This is copied from a 72 page history of David Lewis.
The following covers pages 4-7
"My father had four hundred acres of beautiful land about one hundred acres in farm and the remainder of his land was timber land. A large two story double house on a public road three miles eat of the town of Franklin. A beautiful yard surrounded the house about one acre square neatly covered with blue grass, two beautiful mulbury trees and one beautiful cedar tree growing in the south yard. Beautiful cherry trees grew on the out edge of the yard one rod distance from each other. These mulbury and cherry trees bore splendid fruit. A beautiful orchard on the west which joined to the yard in it was most all the varieties of fruits that was common for the country. There was apples both early and late, sweet and sour, pears, peaches, plums, persimmons, cherrys, and on the farm was the wild cherry black haws mulbury and walnuts and plums and persimmons. These fruits was all very good."
"We chiefly raised corn in our country wheat, oats, and tobacco, sweet potatoes, Irish potatoes, beans, pease, cabbage, and onions, melons, and pumpkins, cotton flas and rye, but wheat was the most uncertain crop we tried to raise."
"It was a very mild and pleasant climate. The land was not very rich. It taken a great deal of work to cultivate the land. Timber was plenty and good range for stock is poor, wild game scarce. The people is generally very kind to each other except when angry at each other, then they are cruel."
"When I was about twelve years old, I was taken from the farm to aid my mother as my two oldest sisters, Ann and Martha, had married and left home. I was put to carding and spinning. I was also trained at the washtub at cooking and all the common housework and spent three years of my time in helping my mother in this way."
"This was not common employment for boys or men folks in that country, so I often felt ashamed when the neighbors came in, but at about fifteen I again went to the field."
"I well recollect the first time I ever hear my mother talk about God and the devil. She said that there was a good man and lived above in the clouds and if I done bad the bad man would get me when I die, but if I was a good boy and would mind her and Father and would not tell lies nor swear nor steal that when I died the good man would take me to live again with him up in the clouds, and told me of many good things that I would be entitled to by being good. This had a deep impression on my mind. I told my older brothers the story when they came from the field, thinking it would be news to them. I then firmly thought I would do good. I remember at another time when very young, my mother was coming my hair she said to me there is a mole on your neck and that is a sign that you will be hung. This alarmed me very much, and often I have thrown down apples after I had commenced to eat them because I remembered the mole on my neck, and knowing that Father had told me not to pull the apples. I have thrown down flints and little rocks that I thought was pretty after picking the up for fear it was stealing and the mole on my neck would cause me to be hung."
"My parents not being religious folks they very seldom told me anything about God or heaven, and I seldom went to meeting. When I did I got no understanding of the plan of salvation, and as there was Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, and Universalions or Dunkards, and they disagreed about the scriptures I asked Father which one of these was right. He said he did not know these things, so I always wanted to know that things, and thought if I could find a little book like I had heard of John the Revelator having one given to him by an angel I should be better pleased than with any other present, provided it would decide that point, or teach to me the true plan of salvation for this was a subject that I greatly desired to know although I was young and to all appearance thoughtless of any such matters. I was often vexed at preachers exhorting the people telling them to come to Christ and never telling them how to come. I never got no understanding from none of the preachers how the plan was, but I always thought if I could find out to my satisfaction I would obey it, and I promised to myself when I got to be a man I would then find out to my satisfaction ad do right and be honest and try to get to heaven where the good man lived."
"I do not intend to give a full history of my childhood for it would be too tedious, but merely touch on a few things and then pass on to the things that I have passed through, and witnessed myself; the persecutions, trials, and hardships on the account of believing and obeying the gospel of Christ which I know to be true and of God."
"We chiefly raised corn in our country wheat, oats, and tobacco, sweet potatoes, Irish potatoes, beans, pease, cabbage, and onions, melons, and pumpkins, cotton flas and rye, but wheat was the most uncertain crop we tried to raise."
"It was a very mild and pleasant climate. The land was not very rich. It taken a great deal of work to cultivate the land. Timber was plenty and good range for stock is poor, wild game scarce. The people is generally very kind to each other except when angry at each other, then they are cruel."
"When I was about twelve years old, I was taken from the farm to aid my mother as my two oldest sisters, Ann and Martha, had married and left home. I was put to carding and spinning. I was also trained at the washtub at cooking and all the common housework and spent three years of my time in helping my mother in this way."
"This was not common employment for boys or men folks in that country, so I often felt ashamed when the neighbors came in, but at about fifteen I again went to the field."
"I well recollect the first time I ever hear my mother talk about God and the devil. She said that there was a good man and lived above in the clouds and if I done bad the bad man would get me when I die, but if I was a good boy and would mind her and Father and would not tell lies nor swear nor steal that when I died the good man would take me to live again with him up in the clouds, and told me of many good things that I would be entitled to by being good. This had a deep impression on my mind. I told my older brothers the story when they came from the field, thinking it would be news to them. I then firmly thought I would do good. I remember at another time when very young, my mother was coming my hair she said to me there is a mole on your neck and that is a sign that you will be hung. This alarmed me very much, and often I have thrown down apples after I had commenced to eat them because I remembered the mole on my neck, and knowing that Father had told me not to pull the apples. I have thrown down flints and little rocks that I thought was pretty after picking the up for fear it was stealing and the mole on my neck would cause me to be hung."
"My parents not being religious folks they very seldom told me anything about God or heaven, and I seldom went to meeting. When I did I got no understanding of the plan of salvation, and as there was Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, and Universalions or Dunkards, and they disagreed about the scriptures I asked Father which one of these was right. He said he did not know these things, so I always wanted to know that things, and thought if I could find a little book like I had heard of John the Revelator having one given to him by an angel I should be better pleased than with any other present, provided it would decide that point, or teach to me the true plan of salvation for this was a subject that I greatly desired to know although I was young and to all appearance thoughtless of any such matters. I was often vexed at preachers exhorting the people telling them to come to Christ and never telling them how to come. I never got no understanding from none of the preachers how the plan was, but I always thought if I could find out to my satisfaction I would obey it, and I promised to myself when I got to be a man I would then find out to my satisfaction ad do right and be honest and try to get to heaven where the good man lived."
"I do not intend to give a full history of my childhood for it would be too tedious, but merely touch on a few things and then pass on to the things that I have passed through, and witnessed myself; the persecutions, trials, and hardships on the account of believing and obeying the gospel of Christ which I know to be true and of God."
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