Joshua Lewis (judge)

Joshua Lewis (1772–1833) was a judge of the Superior Court of the Territory of Orleans and, after Louisiana became a state, the 1st Judicial District Court of that state.

Early life

Lewis was born on June 5, 1772 in Augusta County, Virginia, grandson of the first settler of that county, John Lewis, and a nephew of Meriwether Lewis. In 1797, Lewis married America Lawson, a daughter of Revolutionary War General Robert Lawson. They had ten children: Sidonia, who married Peter Knight Wagner, a celebrated journalist, personal friend and political advisor of Andrew Jackson; John L. Lewis (mayor of New Orleans), sheriff of Orleans Parish, Louisiana, and Mayor of New Orleans; John Hampden and Algernon Sidney (identical twins)(John Hampden became prominent doctor; Algernon Sidney became lawyer and was father of Ernest Sidney Lewis, famous gynecologist); Theodore, a Major in the Mexican war of 1847, and a Confederate veteran; Eliza, Louisa, Alfred Jefferson (lawyer and judge), George Washington (planter in Algiers), Benjamin Franklin.

He served under Andrew Jackson in the War of 1812, and participated, as the captain of an organized military company in the night attack on the British on December 23, 1814, during the Battle of New Orleans.

Career

Lewis graduated from Washington and Lee University, having studied law, and settled his family in Jessamine County, Kentucky near Lexington, Kentucky in 1798. He was appointed the prosecutor for Jessamine County that year and was elected to the Kentucky House of Representatives in 1799, 1803 and 1804.^[1]

In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson completed the Louisiana Purchase. While it is frequently reported that Jefferson sent Lewis to New Orleans, together with Edward Livingston, and James Brown as commissioners to receive the purchased territory from the French, Lewis was not sent by Jefferson until 1805, and then to be a commissioner to deal with land titles. In 1806, Lewis was appointed as one of three judges of the Superior court of the Territory of Orleans.^[2] When Louisiana was admitted into the Union in 1812, Lewis and the other judges of the territorial Superior Court continued in their posts, under the 'schedule' of the State constitution, until the Supreme Court was selected. He was then made judge of the 1st judicial district. In 1816, he ran for Governor against Jacques Villeré. The political division in the state then was between French and Spanish creoles and newly arrived Anglo-Americans. Villeré, the Creole candidate narrowly defeated Lewis.

Lewis remained a state judge until his death in New Orleans in 1833. He was buried beside his wife near Madisonville, Louisiana on the west bank of the Tchefuncte River.

Memorials

Upon his death, the members of the bar desired to erect a monument to his memory, but his children declined the honor, because their father had requested that he should rest in the same spot with his wife. The lake front of his country seat in St. Tammany Parish was then sold in town lots, and named Lewisburg, in his honor. Lewisburg is an unincorporated community.

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