Daniel Wood Lewis

As printed in 1909

DANIEL WOOD LEWIS.

The name of Daniel Wood Lewis is inseparably interwoven with the history of educational progress in Washington and it is therefore imperative that extended mention be made of him in this volume else the record would be considered incomplete by the many friends whom he has in this section of the state. Deeply interested in the profession to which he has largely devoted his life, his work in this connection has been of immeasurable value to the county, for he has held to high ideals in all of his professional service. He is now living in Pasadena, California, but in Washington county his circle of friends is almost as extensive as the circle of his acquaintances.

Professor Lewis was born near Fredericktown, Knox county, Ohio, on the 20th of October, 1835. His father, Griffith Lewis, was a native of western Pennsylvania, born March 12, 1808. The paternal grandfather was of Welsh and English descent, a man of good intellect and of sound judgment who was opposed to slavery and to war and in favor of education and temperance. His business interests were represented in farming and tanning. His son, Griffith Lewis, was but an infant at the time of the removal of the family to Knox county, Ohio, where he was reared. He became a farmer, lime burner and nurseryman and in following those pursuits made a good living for his family. He was married May 1, 1834, to Miss Anna Wood and unto them were born six children. His wife was of English and Dutch descent, her father being a successful farmer and a leader in his neighborhood. He was always on the right side of any moral question and was an able orthodox Quaker preacher. Five of his children became preachers and two others were exhorters. Both the grandmothers of Professor Lewis were women of ability and integrity, so that he has back of him a most honored ancestry. His father was a stanch opponent of the system of slavery and a stalwart advocate of the cause of temperance and in both regards the mother was a helpmate to him.

Daniel Wood Lewis attended the Friends and other private schools and also the country and village public schools in Ohio and Iowa. For several months he was a student in the high school at Tipton, Iowa, and also in Oberlin College, but did not graduate at either. He greatly broadened his knowledge by reading at home, by attending literary societies, Hstening to lectures and political speeches and also attending teachers' institutes and associations. He likewise pursued a four years' Chautauqua course, graduating in 1897, and then after a year of rest took the Chautauqua three years' course in English literature and history. He is likewise a graduate of the Eastman Business College, of Poughkeepsie, New York. He was only two years old when the family removed to Woodbury, in what is now Morrow county, Ohio, where his father conducted a hotel, and in 1840 a removal was made to North Lewisburg, Champaign county, Ohio, where they lived for thirteen years. In 1853 the father, mother and six children made their way westward to Cedar county, Iowa, and about ten years later the father sold his eight acres and removed to Story county, Iowa, settling three miles from the State Agricultural College. Professor Lewis, however, did not go there to live but on the first Monday in January, 1865, began his career in the city schools as principal of the third ward grammar school, at Muscatine, Iowa. Through his childhood days he was in ill health and in fact has never been physically strong. He was fond of play and especially delighted in swimming and skating and although he did not like bird work a considerable share of it in connection with the farm fell to his lot. However, he found pleasure in plowing and in driving a team hitched to wagon, sled or carriage. His passion, however was for reading and his mother often said that when he was interested in a book he would not notice even a thunder storm. He would ride the old family horse, Betty, or a colt, to attend a temperance or an anti-slavery lecture, or if he could not ride would walk. He also found pleasure in visiting the home of his relatives, especially the homes of his young cousins, and he was never addicted to gambling, drinking or smoking, a single cigar finishing any attempt to acquire the last named habit. Truth, too, was upon his lips and thus he grew to manhood, strong in those traits of character which in every community awaken confidence and regard.

As stated, Professor Lewis did not remove with the family to Story county, Iowa, but accepted instead the principalship of the third ward grammar school at Muscatine, and in the fall of 1868 became superintendent and principal of the high school in Washington, Iowa. His high school assistant in the first year was Mary Jane Hamilton, who had been recommended to him as "the best woman teacher in Iowa." During the succeeding two years Mr. Lewis had no assistant and Miss Hamilton taught the highest class of the grammar grade. In the ensuing vacation Mr. Lewis and Miss Hamilton were married and soon afterward went to Nebraska to teach the Winnebago Indians. Being again elected to their former positions, they returned and took up the work again, Mrs. Hamilton teaching eight years after their return, or fifteen years in all, while Professor Lewis remained as superintendent, et cetera, for twenty-one years longer, or twenty-four years in all, at the end of which time the family removed to Pasadena.

At the time of the Civil war Professor Lewis enlisted in the Thirty-fifth Iowa Infantry but was excused. He remained, however, a loyal advocate of the Union cause throughout the period of hostilities between the north and south. Devoting thirty-seven years of his life to teaching school he would never consent to become a candidate for office during that time. In 1901, however, following his removal to California, he was elected a member of the board of education at Pasadena. He drew a short term and in 1903 was elected for a full term of four years. This service was to him a labor of love and one which he greatly enjoyed, but the demands of his private business interests were such as to prevent him giving to the school work the time and attention required and he voluntarily retired from the board. In 1893 he declined a reelection as supervising principal of the city schools of Washington, Iowa, and also resigned the following positions: secretary of the school board on which he had served for eighteen years; treasurer of the Iowa state teachers association, after twenty-four years service; trustee of the city public library, having served from its founding; and president of the Washington County Bible Society, which made him a life director of the American Bible Society. After the departure of Professor Lewis and his family for the Pacific coast graduates of the Washington school, teachers and friends, met in a very interesting reunion, and in 1900, when the family returned to Washington for a visit, another reunion was held in his honor, on which occasion three hundred and fifty graduates were present.

