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Passed to spirit life, March 19^th, Mrs. Sarah Lewis, aged 81 years, at the home of her son, Park Cole. Deceased was an old settler and resident of the town of Dayton. She had been sick for about a year and her demise was not unexpected. Five sons survive her. The funeral occurred from the school-house on Wednesday, at 11 a. m., Rev. Baird, of Ottawa, officiating. As we write a large concourse of friends are gathering to pay last respects to the memory of one who was loved and esteemed while living and mourned in death.¹

The above obituary gives little information about Sarah Lewis’s life, so this is an attempt to expand on the few facts in the obituary.

Sarah Davis Cole Lewis was born abt 1818/19 in New York. She married William Cole on February 4th, 1838, in Plainfield, Otsego County, New York. They had 6 children: Lyman, Leroy, Jay, Marian, Parke, and Burt. The family moved to La Salle county about 1849 and settled in Serena township, north of Dayton. By 1860 they had moved to Marseilles, Illinois.  On November 18, 1861, William Cole enlisted in the 53rd regiment, Illinois Infantry at Ottawa, Illinois. Unfortunately, his part in the war was of short duration. He died at Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee, on April 6th, 1862. As reported by the Regiment Major:

He was breaking teams consisting of six mules, was thrown from the one he was riding on, was run over by the wagon and his back broken and otherwise injured.

William is buried in the West Serena Cemetery. Sarah applied for a widow’s pension and there were two young children who were also entitled to support. She was appointed guardian for her two young sons, Parke and Burt. She got a pension of $8/month from William’s service.

In June 1865 Sarah Cole and William Lewis, of Dayton, were planning to marry. Because her widow’s pension would end at her remarriage, she wanted some assurance that she would be provided for should her husband predecease her.  On June 13, the two of them signed an agreement in which Sarah says that without such a contract she would not have married Lewis. The provisions for her children are that Lewis will support, clothe and educate her two sons until the age of twenty and when they reach twenty-one he will give each a horse, saddle, bridle and suit of clothes. Should Lewis die before Sarah, she will have all his real and personal property and, in addition to maintaining herself and her sons, she will provide for the younger Lewis children until they reach the age of twenty.

With the contract signed and registered with the county court, the marriage took place the next day, June 14th, 1865. The two Cole boys worked alongside the Lewis men on the farm and Sarah kept house for the blended family.

William Lewis died October 9th, 1874 and was buried in the Dayton Cemetery next to his first wife, Eliza Ann Holman. Sarah lived on the dower tract of her husband’s farm until her death on March 19th, 1900. She was buried in the West Serena Cemetery, next to her first husband, William Cole.

1. Ottawa Republican-Times, March 22, 1900, p. 5, col. 2