Thomas Lewis (April 27, 1718 – January 31, 1790) was an Irish-American surveyor, lawyer, politician and pioneer of early western Virginia.
Needing to leave Ireland after killing his landlord, John Lewis immigrated to Philadelphia in 1728; and two years later brought over his family, including Thomas and his brothers Andrew and William.
As early as 1739 he began acquiring land of his own to the south and west of Beverley's Manor in what is today Rockingham and Bath counties.
The couple built a plantation they called "Lynnwood" near Port Republic and the confluence of the north and south forks of the Shenandoah River.
He also became a founding trustee of Liberty Hall, formerly the Augusta Academy, which in 1776 was renamed in a burst of revolutionary fervor and relocated to Lexington, Virginia.
[3] Other founding trustees included his brother Andrew Lewis, Samuel McDowell, Sampson Mathews, George Moffett, William Preston, and James Waddel.
[5] In the early days of the American Revolution, following unrest over new taxes imposed by Britain to fund the French and Indian War and Lord Dunmore's War, Virginia governor Lord Dunmore suppressed the House of Burgesses in which his younger brother Andrew Lewis represented Botetourt County (established in 1772 and which lay south of Augusta County).
Augusta County voters elected Thomas Lewis and Samuel McDowell to four of the five Virginia Revolutionary Conventions that replaced the Burgesses.