LEWIS BREWER
by Ernest E. Russell
Lewis is the son of Daniel and Lydia Penfield Brewer. He was born 7 July 1804, in Ulster County, New York, and at the age of twenty-three married Bethenia, the daughter of William and Orpha Brooks Wheaton.
Lewis was the only member of his father’s family to raise a family of his own, consequently, he felt more or less responsible to providing a suitable home environment for his less fortunate brothers and an only sister, who made their home with him much of the time. His brothers, Richard and Anson, never married, and Betsy, their only sister, married too late in life to bear children.
In stature, Lewis was about five feet ten inches in height and weighed approximately 175 pounds. His eyes were grey and his hair brown. His complexion was ruddy. A close friend, Brother Jepson, said of him, ALewis had a very pleasing personality, with an unusual dry wit, which kept his friends amused while in his company.
Lewis and Bethenia were married in the year 1828 in Neversink, Sullivan County (New York). They had a family of ten children, all of whom were born in Sullivan County, save for the last two, who were born in Horseheads, Chemung County, New York. The members of Lewis and Bethenia Brewer’s family are:
1. Daniel, married Anne Hill, died at age 19
2. William
3. Jacob, married Sabra Ann Follett, they were parents of eleven children,
and are our direct ancestors
4. Lydia Ann, married Ralph Campbell
5. Richard, unmarried
6. Oliver, unmarried
7. Orpha Jane, married Adam Campbell
8. Emma Bethenia, married Adam Campbell
9. Joseph Smith, married Betsy Crandell, parents of a large family
10. Charles Raymond, married Susanna Williams, parents of a large family
The eldest two sons, Daniel and William, at the age of nineteen and twenty years, met with a rather unusual accident, which was fatal to one of the boys, although no positive record identifying the one who was killed had been left. According to the account of the accident, one of the boys, while passing under a broken limb which was left clinging to a high stump, pulled the stump loose and was crushed to death. Almost by super-human strength the brother lifted the tree from his brother’s body and carried him home. The boy who survived the accident also died while yet a young man.
Having been reared in a timber country, Lewis learned the cooper trade early in life, which he taught to his sons and his sons-in-law, who became skilled craftsmen and followed this trade throughout their lives.
Members of Lewis’ family and close relatives moved from New York to Michigan by ox team, where they lived and worked in the timber, making shingles near Kalamazoo, until the urge to continue westward with the Saints, to the Rocky Mountains, came upon them. In their move westward, they gathered with the Saints at Council Bluffs, Iowa, where Lewis’ brother, Anson, died in the fall of 1857. Lydia Ann Campbell’s baby daughter, Nancy Ann, passed away the following spring.
The Brewers and relatives continued on their trek across the plains, arriving in Utah in the year 1857. Orpha Jane, who married Adam Campbell in Council Bluffs, died of typhoid fever at Bountiful, soon after their arrival in Utah, and Emma Bethenia married her sister’s husband within a year following Orpha’s death. Soon after their arrival in the Salt Lake Valley, Lewis and family, including sons-in-law, moved to the timbered country in North Ogden, during the fall of 1859, where they worked at their trade, making from wood the many pioneer necessities.
In 1864, when President Brigham Young, called for settlers to move into the valleys of Southern Utah, the Brewer family responded. Lewis and Bethenia and their sons, Jacob, Joseph and Charles, the sons-in-law, Adam and Ralph Campbell, with their families, established homes on the Virgin River in Southern Utah. Here they found an abundance of good timber in the nearby mountains, and there was a ready market for the products they made from timber. They spent the summer months in the tops of the mountains, cutting timber to be transported by their faithful oxen, to their shop in the valley, where the men spent the cold winter months shaping the timber into shingles, barrels, buckets, tubs, churns, butter molds, paddles and may other useful articles.
When the United Order was being practiced in the villages throughout Utah, the Brewers, loyal to their leadership, placed all they possessed at the disposal of the Order, and otherwise fulfilled all of the duties and requirements made of them.
It has been stated that one of the principal reasons why the Brewers were glad to leave North Ogden was because of the severe winter climate, which was hard on Lewis’ wife, Bethenia. Due to the hardships of pioneer life, she had contracted tuberculosis and was in very poor health. Bethenia died in Kolob, Utah, on 14 June 1876, and her family laid her to rest in Virgin City.
In November, 1877, following the completion of the St. George Temple, Lewis and his families went to the Temple and accomplished the work there for themselves and for their kindred dead, as far as was possible.
Since there was considerable migration to the land southward, the Brewers decided to join this movement. The first part of the journey was made during the fall of 1878. They traveled by way of the mountains north of Kanab. They built log cabins in Glendale and spent the winter there. This being an extremely cold and severe winter, many of the people suffered from the lack of food, and had to rely on their store of supplies. The Brewers were fortunate in having a friend in a Brother Cutler, who owned a grist mill, near Glendale, who gave them a supply of flour in their time of need. When spring came, the families moved into the mountains again, where they worked at Seamons sawmill, and while there Lewis Brewer died at the age of 75 on 24 May 1879 at Seamons mill and was buried in Glendale, Utah.
Little is known of Lewis’ conversion to the gospel taught by the Latter-day Saints, but it is evident that he was a man of character and deep religious convictions. He joined the Latter-day Saints Church in October, 1846, when he was 24 years of age. He became a member of the Wheaton Branch of the Church in Stuben County, New York.
Interesting anecdotes have been remembered and related many times by Lewis’ children and grandchildren and may serve as an indication of his interesting character.
A Bro. Gardner whispered over to Lewis as they sat in church one Sunday afternoon and said, Aif they call on me to preach, I’ll give you a bushel of potatoes if you will take my place. As Lewis slowly arose to his feet, he said, AI will get a bushel of potatoes for this sermon,much to the embarrassment of Bro. Gardner.
Joe Hopkins told this joke to the family after the death of Lewis. One time he decided to frighten the old gentleman (Lewis) who was on his way to find his oxen that had strayed away. After walking about twelve miles, he found him (Lewis) under a ledge, bedded down for the night. Hopkins crawled among the underbrush making loud noises. Lewis arose from his bed, cautiously, and came out into the night. He stood for a little while looking and waiting, and then turned back to his bed, saying, Aits a bar, I guess, yes, it’s a bar, guess it will eat me, but I won’t live long anyhow. And with that Lewis climbed back into bed and went to sleep.