The Empty Chair: Part 4, The Next Generation

 

George Hallam Lewis, 1862

This is the first in a series of blogs about another ancestor of mine. He wasn’t famous. He was just another one of the 650,000 soldiers who died in the Civil War. My family’s memory of him lasts, though, because of his early death.

George is the first ancestor that I have a connection to through family artifacts. Have a number of things that belonged to him, such as several books, a photograph he had taken before he left for the war, and a few other items. Two letters remain, one he wrote to his wife back home, and another written by his sergeant to my great great grandmother after he died. Those will come in a later post.

My family has a long memory. The Lewis family has been in Connecticut since the founding of the colony in the 1630's. In the Lewis line, my immigrant 9 gr. grandfather, William Lewis, settled in Farmington. The family stayed there for several generations before my branch of the family moved to the newly settled Wallingford in 1670. In Meriden, where generations of the Lewis family were born, lived, and died, family houses still stand. There is a street named after George's uncle, I.C. Lewis. Other branches of my family have been in Connecticut for centuries, so combined, it makes for a long memory. I have been aware of George my entire life, and grew up with objects from him. In an odd way, he has been a presence throughout my entire life, even though he died almost a century before I was born. My middle name is his last name.

My great great grandfather, George Hallam Lewis, was born on January 16, 1833 in my hometown, Meriden, Connecticut. His parents were Partrick and Mary Lewis. Partrick is the ancestor I wrote about in a series of blog posts a couple of years ago. His business went bankrupt and he travelled west to Iowa to homestead, and instead became deathly ill and died in Burlington, Iowa. George would have had only faint memories of his father since he was just four years old when he left in 1837.

I.C. Lewis teapot, 1848-52

George’s name is an interesting place to start. “George” is a very common name. Many parents named their sons “George” or “George Washington Xxxxxx” in honor of our first President. But his middle name has intrigued me for a long time. I have discovered the source, however, in the world of poetry. Apparently a close friend of Alfred Lord Tennyson was a poet named Arthur Hallam. He was engaged to Tennyson’s sister, and there was a scandal of sorts surrounding the engagement. Hallam was a published poet, and had a following.

Arthur Henry Hallam was not long to live, however. He died suddenly on September 15, 1833 in Vienna of apoplexy resulting from a congenital malformation of the brain. He was mourned in the world of poetry. The timing with George’s birth must be more that a coincidence, with George being born only a few months earlier.

What probably happened was Partrick and Mary added the middle name “Hallam” to George’s name in memory of a poet who was memorialized in Tennyson’s later, much loved poem “In Memoriam.” Hallam was a romantic poet like Tennyson. His poems bear the same romantic feelings found in poets of that period.

It would not be surprising if Partrick and Mary were familiar with Hallam’s poetry. Given the timing of his death and George’s middle name it seems certain.

Isaac C. Lewis in later life.

I.C. Lewis trademark

George lived in East Meriden. In 1850, at the age of 17, he was living in the large household of his uncle, Isaac C. Lewis, who was able to thrive in the same trade that his older brother Patrick had failed in. Isaac C. Lewis went on to help found the Meriden Britannia Company, which became International Silver Company.

George's signature in the book on horses

I.C. Lewis became a surrogate father for George. We will see in a subsequent post how Isaac felt responsible for his nephew.

Colorful frontispiece to Sartain's Magazine

My family has several books that belonged to George. One is a popular book on horses from 1854. Another is an 1852 bound volume of a popular magazine. Monthly magazines were very popular, providing new reading material. Bound volumes such as this were prized long after they were published. This particular volume is the January-June, 1852 issues of Sartain's Magazine of Literature and Art, which he acquired in 1855. It is filled with poetry, short stories, and travel accounts from Europe.

One last book is a biography of the Empress Josephine given to Elizabeth in 1851, the year before they were married.

George and Elizabeth had four children:

Josephine Elizabeth (1854-1906)

George F. (1855-1921

Samuel Clinton (1857-1939)

Wilbur Alton (1861-1886) 

All were obviously young when their father left for the war in the summer of 1862.

Next time: George leaves for the war.