“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.

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.

Sunken Treasure News

Here are a couple of news items from the shipwreck desk.

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute announced that in late 2015 its submersible robot REMUS 6000, operating from a Colombian navy ship, discovered a wreck buried on the Atlantic seabed.

The submersible also delivered footage showing that the ship carried “bronze cannons still have ornate dolphins engraved on them.” That served to identify it as the San José, a Spanish galleon carrying “gold, silver and emeralds” when British ships attacked and sunk it in 1708, as shown above.

How much gold, silver, and jewels? That cargo is estimated to be worth $4 to $17 billion today. With so much money at stake, there are disputes between the government of Colombia, an U.S. company called Sea Search Armada that claims to have found the same wreck in 1981, and possibly the government of Spain. That’s why the Woods Hole institute (which makes no financial claim on the find) kept the news secret until this month.

Closer to home is the wreck of the pirate ship Whydah in 1717. Earlier this year, the Whydah Pirate Museum in Yarmouth displayed a bone fragment recovered in “a large concretion” of fused material from the wreck. Forensic scientists were going to extract D.N.A. from the bone and compare it to a descendant of the ship’s captain, Samuel Bellamy.

This month the genetic results came back. There wasn’t a match with the Bellamy line (presumably the Y chromosome). Instead, the bone comes from “a man with general ties to the Eastern Mediterranean area.”

At the same time, the museum touted “new X-rays and thermo-imaging” of the concretion that the bone fragment came from. Those revealed that the pirate “was partially clothed, and believed to be carrying what appears to be treasure in his pocket.” What “treasure” means is unclear.

It’s estimated that the Whydah carried $120 million worth of gold and silver. (Only $120 million?) So far marine archeologists have recovered some millions’ worth along with sixty cannon and other artifacts. Many of those items, along with the concretion at issue, are on display at the museum this summer.

“Thare went 2100 on Dogster hill”

Joshua Gray (1743-1791) was born in North Yarmouth, in what is now Maine. His mother died when he was two, so he was raised in Yarmouth, Massachusetts, by his father’s sister, Hannah Mallett—supposedly because that town on Cape Cod was safer from attacks by aggrieved natives.

In 1766, Joshua married a local girl, Mary Hedge (1745-1822). A couple of years later the uncle who helped raise Joshua married Mary’s mother, both having been widowed. The uncle died a short time later, but for a while it was a tight little family. [Mary and I share common ancestors, so I’m part of the very extended family.]

When the Revolutionary War began, Joshua and Mary Gary had five children: Thomas, born in 1766 less than seven months after the couple’s marriage; Hannah; Sarah; Mary; and Phebe, born 10 Mar 1775 in the neighboring town of Barnstable.

That fall Joshua Gray was back in Barnstable, captain of a Massachusetts company guarding the town from attack by sea from July to December. In the winter of 1776, his militia company was called up to strengthen the siege lines around Boston. Capt. Gray was on duty during the Continental Army’s final push onto the Dorchester peninsula, which he described in letters to his wife:

Roxbaury Camp March 5: 1776

My Dear I Recevd your Letter 29 of Febury which in it I under stand that you and the children are all well which I Desiar to Beless god for and now Taken this opportunity to Let you No that Through marcy and Goodness of god I am a Live and well and I Desiar to Bless god for so gate a favur

march th 2 Day at night we Begain to fire Shot and Bumbard the Town of Borston and a Sunday Night Keep up the same fire

Munday morning I went on main Guarg In Roxbury Fort and at 7 at night Thair Begain a have fire and Bumbard on Both sides Bumbs and shot flue 6 and 7 at a time

the same Night Thare went 2100 on Dogster hill and att three aClock Nigt thay was Releved with 3000 and But a littel Damege Dun thare 2 men killed 5 or 6 wounded in the Whole of our Camps this Ends the 5 Day of march

march the 8, 1776 and Now we have got fortifyed on Dogster hill verey strong have Bulte to forts on Dogster hill and Cannan and Mortes Plast thair all Readey to Bumbard

(Ahem. That would be, “We have got fortified on Dorchester hill very strong; have built two forts on Dorchester hill, and cannon and mortars placed there all ready to bombard.”)

my Dear Keep up good Courrige hoping we shall Return home in Due time

I have some sick in my Company the men Names are as followes Lewies Thacher: Benoni Studley: Nathal. Hallet Miller Whilden has got a Bad Cofe/ at this Time

Dutey is werey Hard half of my People are on Dutey at a time —

and Now my Dear hoping these Lines will find you and The children all will and all friends give my Love to mother and Brother and Sister and all frinds Brother Hedge is well Brother hedge from Plymouth is hear Now and being in hast I must conclude you Loveing husband untill Death

And a few days later:

Roxbuary Camps March 11: 1776

My Dear The Tender Regards I have for you and the children wont Let me mis a oppertunity of Righting to you to Let you know that I am in health which I Desiar to Bless god for and hoping these Lines will find you and children the same my Dear

I understand by mr Baker That Thomas had the mumps and one of the Gales had Burnt her But Boath was Better

my Dear keep up good Corauge I hope I shall Return home in Due time

I would have Thomas see to things and not Let them sufer and Ezra [apparently a slave] and make him mind and Due his Dutey

Their was a havey Cannading Last Saturday Night which was 9[?] Instant thay firing to Dogster hill they kill four of our men at one shot and that was the most Damage we Recevid

our People Pickup [?] five or six hundred cannon Balls the Next Day

the shiping in Boston seems to be in a moving Postour one half is Gown Down Bilow the Castal

my Dear Right as ofen as you can couvantley so as I may hear from you so conclud your kind and Loving husband till Death

Joshua Gray

P.S. Remimber me to mother and to all frinds That Take Pains to aske after me.

On 17 March the British fleet sailed away. Four days later, Capt. Gray received orders to take his company onto the Dorchester peninsula to relieve others. He wrote to Mary that he expected to be discharged in early April and hoped she could “come you self” to meet him in Plymouth.

The Grays’ daughter Mary died in October 1776 at age three. They had two more girls and two more boys, all of whom lived well into the nineteenth century.

“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.