by Rocky Macy
George Washington LEWIS was born in Orange County, North Carolina, in 1797 to Zachariah and Rachel (BRACKEN) LEWIS. He married Macy MANKINS in Floyd County, Kentucky, on March 24, 1813. George Washington LEWIS passed away sometime after his 2nd marriage in 1852.
Macy MANKINS was born in Orange County, North Carolina, on the final day of the eighteenth century, December 31, 1799, to Walter and Millie (STALCOP / STALCUP) MANKINS She passed away sometime before 1850, probably in Washington County, Arkansas.
George Washington and Macy (MANKINS) LEWIS were my g-g-g-g-grandparents.
George Washington LEWIS was the first of only three children born to Zachariah and Rachel (BRACKEN) LEWIS. Zachariah died young, before the age of thirty, presumably in North Carolina, and his widow, Rachel, then married Peter MANKINS in Orange County, North Carolina, on September 23, 1803. Peter was possibly an uncle to Macy MANKINS who would become the wife of George Washington LEWIS. Rachel had eleven more children during her marriage to Peter MANKINS.
According to the book, "Pioneer LEWIS Families," (volume 5, page 357), the three children born to Zachariah LEWIS and Rachel BRACKEN were: George Washington LEWIS (born 1797), Lydia LEWIS (born September 22, 1799), and Bracken LEWIS (born December 19, 1801).
That same source, "Pioneer LEWIS Families" refers to Macy MANKINS as Mary (Macy) MANKINS, and she can be found in other records as "Macy" and "Mary." I have chosen to use Macy as her first name in this profile because that was the name of her granddaughter - the oldest child of her oldest child - Macy Mary COOK, and it is likely that she would have been named after her grandmother.
"Pioneer LEWIS Families" records the ten children of George Washington and Macy (MANKINS) LEWIS as: Sinai Lewis (born October 11, 1815 - my g-g-g-grandmother, wife of Thomas COOK), William R. LEWIS (1816), Brackin LEWIS (January 6, 1820), Walter LEWIS (1821), Millie LEWIS (1825), Henry LEWIS (1830), John LEWIS (1832), Lydia LEWIS (1834), Rachel LEWIS (1836), and Isaac LEWIS (1838).
Macy (MANKINS) LEWIS was not listed with the family on the 1850 census and was likely deceased. George Washington LEWIS married again on January 12, 1852, to Mrs. Mary COSBY, the widow of Wylie COSBY, in Washington County, Arkansas.
The 1850 census for White River Township of Washington County, Arkansas, lists George LEWIS (age 52, born in NC) as a farmer and the head of a household including: Walter LEWIS (age 28, KY), John LEWIS (20, IL), Henry LEWIS (18, IL), Lydia LEWIS (16, AR), "Rachael" LEWIS (14, AR), Isaac LEWIS (12, AR), and Philander POWELL (a laborer, 24, IL).
"Pioneer LEWIS Families" indicates that members o the family migrated from Orange County, North Carolina, to Floyd County, Kentucky, about 1809, where George and Macy were married in 1813. After that they migrated to the state of Illinois in the early 1830's (probably Vermillion County where their oldest child, Sinai LEWIS married Thomas COOK on February 9, 1832) and were only there for a year or so before moving on to Northwest Arkansas and arriving there around 1834-36. The birth location of the children enumerated in George's household in 1850 confirms that migratory movement.
The exact dates of death and places of burial for George Washington and Macy (MANKINS) LEWIS are not known at this time. The early pioneering couple were probably buried in family plots on a rocky patch of Ozark farmland, and their graves have since fallen under the plow or bulldozer - or just lost their markers and become forgotten over time. But they came by wagon and on foot from North Carolina to Kentucky, to Illinois, and finally on to Arkansas where they unpacked and set down roots in a wilderness, and today their descendants live in those same hills but rush around on major highways that were nothing more that trails, if even that, when George and Macy first set foot on the land that was to become their final home.
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