The Legacy of Francis Lewis

I’ve written a couple of times about Deborah Lewis, a child born to John and Thankful (Crowell) Lewis of Yarmouth in 1730. The family soon moved to Tisbury on Martha’s Vineyard.

In the summer of 1764, still living on the island, Lewis made a major change. Adopting the name Francis Lewis, he began living as a man. He married a young widow, Anne Luce, and they had at least five children between 1765 and 1782.

Francis Lewis lived through the Revolution, the new Massachusetts and U.S. Constitution, the Jeffersonian ascendancy, and the War of 1812. He died in 1823, a ninety-three-year-old great-grandfather.

Francis Lewis is an example of a transgender American well before hormone treatment and gender-change surgery became available (over sixty years ago now). At birth he was perceived as “bearing a similarity of both Sexes,” but his family and local authorities decided he was a girl. He was listed in vital records as female and had the limited rights of a woman well into adulthood. We don’t have his account of those first thirty years, or of his last sixty years, but we can presume the decades after 1764 were more comfortable and happy for him.

Currently, according to a draft memo reported by the New York Times, officials in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services are trying to establish that: “Sex means a person’s status as male or female based on immutable biological traits identifiable by or before birth. . . . The sex listed on a person’s birth certificate, as originally issued, shall constitute definitive proof of a person’s sex unless rebutted by reliable genetic evidence.”

Francis Lewis was identified at birth as a female and listed as such on his society’s equivalent of a birth certificate. But that society was able to recognize that designation as incorrect—even with no knowledge of “reliable genetic evidence.” The proposed H.H.S. approach would make us go backward at least two and a half centuries.

Closer to home, we in Massachusetts are faced with a referendum, this year’s Question 3, which would revoke protections from discrimination against transgender people. Again, I think of Francis Lewis. According to his death notice, Lewis’s “family has always deserved and received the respect of those who knew it.” Transgender people deserve the same respect from us today.

“Deserved and received the respect”

On 19 Feb 1730, John and Thankful (Crowell) Lewis of Yarmouth (or Cape Cod) had a baby. According to an item in the 22 Jan 1770 Boston Evening-Post:

bearing a similarity of both Sexes, it was disputed what apparel it [the child] should be dressed in, but ’twas at last agreed to dress it in Women’s, and it was baptised by the name of Deborah

Within a few years, the family moved to Tisbury on Martha’s Vineyard.

In the summer of 1764, the Evening-Post reported that Deborah Lewis

who, till within a few Days since, constantly appeared in the Female Dress, and was always supposed to be one of the Sex, suddenly threw off that Garb, and assumed the Habit of a Man; and sufficiently to demonstrate the Reality of this last Appearance, is on the Point of marrying a Widow Woman.

On 16 August, Deborah Lewis, now known as Francis Lewis, married Anne Luce.

Luce was just about to turn twenty-four, and I haven’t seen evidence of an earlier marriage on her part. I also see no evidence of the newspaper’s claim that she had lodged with Deborah Lewis and ”found herself to be with child.” The couple’s first documented child was born in November 1765, a year after the marriage, with four more coming by August 1782.

Almost sixty years later, in January 1823, the Providence Gazette reportedly ran this death notice:

DIED,—…
In Tisbury, (Martha’s Vineyard,) Mr. Francis Lewis, ag. 93—32 [sic] 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.

Francis Lewis’s life story was obviously unusual, and thus a topic of wide interest. The newspaper items I’ve quoted were reprinted in several other newspapers, including the Pennsylvania Gazette, New-York Journal, Newport Mercury, New-Hampshire Gazette, and Boston Daily Advertiser.

On the other hand, Revolutionary-era Americans could obviously accept that a person first thought to be female, raised as a girl, and living as a woman into young adulthood could actually be a male who “deserved and received the respect” of his neighbors.

The North Carolina’s recent H.B.2 law and similar measures in other states today presume otherwise.

“32 of which years he dressed as a woman”

From the 6 August 1764 Boston Evening-Post:

We hear from the Vineyard, that one Deborah Lewis, of that Place, about 32 Years of Age, who, till within a few Days since, constantly appeared in the Female Dress, and was always supposed to be one of the Sex, suddenly threw off that Garb, and assumed the Habit of a Man; and sufficiently to demonstrate the Reality of this last Appearance, is on the Point of marrying a Widow Woman.

This item was reportedly reprinted in the Pennsylvania Gazette and possibly elsewhere.

From the 22 Jan 1770 Boston Evening-Post, datelined “Hartford” (and therefore probably first printed in that town’s newspaper):

We are credibly informed, that about 23 [sic] years ago a child was born in the South Part of the Massachusetts-Bay, who 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, and it was baptised by the name of Deborah; this person grew up, and till lately passed for a woman; but having for some time past lodged with one of that Sex, the latter found herself to be with child, and has swore the former to be the Father of it.—The consequence has been that they are married together, and the Father instead of his former name, was married by that of Deborah Francis Lewis.

That article was reprinted in several American newspapers, including the Pennsylvania Gazette, New-York Journal, Newport Mercury, and New-Hampshire Gazette.

From the 22 Jan 1823 Boston Daily Advertiser:

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

That item was also published in several papers and magazines. The 12 Feb 1823 Geneva (New York) Gazette reportedly continued the line: “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.” That might have appeared earlier in the 5 Feb 1823 Providence Gazette.

The story of Deborah/Francis Lewis isn’t totally unknown. Alfred Young came across the Pennsylvania Gazette references and a Martha’s Vineyard genealogy in his research on Deborah Sampson and shared them with Thomas A. Foster, who noted Lewis in Long Before Stonewall. Marya C. Myers quoted the Newport news item in a 2006 issue of American Genealogist. So I’m just adding some references from Massachusetts newspapers to the pile.

Back in 1911 the Martha’s Vineyard genealogist Charles Edward Banks identified Francis Lewis’s parents as John and Thankful (Crowell) Lewis of Yarmouth. Banks said Lewis was born as Deborah on 19 Feb 1730 (two years off the age stated in the first article above), and came to Tisbury, Martha’s Vineyard, as a child.

According to Banks, ten days after the first article above, Francis Lewis married Anne Luce, who was just about to turn twenty-four; she does not appear to have been a widow. They had five children together between November 1765 and August 1782. Banks noted no child as arriving within nine months of their marriage. But of the whole family, only the eldest daughter’s marriage appears in the published Tisbury vital records.