The Bluffton news. [volume] (Bluffton, Ohio) 1875-current, 1948-12-23

related that he mostly worked for
others.
CHAMP WooD CUTTER
Once he cut and corded 100 cords
of wood in q days; on one day he
eradeled six acres of wheat; and an
accurate account he kept revealed
that during his chopping, clearing
days he had cleared a total of 217
acres of northeastern Allen County
land.
Lewis was said to have been an
expert marksman and woodsman,
winning many prizes at shooting
matches and killing in one season,
Is deer and a bear. Both deer and
bears were plentiful in the Allen
County forest during the 1905.
Uncle Billy Lewis war record kept
up the tradition of his family. His
grandfather had been in the Revolu-
tion and his father in the War of
1912. Lewis himself enlisted in Co.
B, 61st Ohio Volunteer Infantry at
the break of the Civil War and
served until a wagon upset and fell
on him in the second battle of Bull
Run. Discharged as no longer fit
for service, he enlisted again in 1865
and remained until the end of the
war.
One son, James B. Lewis (ater
blind), enlisted in the same COM
pany and regiment and served
through the war between the states,
Another son, William J. Lewis, be-
came Bluffton stonemason and an
other, George H. Lewis, a partner
with his father in the brick plant
POPULAR AND RESPECTED
So Uncle Billy Lewis became a
tradition i'm Bluffton and a "charac-
ter" in the neighborhood--but a
lovable one, we'll respected and quite
popular, with a smile and good word
for everyone he met, The boy who
had been farmed out when a kid in
ragged knee breches, had no hat
until he was Is and only two pairs
of "boughten" shoes before he was
old enough to vote, wound up owning
five acres of land in the heart of
Bluffton, four houses and lots, and a
little farm over the line in Hancock
County.
So goes the legend of Uncle Billy
Lewis, never senator nor governor,
nor even builder of a railroad en-
pire, but just common citizen who
held one or two minor township or
village offices in his lifetime and
like Abou Ben Adem, had his
name written by an angel pretty
close to the top of the list.
The cobwebs of 125 years have
been brushed away and the dust
blown off and the curtain of obscur-
ity drawn back only to give you and
you and you, who perhaps measure
off calico, weight out prunes or put
patches on blown-out automobile
tubes behind the bricks he burnt, a
peek into the past at one of your
own long forgotten. ,
So if you chance to meet Uncle
Billy's ghost some quiet, dark night,
lowering lovingly before some old
brick building, let you heart go out
to it and call it "brother'-it just
is the restless wrath of one who
went sooner than you, and me who
retells it, out of the minds and mem
ories of men.
And whose timber did Uncle Billy
cut and stack into firewood? That
of Jacob and Bud Gaskel, Hugh Lee,
John Carnahan, John McHenry, D.
w. Goble, Sam Viers, John Amstutz
and John Steiner, all of whom lived
at Croghan's Post Office in the
early 1905.
Other land he helped to clear was
that of Samuel DeFord, Thomas
Elder, Daniel L. Goble, John s.
Stager and Christian Stoner, all in
section 2, just west of the hamlet;
Elias Hutchison, Jacob Deppler,
Henry Carter and Josiah Gaskel,
section II, beneath section q; John
Ohler, Green McHenry, and John
Watson, south of town-an were
there in 1888 to 1886.