Michael Lewis, Sr. was married five times, fathered at least 14 children and adopted two or three more.

1. He married first to Elisabeth Maria Rominger, Feb. 8, 1821, in Stokes (later Forsyth) Co., North Carolina. They had three children:

    Josiah Lewis, born in Stokes Co. about 1821. Josiah came to Indiana with his father, and married Margaret Jane Wilson Sept. 3, 1843. They moved to Edwards Co., Illinois, and had children Mary E., Jeremiah, Eliza, Josiah, and Charles. Margaret died after 1860, and Josiah Lewis married 2nd to Tabitha Orr, and two more children were born to them, Samuel and Priscilla. Josiah died about 1865, ostensibly in Civil War service, although no service record has come to light, nor any pension support for his widow or minor children. 

    Mary Lewis (1823-1886) married George Norton, Dec. 7, 1841, in Bartholomew Co., Indiana. They moved to Dodge Co., Wisconsin, where she died in 1886.

    Catherine "Kitty" Lewis was born Nov. 9, 1826, in Stokes Co., North Carolina. She married Henry Alexander Knoy Aug. 14, 1845, in Bartholomew Co., and they moved to Sullivan Co., Indiana, soon after, raising a family of ten children. Henry died Oct. 25, 1879, leaving a will in adjacent Greene Co., Indiana, Catherine having also died 1870-1880 in that area. Neither has a known marked grave.

Michael Lewis was enumerated in Stokes Co., North Carolina, in 1830, reporting a wife and three children in the household. Elisabeth died Nov. 30th of that year.

2. Michael married 2nd Mary Elizabeth Reed about 1831, no record identified. Their only child, son Armstead Lewis, was born Jan. 13, 1832, in North Carolina. The family came to Indiana about 1833, Michael making his first land purchases in Oct. of that year. His wife departed this life just days later, on Nov. 7th. Armstead's obituary noted he "was one of 17 children," although that number included two or more adopted step-siblings.

3. Pioneers had little time to grieve their losses, and Michael Lewis was no exception. He had a year old baby son, and three other children, and so he soon married a third time, to Malinda Gentle, on Jan. 5, 1834, in Bartholomew Co. Five children would be born to them: twins Absolem and Jeremiah, Michael Lewis, Jr., Elizabeth, and Nathan Lewis. Malinda died May 5, 1850, noted on the 1850 Census Mortality Schedule, cause of her death listed as "inflammation of the bowels." She was buried in the Moravian cemetery, her grave acknowledged in the records, but not marked.

4. Once again, Michael Lewis shortly remarried, this time to Elizabeth (Skidmore) Margison, widow of Benjamin Margison, July 11, 1850. She was the mother of some dozen children, her husband having died in the middle 1840s, probably in Jefferson Co., Indiana, where they had lived for some years. Elizabeth and these children had already settled in the Hope community, two of her older children married there in 1849. Michael and this Elizabeth had no issue of their own. Some of her older children went to Gentry Co., Missouri; some died young and a couple of others remained in Indiana. The youngest two continued to reside with Michael after their mother's death, and took the surname Lewis: Nancy (Margison Lewis) Berry, 1842-1907, and Henry (Margison) Lewis, 1844-1889. (These two are mentioned in the 1904 biography excerpted below, incorrectly attributed to Malinda.)

5. Michael Lewis married a 5th and final time, to Emily Malloy, Jan. 20, 1853. Their five children were daughter Anna (Lewis) Whitlock Fenton, and sons, Simon, Robert, Timothy, and Howard Lewis.

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Excerpted from biography of Michael Lewis, Jr.,

"Biographical Record of Bartholomew County, Indiana," (1904), pp. 228

".....The father was born in North Carolina in 1800 and was first married in that state. Soon afterward, however, he came to Indiana and purchased from the government, at a dollar and a quarter per acre, a tract of one hundred and sixty acres of land lying near Hope. This he improved, developing it into a find farm. The county was then a frontier district and Columbus was called Tipton Hill. In addition to farming, Michael Lewis, Sr., engaged in real estate dealing, buying and selling much land. He was the owner of five hundred acres of valuable farming land, all of which was situated in one tract, save eighty acres, lying in Haw Creek township. In his business affairs he was very successful and became one of the prosperous residents of the county, in which he lived until his death, which occurred in 1860. In early life he voted with the Whig party and on the organization of the Republican party joined its ranks. He was four [five] times married, and by his first wife had three children, Josiah, who enlisted for service in the Civil War and died in camp; Catherine, the deceased wife of Henry Conoy [Knoy], and Mary, the wife of George Norton, a farmer, with whom she removed to Wisconsin, where both died. By his second marriage the father had one son, Armsted, who married Elizabeth Carter, and is a farmer, living at Hope. For his third wife, Mr. Lewis chose Melinda Gentle, a native of Virginia, and they had a large family: Jeremiah and Absalom, the former a prominent civil engineer of Pennsylvania, now very prosperous, while the latter is carrying on farming at Norton, Kanas; Michael, of this review; Elizabeth, the widow of Owen Billard, who was a blacksmith of Hope, where she is still living; Nancy, the wife of Ephraim Berry, a cooper, now living retired; Henry, a farmer, now deceased, and Nathan, who is living in Jamestown, Indiana, near Indianapolis, where he owns property and carries on farming. The mother of these children died when the subject of this review was a lad of only eight [probably 12] years, and the father after wedded Emily McLoy. Their children were: Annie, who is living in Indianapolis; Howard; Simeon, a wealthy farmer; Timothy, also a farmer, and Robert."