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Micajah Green Lewis (b. c. 1780 – February 14, 1805) was an American political aide who was killed in a duel in New Orleans in 1805.

Biography

Lewis was the son of an American Revolutionary War veteran and North Carolina state legislator named William Terrell Lewis. Lewis was born in Wilkes County, North Carolina about in the early 1780s. His older sisters Sarah T. Lewis and Eliza Lewis married brothers, Dr. Thomas C. Claiborne and William C. C. Claiborne, the governor of Mississippi Territory and then Louisiana.

Lewis was a graduate of Princeton University. He went to work for his uncle Governor Claiborne. His 21-year-old sister Eliza Lewis Claiborne and her baby, Cornelia Tennessee Claiborne, both died of yellow fever in September 1804.

According to a history of dueling in New Orleans, the reason for the challenge was a "a short article, A DREAM, written by Fidelis, and published in the Gazette of Feb. 8th. Lewis had called at the office of the Gazette to find out the identity of Fidelis, but they wouldn't tell him without 'consultation'. In the meanwhile he learned from other sources that the author was Robert Sterrey whom Lewis immediately challenged, leaving no room for concession or compromise." The article suggested that Gov. Claiborne was out of mourning for his wife too early: "Methought it was a night in the month of December A.D. 1804. All in the city were hushed and still . I was passing near the Government House. Suddenly the sound of music burst from the hall. I listened the guests were dancing...The shouts of the guests seemed to pierce her soul. She clasped her hands in agony, then turned her eyes to Heaven she bent her willing steps towards the graves of Louisiana." Lewis challenged Sterry, and when they met they, according to a newspaper account of the shootout, "The parties met and were to wait the count of 1, 2, 3, fire. But Lewis' pistol flashed at the word 'three', and he lost his chance to fire. Mr. Sterrey, seeing this immediately turned and fired backward in the air. No offer of accomodation was made, and the parties again fired at the same moment. Mr. Lewis received the ball which passed through his heart, and uttering the words, 'I believe', he fell a lifeless corpse." The Tennessee Gazette of Nashville said that Sterry was an "assassin" aligned with a man named Livingston, who had defaulted on $100,000 in "public monies," and that Sterry had engineered a public relations campaign against Claiborne's government, of which the "Fidelis" column was a part. The remainder of the two-column article was an extended paean to the character qualities of Lewis.

Lewis is buried near his sister and her baby in the Protestant section of the St. Louis Cemetery in New Orleans. Gov. Claiborne remarried in 1806, and that wife, the second of four, Clarice Duralde Clairborne, died in 1809 at age 21. When Lewis' aunt and uncle Thomas and Sarah Claiborne died back in Tennessee, future U.S. president Andrew Jackson became guardian of their son Micajah Lewis Claiborne, who had likely been named in honor of Micajah Green Lewis.

Lewis' opponent in the duel, Robert Sterry, was the son of Cyprian Sterry, who has been described as "most active slave trader based in Providence." Sterry became an officer in the U.S. Army, retiring as a major, and was appointed to be an envoy to France. He died on the Helen, a ship returning from Bordeaux, during a winter storm off Southhampton, Long Island in 1820.

References

1. ^ "Genealogy of the Lewis family in America, from the middle of the seventeenth century down to the present time. By Wm. Terrell Lewis ..." HathiTrust. p. 80, 96. Retrieved January 17, 2025.
2. ^ "Micajah Green Lewis death in a duel". The Tennessee Gazette and Metro-District Advertiser. March 20, 1805. p. 2. Retrieved December 29, 2024.
3. "Where exactly is the famous Dueling Oak?". NOLA.com. June 2, 2014. Retrieved December 29, 2024.
4. ^ "Duelling in old New Orleans". HathiTrust. pp. 9–12. Retrieved January 17, 2025.
5. "Standard history of New Orleans, Louisiana; giving a description of the natural advantages, natural history ... settlement, Indians, Creoles, municipal ..." HathiTrust. p. 259. Retrieved January 17, 2025.
6. Meredith, Rachel (May 2013). "There Was Somebody Always Dying and Leaving Jackson as Guardian": The Wards of Andrew Jackson (M.A. History thesis). Murfreesboro, Tennessee: Middle Tennessee State University. ProQuest 1538368. pp 98–99
7. "Journal of the Slave Ship Mary". repository.library.georgetown.edu. Retrieved 17 January 2025.
8. "Shipwreck". Hartford Courant. February 1, 1820. p. 2. Retrieved January 17, 2025.

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