C. W. Lewis

C. W. LEWIS came into the West forty years ago, and has spent those years partly in Kansas and partly in Oklahoma. For the past six or seven years he has been a resident and business man of Hardtner, where he does an extensive grain business.

He was born near Washington, Iowa, March 13, 1865. His ancestors were Scotch-Welsh people who came to America and located in New York in colonial times. His grandfather, William Lewis, was born in New York in 1794 and lived in several states in the Ohio and Mississippi valleys, and died at Washington, Iowa, in 1869. He was a lifelong farmer by occupation.

William W. Lewis, father of C. W. Lewis, was born near Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1829. He became a farmer in Southern Ohio, and was one of the pioneer settlers in the vicinity of Washington, Iowa. In 1878 he transferred his home to Kansas and again became a pioneer, in the region of Pratt County, which he once served as a commissioner. He homesteaded 160 acres, took a timber claim of a quarter section, and lived on this land and developed it for ten years. He was the second postmaster at Naron, a village now known as Byers. After selling his Kansas interests he moved to Oklahoma, and retired to Belmont in that state in 1915. He was practically a lifelong republican, having joined the party when it was first organized. He was a member of the Masonic fraternity and was for many years a sincere and active member of the Christian Church. W. W. Lewis married first in Cincinnati, Ohio, Margaret Spencer. She died in Indiana, leaving one child, Ida, wife of Henry Burns, of Prague, Oklahoma, a retired farmer and a soldier in the Civil war. At Washington, Iowa, W. W. Lewis married Miss Susan Rogers, who was born in Pennsylvania, in 1841, and died at Alva, Oklahoma, in 1906. She became the mother of seven children: Margaret, wife of W. R. Dennison, a retired farmer at Alva, Oklahoma; Dempsey, in the lumber business at Hopeton, Oklahoma; Austin, a farmer and ranchman at Clayton, New Mexico; C. W. Lewis, fourth in age: Albert W., a grain and lumberman at Dacoma, Oklahoma; Carrie B., who died at the age of thirty years; and Laura, who died when twenty-five years old.

C. W. Lewis was educated in the public schools of Iowa County, Iowa, and was thirteen years old when his parents moved to Kansas. After that he gave all the assistance that he could to his father in developing the homestead, and remained with his parents to the age of twenty-one. He then took up farming for himself, and in 1892 moved to Oklahoma, three years after the original opening, and homesteaded 160 acres near Chandler in Lincoln County. He proved up his claim and lived on it for nine years, then selling it. Three years after that were spent in general employment at Alva, Oklahoma, after which he invested in lands in Western Woods County, and still owns 600 acres there and gives his active supervision to its management. In 1911 he removed to Hardtner, Kansas, where he built his modern home in 1914. He finds ample employment for his time and energies as manager of the Southwestern Elevator and Mercantile Company.

Mr. Lewis is a republican, a member of the Christian Church, and is affiliated with Cosmos Lodge, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, at Kiowa, Wichita Consistory of the Scottish Rite, Median Temple of the Mystic Shrine at Wichita, and with Hardtner Lodge of Odd Fellows, the Odd Fellows Encampment at Kiowa and Alva Camp of the Modern Woodmen of America.

In 1886, in Pratt County, Kansas, Mr. Lewis married Miss Clara A. Harrel. Her father. John M. Harrel, was born in Greene County, Indiana, and came to Pratt County, Kansas, in 1883. He homesteaded a claim and was a lawyer by profession. He fought as a soldier in the Union army during the Civil war, and served as the second postmaster of Nora, now Hopewell, Kansas. His death occurred at Perkins, Oklahoma. John M. Harrel married Elenora Neal, a native of Ohio, who died in Pratt County, Kansas. Mrs. Lewis was the oldest of their six children. Her brother Lovel is in the garage business at Cottage Grove, Oregon; Ralston Harrel is an engineer at San Francisco, California; Alta is the wife of W. E. Russell at Cyril, Oklahoma; Forney is a farmer at Cottage Grove, Oregon; and Albert is a steel worker living at Portland, Oregon.

Mrs. Lewis received her education in the rural schools of Pratt County. Mr. and Mrs. Lewis have four children. Roy G. is one of the two soldiers of the family. He was with the Expeditionary Forces in France as a member of Company Five of the First Regiment Motor Mechanics in the signal service. Guy H. is a sergeant in Company Fifteen of the First Motor Mechanics, signal service, and was in the First American War Zone in Lorraine and saw some of the heaviest fighting during the closing months of the war. Ora J., the third child, is the wife of Harmon Johnson, a farmer in Hardtner; Jay C. Lewis, the youngest child, is a farmer and is assistant to his father and resides at Hardtner.

Pages 2409-2410.