[2] As an adult, his seared skin twisted and he wore an eye-patch, making him look "as odd, in appearance, as any character Dickens gave to the world.

[4][5] In 1882, a Pine Bluff Commercial article praised his work, calling him an artist whose sketches, of both imaginary and real scenes, were "wonderfully correct,” and projecting a “brilliant and successful future” for him.

[2][4][6][7] In November 1882, Dr. Edward Palmer of the Smithsonian Institution, ventured to the south to study prehistoric Native American land mounds as well as maps of Arkansas, Tennessee, and Louisiana.

However, the most common theme of his cartoons included biting criticism on President Benjamin Harrison and his Republican administration, for failing to support job opportunities for blacks, and on politicians' general refusal to acknowledge the importance of racism.

[4][9] It is suspected that the economic pressures of The Freeman forced him to steer away from political drawings, as when his works reappeared, they were only humorous or general commentary about race relations, with exception of two illustrations that were indirectly critical of Harrison in December 1890 and January 1891.

[4] In what was his final work, Lewis – a Christian – drew an architectural drawing of St. Paul A.M.E. Church in St. Louis, which was published in The Freeman on March 28, 1891.

The Indianapolis Journal wrote of him, " He [had] no education, except that he could read and write yet his proficiency with the pencil and burin was something remarkable.

"[4] The Freeman’s tribute of him concluded with: "Mr. Lewis, in many respects, was a remarkable man, and had his lines been cast in different places, and his earlier years been spent under different skies, surrounded by other influences and aids, the space he would have filled in the world’s notice might have been one that biography would not have spurned, and without the record of which, future encyclopedias would be incomplete.

Indeed, the only fault that could be found with Mr. Lewis’ work in this line, was that he builded too well, for so realistic were his sketches that the fine sensitiveness of the race was frequently aroused and offended...It were but simple charity to hope that it is well with him today, and that death was but an aperture through which his feverish and worn spirit took its way to spheres of higher mysteries, and a completer life, where conditions may not interfere, or man’s narrowness or unfair hatred prevent the full expression of his unique and striking gifts.

[12] Noted African American sculptor, Garland Martin Taylor, said of Lewis's work: "...every single inch of the canvas has meaning.