caption relations death_date death_place religion birth_place children image_size nationality birth_date alt spouse image article_title name occupation death_cause
c.h. lewis john h. couch , father-in-law january 5 , 1897 portland , oregon , united states christian -lrb- episcopalian -rrb- cranbury , new jersey 11 250px u.s. december 22 , 1826 formal serious-looking man of about 60 dressed in a dark suit portrait jacket and white collar . nearly bald , he has , a neatly trimmed , short gray beard . head and shoulders , of a clementine couch cicero hunt lewis.jpg cicero hunt lewis
 cicero hunt lewis merchant , investor stroke
cicero hunt lewis

cicero hunt lewis -lrb- 1826 -- 1897 -rrb- was a prominent merchant and investor in portland in the u.s. state of oregon during the second half of the 19th century .
born in new jersey , lewis and a friend , lucius allen , traveled across the continent in 1851 to open a dry goods and grocery store in what was then a frontier town of about 800 people living along the west bank of the willamette river .
by 1880 , their firm , allen & lewis , had become one of the leading wholesale grocery companies on the west coast .
supporting transportation projects that affected his business , he was a member of the portland river channel improvement committee in the 1860s , invested in the oregon railway and navigation company in the 1870s , and was appointed to the original port of portland commission in the 1890s .
he helped form a local subscription library in the 1860s , and he was named to the city 's first water board in the 1880s .
married to clementine couch , daughter of another prominent portland pioneer , lewis fathered 11 children and after 1881 lived in a large , elegantly furnished house within walking distance of his office .
he spent most of his time at work or at home , and had few other interests aside from church and charitable donations .
he died in 1897 while walking to work on a saturday afternoon .