In both Muscatine and in Washington Professor Lewis was a Good Templar and was also a member of the Iowa Legion of Honor in Washington, but is not identified with any secret societies at the present time. In politics he has been an abolitionist and free boiler, a free democrat and a republican. When he was young he read and listened and later talked and wrote upon political questions. After he became a voter he made many political speeches and while teaching would frequently speak at school houses and public halls on Friday or Saturday evenings, advocating protective tariff and other prominent issues of the party. In 1896 he took an active part in opposition to the free coinage of silver, not waiting for the action of the national convention upon that question. He is a prohibitionist in principle, but does not vote with the prohibition party, beHeving that every citizen should have an opportunity to vote his principles on the temperance question without having his other political principles involved therein. He was reared a strict Friend, or Quaker. His parents inherited and believed the principles and doctrines of the Society of Friends and taught them diligently to their children. For many years Professor Lewis affiliated with the Methodist church, but is now a member of the First Friends church, in Pasadena, in which he is serving as an elder and Sunday school teacher. He is a man of broad views, unbiased by a narrow sectarianism, and rejoices at the increasing friendly feeling among members of the Christian churches.

The home life of Professor Lewis has been largely of an ideal character. His marriage to Miss Mary Jane Hamilton was celebrated at her family home, two and a half miles from Washington, Iowa, July 26, 1871'. Her parents were Scotch-Irish Presbyterians from Virginia. The family, including two sons and two daughters, removed from Menard county, Illinois, to Louisa county, Iowa, in the fall of 1853 and to Washington the following spring. The father'and mother died only a few weeks apart in 1881. John C. Hamilton, the eldest son, now lives in Pasadena, California, his son, Arthur L. Hamilton, being superintendent of the city schools there, while his daughter, Kate Hamilton, is a teacher. The husband of another sister, Myrtle Owen, is a professor in the Pasadena high school. Mrs. Mary H. Lewis and her sister, Sarah M. Hamilton, were graduates of the normal department of the Iowa State University. Sarah and her brother, William R. Hamilton, still live in Washington, Iowa. John C. Hamilton's second daughter, Sarah E., is a bookkeeper in a wholesale house in Los Angeles. The second son, Fred Hamilton, died a few years ago in Arkansas. The third son, William Burrel! Hamilton, is in Pasadena. Besides teaching in Washington and Winnebago, Iowa, Mrs. Lewis taught several terms in country schools and a year in Iowa City. She also taught a young ladies' class in Sunday school and for several years was an instructor in the Washington County Teachers Institute, her teaching at all times being very satisfactory. In Pasadena, after being a member for one year of the Washington Heights Club, she was elected vice president and served for about half a year as president. She was then elected president and reelected the next year. Her last paper and address in 1907 were on the subject of peace and she handled the question so instructively and entertainingly that she was requested in 1908 to prepare another paper on the progress of peace. This was praised by every person who heard it. After her retirement from the presidency of the club Mrs. Lewis was made a member of the new" program committee — an arduous service well performed. On the evening of December 5, 1908, she was apparently as well as usual but about seven o'clock on Sunday morning was attacked with angina pectoris. While medical help was immediately summoned, at eight o'clock she had breathed her last. Her remains were interred in Mountain View cemetery. The only child of that marriage. Miss Pauline Lewis, is acting as her father's, housekeeper. She was born in Washington, Iowa, August 13, 1880, e7rifr!ied school in due time, passed through consecutive grades and was in the eighth grade work at the time of

HISTORY OF ASllI.\(;TOX COLWT 609 the removal to Pasadena. Here she rested for a time and in 1894 reentered school, being graduated from the high school in 1900. She has studied piano in both Washington and Pasadena and has been a member of the Symphony Club and the Ensemble Class. She has taken part in dramatic and musical entertainments with good success and is now a teacher of the piano in a young ladies classical school, but most of her thirty pupils in the winter of 1908-09 were private ones. She joined the Washington Heights Club before her mother became a member and is still an honorary member thereof. She is also an active member of the Shakespeare Club of five hundred members and is on the program committee. She belongs to the Presbyterian church and to the Young Woman's Christian Association, acting as pianist of the latter.

Professor Lewis while in California attended many teachers associations, taught in many teachers institutes and for several years in succession was conductor in the Washington County Normal Institute. Following his removal to Pasadena he took care of his fruit farm for several years. In January. 1897, he was elected a director of the North Pasadena Land & Water Company and in April of the same year was chosen its secretary to fill a vacancy, beginning his work on the ist of May. He voluntarily retired from the directorship at the end of ten years, but is still acting as secretary, although he is now nearly seventy-four years of age. He has disposed of his ranch and its equipments and makes his home in Pasadena. His has been an active life and one of great usefulness, winning him the honor, confidence and respect of all who know him.

As printed in History of Washington County, Iowa from the first white settlements to 1908. Also biographical sketches of some prominent citizens of the county (1909). See the original pages. Wording is the original; obvious scanning errors have been corrected, and a few may remain.