“Always deserved and received the respect”

The genealogist Charles Edward Banks reported that John and Thankful (Crowell) Lewis of Yarmouth had a baby on 19 Feb 1730.

According to a 1770 article in the Boston Evening-Post, because the infant was “bearing a similarity of both Sexes, it was disputed what apparel it should be dressed in, but ’twas at last agreed to dress it in Women’s.”

The parents had their child baptized by the name of Deborah. A few years later, the family moved to the town of Tisbury on Martha’s Vineyard.

In 1764 Deborah Lewis transitioned to male identity, taking the new first name of Francis. (The Boston Post-Boy, perhaps struggling to keep up with this news, spelled that name “Frances.”) He married a young woman named Anne Luce, and in November 1765 they had their first child.

The Lewises lived through the Revolutionary War and even the War of 1812. On 22 Jan 1823, the Columbian Centinel in Boston listed among its death notices:

In Tisbury, (M. Vineyard) Mr. Francis Lewis, aged 93

Other newspapers gave longer reports, starting that same day.

Boston Daily Advertiser, 22 January:

In Tisbury, (Martha’s Vineyard,) Mr Francis Lewis, aged 93—32 of which years he dressed as a woman, and was supposed to be such.

Essex Register, 22 January:

In Tisbury, (M. Vineyard) Mr Francis Lewis, aged 93—32 of which years he dressed as a woman, and was supposed to be such. After that, he took his proper apparel as a man, and passed the remainder of his life in the marriage state, and has left numerous descendants.

The Connecticut Courant for 28 January ran the longest form:

At Tisbury, (M[assachusett]s.) Mr. Francis Lewis, aged 93—32 of which years he dressed as a woman, and was supposed to be such. After that, he took his proper apparel as a man, and passed the remainder of his life in the marriage state, and has left numerous descendants. The family has always deserved and received the respect of those who knew it.

American newspapers reprinted Francis Lewis’s death notices as far south as Savannah.