John F. Lewis was born on the "Lynnwood" plantation in rural Rockingham County, Virginia, a son of Samuel Hance Lewis (1794–1869) and Nancy Cameron Lewis (1795–1841). He attended a private school and farmed as a young man. He owned one 25 year old enslaved mulatto woman in 1850.[1] He (or nore likely another John Lewis who married a woman named Amanda in Rockingham District 1) owned 8 slaves in 1860.
Lewis married Serena Helen Sheffey (1823–1901) in October 1842, and they raised two sons and four daughters. Daniel Sheffey Lewis (1843-1912) became a newspaperman as well as served for many years as treasurer of the city of Harrisonburg, and became one of the state's most prominent Republicans. His brother John Francis Lewis Jr. (1860-1915), survived him but committed suicide after suffering a stroke and learning he would not heal completely.
Career
He was a delegate to the Virginia secessionconvention in 1861, but refused to sign the ordinance of secession. He was the only member from east of the Allegheny Mountains that refused to endorse the document.
During the Civil War, portions of the Battle of Port Republic were fought on his family's land.
Lewis was an unsuccessful Union Party candidate for Congress in 1865. He was elected as Virginia's lieutenant governor in 1869 and served from October 5 of that year until January 1, 1870. Upon the readmission of Virginia to representation in the U.S. Congress, Lewis was elected as a Republican to the United States Senate and served from January 26, 1870, to March 4, 1875. He served on the Committee on the District of Columbia in the Forty-third Congress. He was not a candidate for reelection as the Republicans had already become a minority party by 1874[2] and wouldn't control either house on their own in Virginia for the rest of the 19th century.
