Abigail M. Locke m. George E. Batchelder

Generation 9:  George E. Batchelder m. Mary Katharine Emerson

Generation 10:  Carrie Maude Batchelder m. Joseph Elmer Allen

Generation 11:  Stanley Elmer Allen m. Gertrude Matilda Hitchings (my grandparents)

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Heather Wilkinson Rojo, "Surname Saturday ~ LEWIS of Saco, Maine", Nutfield Genealogy, posted June 25, 2016,  (  http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2016/06/surname-saturday-lewis-of-saco-maine.html: accessed [access date]).