Bios: LEWIS BANKS: Lawrence County, Pennsylvania

________________________________________________________________

  Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Lawrence Co transcribers.
  Coordinated by Ed McClelland

  Copyright 2004.  All rights reserved.
  http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
  
  _____________________________________________________________

  Biographical Sketches of Leading Citizens
  Lawrence County Pennsylvania
  Biographical Publishing Company, Buffalo, N.Y., 1897
  
  An html version with search engine may be found at 
  
  http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/lawrence/1897/
  
  _____________________________________________________________________

    LEWIS BANKS,
    
    [p. 554] a well-to-do and much respected farmer of Hickory township, was
  born on the farm, where he now lives, Nov. 21, 1852, and is a son of James L.
  and Sarah A. (McDowell) Banks, and grandson of James Banks, who was born in
  Juniata County, and came to Lawrence County in 1817, settling in Neshannock
  Falls in Wilmington township, where he purchased a farm that was still
  covered with its native growth of timber. He followed farming all of his
  life, and proved himself to be of eminent service to the community of which
  he was a resident. He married Mary Law of Juniata Co., Pa., and to them were
  born six children: Elizabeth; James L.; Rebecca A.; Margaret; and Andrew and
  Mary J., twins. They were Presbyterians and followed the rules of life as
  laid down by that religious society.
    
    James L. Banks was also a farmer by occupation, and kept up an
  uninterrupted work on his farm until the outbreak of the war. He then
  enlisted in the service of the government with the three months' men in the
  100th Reg. Pa. Vol. Inf., or, as it was popularly called, the "Round Head
  Regiment"; the company in which he was placed was under the command of Capt.
  Leasure. He was not permitted to see home or its loved ones again, for his
  death took place in Beaufort, S. C., in 1862, when he was forty-five years of
  age, his birth having been in 1817. In 1841, his marriage with Sarah A.
  McDowell, a daughter of Samuel McDowell of Westmoreland County, but latterly
  a resident of Hickory township, this county, took place, and this union
  resulted in the birth of five children: Josephine, who married James Quest of
  New Castle, Pa., and has a large and flourishing family of nine
  childrenJames, Edwin, Addie, Wallace, Mack, William, Lizzie, Mont, and
  Sadie; Samuel A.; Lewis, the subject of this brief personal history; Eva, who
  married Joseph Pyle of Neshannock township, and had four childrenLeRoy E.,
  James McDowell, Sarah E., and Gertrude Josephine; Edmond, who married Miss
  Rosa Bentley of New York State, and has one child, Thurmanhis second wife
  was Miss Mollie Fletcher of Thurman, Iowa, where they now reside. In their
  religious views, they favored the United Presbyterian Church.
    
    Lewis Banks finished his schooling satisfactorily in the district schools
  of his native town, and when still a very young man took up farming on the
  old home farm, where he has remained ever since, and where he takes care of
  his aged mother.
    
    In 1880, he was joined in matrimony with Jemima McKee, daughter of Thomas
  McKee of Neshannock township, and this union has resulted in the birth of
  three children: Stewart, who lives at home; Gertrude, deceased; and Bertha
  Adelle. In politics he is a stanch Republican, but the alluring promise of
  political advancement has never tempted him to enter the field of active
  partisanship. He is a good citizen and valued member of society and reflects
  honor on his excellent and worthy ancestry. In the matter of religious
  attachments, he is a member of the United Presbyterian Church of East Brook,
  Pennsylvania.