David Lewis: Indian Missionary and Sabine Divisionary

Another pastor of Union Baptist Church near Nacogdoches, Texas, in addition to Elder James L. Bryant (of whom I wrote last Thursday), is David Lewis. Like Bryant, we know little of Lewis, when he was born, when he died, or where he is buried. Unlike Bryant, Lewis steps into a 20-something year window of time, appearing in 1832 and disappearing around 1853. Perhaps more will be discovered later.

The first record I find of David Lewis is his ordination, which occurred in May of 1832. The place of ordination was the McDougal Street Meeting-house in New York.[i.]

ORDINATION OF MR. LEWIS
“On Monday evening, May 17th, in the McDougal Street Meeting-house, New York, Mr. David Lewis was set apart to the work of the gospel ministry with special reference to missionary labor among the Indians. The exercises of the evening were unusually solemn and interesting, the congregation large and attentive, and an anxiety awakened for the heathen in the bosoms of many persons who had previously felt little interest in the cause of Missions.

“He is expected to settle among the Choctaws west of the Mississippi, in the employ of the Baptist General Convention, and with his wife and child left New York for the place of destination, May 25th. They will be followed, we trust, by the prayers of christians, that the Lord will make them a great blessing to the aborigines of our country.”[ii]

From information I have been able to gather, the pastor serving at the McDougal Street Church at the time of David Lewis’s ordination was Duncan Dunbar. We know little specifically of Lewis’s theology – beyond a full embrace of the missionary society methods and his views on communion found in the 1845 Sabine Association circular letter. Certainly, David Lewis must have embraced the main tenets common among Baptists. It is possible that Dunbar’s influence stamped Lewis’s theology. While we know little of Lewis’s views, Duncan Dunbar’s faith and practice is easily ascertained in Duncan Dunbar: the Record of an Earnest Ministry. A Sketch of the Life of the Late pastor of the McDougal St. Baptist Church, New York.[iii]
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These factors make Dunbar a likely candidate of influence on David Lewis. We know they agreed on the issues of the missionary society and missions to the Indians. Our first introduction to Lewis is in 1832 American Baptist Magazine, which reports his ordination and plans to work “among the Choctaws west of the Mississippi.” That he had a wife and one child implies he was a younger man, though at this point there is no evidence of his age at the time of his ordination.

Click link below to read the entire article:
David Lewis: Indian Missionary and Sabine Divisionary

[i.] From my understanding, this McDougal Street Meeting-house was in Manhattan. The church at that time was apparently named North Beriah Baptist Church. In 1859, the church assumed the name McDougal Street Baptist Church. Reminiscences of Baptist churches and Baptist leaders in New York city and Vicinity, from 1835-1898, p. 35 (George H. Hansell, Philadelphia, PA: American Baptist Publication Society, 1899).
[ii] The American Baptist Magazine. Vol. XII, Board of Managers of the Baptist General Convention, Boston, MA: Putnam & Damrell, 1832, p. 185.
[iii] Jeremiah Chaplin, Third Edition, New York, NY: Sheldon and Company, 1868.

 

Dunbar is very interesting. I had not heard of him until I started researching David Lewis and wanted to know about the church from which he came. Dunbar finished well. I'm not so sure about Lewis.

 

Well, I cannot find what happened to him after the early 1850s, so I do not really know if things got better or worse. Here in that period in Texas there are quite a few that just disappear from history. They die, their interment isn't marked, and for better or worse, they slowly (or swiftly) disappear from the memories of people and whatever might have been written down is all that is left. Also, especially if they had no descendants (seem Lewis probably didn't) or if there families moved away. Isaac McCoy had some things to say about Lewis in his history of Indian missions.