One time, while telling of my ancestor, General Lewis, whose statue stands by the State Capitol in Richmond, a friend of mine assured me that the only reason I was now in this country was that at the time these ancestors came here there were no immigration laws. This was a good joke, but true, and many of us who get violent and want to deport aliens and also bait them and intimidate them, might look into our family trees a little.

Here again we see an angle of American history that has blinded a lot of us. For the Lewises of Virginia—and there were several families of them—came into the colony fighting, and are still doing it all over the country. The question is, whether or not the American people carrying out the "fight" tradition, may not fight themselves to death.

And the picture of people of small economic income and hard living conditions now dwelling in the memories of history, and being flattered and misled and fooled is a disappointing one. For the time my mind is fixed on Virginia, where this racket is used on the people in grand fashion. Strangely enough, most of these forces who are always exhorting the common people to respect their noble forefathers are stupid and ignorant. I can think of a half dozen in very high places—men who are supposed to be very wise, but who are only crabbed old bores.

But back to General Lewis, my 3-gt. grandfather, an Indian fighter, co-worker and officer with Washington, pioneer and first-class fighting man. What was his history? His people before him were forced out of France like the Maurys and others, by a King who wanted their property. They had stayed in England a short while, had slipped into Wales, were pushed out of there, and then they had gone to Ireland. They could not stay long in Ireland either, and they fled to America.

The general's father, John Lewis, was born in Donegal, and so was the general. I visited there soon after the World War, and I wondered why anyone should leave so beautiful a place. The answer is to be found in the charges of high crimes against my 4-gt. grandfather, which makes me reflect on the comment of my friend about there being no immigration laws. For the said John Lewis did kill (the Crown said "did murder") one Irish Lord; and except for his act this book never would have been written.

But I take the historical report, probably written with a bias in favor of the Lewis Family.

"The immigration of John Lewis to Virginia was the result of one of those bloody affrays" (Lewis had a leasehold estate in addition to the land he owned). . . . "A nobleman of profligate habits and ungoverned passions . . . attempted by the aid of a band of ruffians" to take possession of the property occupied by Lewis. The Lord attacked. A brother of Lewis was killed, his wife wounded. John Lewis rushed out of the house. [Howe, p. 181]

Some accounts say Lewis was armed, and some say not; but all agree up to this point. But let us go on, for the fight is not half over:

"Lewis, who had up to this time acted on the defensive, seeing the blood stream from the hand of his wife, and his expiring brother weltering in his blood, became enraged, furious, and, seizing his shillelagh, he rushed from the cottage, determined to avenge the wrong and to sell his life as dearly as possible. The first person he encountered was the young Lord, whom he despatched at a single blow, cleaving in twain his skull (Sir Mungo Campbell is the Lord whose noble head got clave in twain by my ancestor), and scattered his brains upon himself and the posse. The next person he met was the steward, who shared the fate of his master." [History of Augusta County, Peyton]

All this happened around the year 1728 or 1729; immediately with all his family and thirty retainers—and undoubtedly armed to the teeth, they fought their way to the Irish coast. Lewis seems to have realized, however, that he was endangering his whole family, for the Crown officers were hot after him.

From the Port of Donegal he took the first ship that sailed, hoping to put in at Oporto, Portugal, where he had a brother-in-law. But his ship sailed a long time, probably a year or two, on a long voyage here and there over the world. He arrived in Oporto in the last months of 1729. Here he found his family had gone to Philadelphia. He did not reach them until 1731; he had been a fugitive from justice three years. Not only the Crown, but the powerful families of the Irish nobility had searched high and low for him in all the ports of the world.

When John Lewis arrived in Philadelphia, little Andy was four years of age, a healthy strapping youngster. The family had no money; they were poor, and John Lewis did not know he would be successful in establishing history over a great area of Virginia, nor that his little Andy would become a famous general of the Indian wars and would serve in the Revolution, nor that four other sons would be officers and soldiers against the British King.

Lewis struck for the forest of Virginia, and in 1732, two miles from Staunton, which he later founded, he built "Fort Lewis."

He called his place "Bellefonte" from, as Peyton said, "a bold bright spring issuing from the hillside."

"He was the first to occupy the scene; no axe had ever before rung through the forest; no spade had ever turned up that soil; nature had delivered it into his hands in its untouched virginity."

These facts are mentioned not for the purpose of vilifying our early Americans, but merely to show that even the best of us have ancestors who were not ping-pong players. The early Americans sometime had provocation for their offenses and sometimes they did not. In any event, they were bold, and were looked down upon by those in power. And there are similar John Lewises today, men who are bold, who are cleaving right and left the skulls of modern Lord Sir Mungo Campbells.

You must cleave your Lords and Masters right on the home lot—but you need not kill them. Just use your brains, and theirs will scatter.

But back to the original John Lewis. No doubt he had due provocation, and most of us would have done the same under the circumstances. At any rate, after awhile he was pardoned by the King, the charges and indictments were forgotten, and he was granted many leagues of land. But if he had been caught at first, he would surely have been hanged by his neck until dead.

High on the hill of Bellafonte he is buried. There is a wild cold wind blowing. From this place that once was a virgin forest, one can see the bare lands that have been farmed close to death. The city of Staunton which he founded seems close enough to reach with the hand. A power line runs through the valley, bringing electricity—at a cost three times its value.

His headstone has almost crumbled, and the words once chiseled there are no longer legible. But these words have been transferred to a flat slab over his body, and they are:

Here lies the remains of
John Lewis
Who slew the Irish Lord

and furnished Five Sons to fight the battles of
The American Revolution.

He was a brave man, a true patriot and a firm friend of
liberty—throughout the world.
Just as Lynch is an example of "an indigent person," forced into this country "sold on the block to the highest bidder," who by economic opportunity seemed to become as good a citizen as one might find, so was the Lewis family an example of a group fleeing as fugitives from justice, who turned out to be among the makers of America.

That is the reason that boasting on one hand, or the covering up on the other, of our American forebears, is nonsense. It is equally disgusting to see certain people who consider themselves better by blood today, whose only superiority is economic; and to hear these self-made upper-crusters indulge in a lot of sin-talk about others who have less in money.

Sin. Those who commit social derelictions today are like some of our unfortunate ancestors of yesterday. That is the reason we ought to view crime and violations of our codes as an expression of the effects of environment. Lack of opportunity is the sin-breeder, whether in the poverty of the city slums, or poverty of the eroded hillsides.

The wretched people who live all about us today could be equally transformed and made happy and brave and useful, with the opportunities of a New World. But this inner discovery of a New World will not be the task of navigators.

But fighting, not sin nor navigation, is the job of the Lewises. And as John Lewis left the old, to go to the new, so I left the new to go to the old. But before I left, I had to be trained, although I did not get the actual practical experience that John Lewis of old did, before he fled to America.