Monday, June 16, 2008
Gen. Lewis fought French, British
Tom Angleberger
The New River Valley-based reporter answers your questions Mondays in his column, What's on Your Mind?
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Q: Who was Andrew Lewis, that he was important enough to have Interstate 81 bear his name? At the Salem Civic Center there is a huge portrait of Andrew Lewis in uniform, but no one there seemed to know a thing about it or this gentleman. Can you enlighten us?
-- Gretchen Swartz, Fincastle
A: I always like to get my answers straight from the source. Unfortunately, Andrew Lewis died 226 years ago.
So, I asked his ghost.
Eddie Goode portrays Andrew Lewis in the Salem Historical Society's annual Halloween ghost walk. Goode, a former Explore Park employee, even puts on an Irish brogue to bring Lewis' ghost to life.
"Why didn't ya name it after me," Lewis says, through Goode. "Y'know it was my plantation."
Lewis might well wonder why Salem got named Salem and not Lewisville. Lewisburg, W.Va., was named after Lewis and his brother, but for some reason he got snubbed by Salem, much of which was built on his huge plantation, Richfield.
But Lewis wasn't just a landowner, he was a forefather.
Born in Ireland in 1720, his family landed in the Augusta County area in 1738, according to Goode.
The Lewises were part of the Irish Protestant influx that settled much of Western Virginia.
"Lewis was right there in the middle of it. He and his father and his brother started surveying," Goode said.
But before long the French and Indian War began and Lewis went to battle. He was captured by the French and kept as a prisoner of war.
After he was freed, he returned to Virginia and settled down here in the Big Lick area. His home, on the west end of Salem, was near the present day Yokohama tire building.
But he wasn't much for staying home. In the early 1770s, he led militias to fight Indians along with other men you might have heard of, William Fleming and Christiansburg's namesake William Christian.
Then came the Revolutionary War and Lewis fought in that one, too -- personally sending the king's governor off with a cannon blast. After that he served as a supply officer.
"The Cause requires your Aid -- No one more sincerely wishes it than I do," George Washington wrote in a letter to Lewis in 1777, fearful that Lewis would resign after being passed over for promotion to major general.
But Lewis kept on until 1781. Now in his 60s, he was done fighting and headed back to Salem. He died on the way, not living to see the colonists' victory at Yorktown. He was buried on his Salem plantation. More than a century later he was reinterred in Salem's East Hill Cemetery.
If he had lived, said Goode, "he would have been very instrumental in Virginia or USA politics."
Instead, "he just kind of faded from view."
But every Halloween, he fades back into view to remind us of his role in shaping our state and fighting for our freedom.
To the point of your question about I-81, the Virginia General Assembly designated roughly 80 miles of the highway from Rockbridge County to southern Roanoke County the Andrew Lewis Memorial Highway in 2001 via a bill introduced by Del. Morgan Griffith (R-Salem), and inspired by another fan of Lewis, retired Salem physician Richard Fisher.
(In the meantime, you might learn much more about Lewis by reading Patricia Givens Johnston's book about him, which is available at the Salem Historical Society.)
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A footnote to a footnote: The recent question about the Roanoke connection to the Lindbergh kidnapping, brought a call from Fran Davis of Roanoke.
Back in 1933, she told me, when she and her baby sister were living on New York Avenue, her family had its own brief brush with the Lindbergh kidnapping case.
"The FBI came to the door ... they said they heard that we had the Lindbergh baby at the house and they wanted to come in," recalled Davis.
"My mother said her baby ... did look like the Lindbergh baby with the big, yellow curls, but that it was a girl not a boy."
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An addition to a list: I've heard from two more local eBay services. SML Mini Shops in Moneta will help you auction off your stuff online. And General Imports of Salem will do the same with your automobile. "We eBay all kinds of cars," Brenda Bower told me.
The last word: I've been getting some complaints lately about my e-mail address not working. The correct address is woym@roanoke.com. The "woym" stands for What's On Your Mind, if that helps any.
E-mail is my preferred way of getting new questions, but if you'd rather use a phone, call 777-6476 and leave a message on my voice mail.
The big problem I have with the telephone is hearing your names clearly. And if I can't hear it, I certainly can't spell it. So please say your name nice and slow and then spell it out for me, even if it's Joe Smith. And then leave me your location and your question.
Look for Tom Angleberger's column on Mondays.
