Barzillai Lew - After The American Revolutionary War

After The American Revolutionary War

During the war, with wages earned from his years of service, the Lew family purchased a large tract of farmland on the far side of the Merrimack River in Dracut (now Lowell, Massachusetts.) They build a house near Varnum Avenue on Zeal Road named for Barzillai (now called Totman Road.) After the war, Lew returned to his farm in the Pawtucketville section of Dracut. In addition to farming, Lew continued to work as cooper, making barrels for the Middlesex Canal Company. The Lews were both active members of their community and the Pawtucket Society Church (Congregational) on Mammoth Road. They raised 13 children, Zadock (1768) Amy (1771), Serviah (1773), Eucebea (1775), Barzillai II (1777), Peter (1779), Rufus (1780) – impressed at sea by the British in 1808, Eri (1782), Dinah II (1784), Zimri (1785), Phebe (1788), Lucy (1790) married Thomas Dalton, and Adrastus (1793).

Barzillai, Dinah, and several of their sons and daughters sang and played wind and stringed instruments all over New England. They were noted throughout the 19th and 20th centuries as well-educated, skilled, and talented musicians. It was said "no family in Middlesex County from Lowell to Cambridge could produce so much good music." They formed a complete band in their family and were employed to play at assemblies in Portland, Maine, Boston, Massachusetts, other large cities and towns, as well as commencement exercises at several New England colleges. They kept an elegant coach and fine span of horses and came on the Sabbath to the Pawtucket Society Church in as much style as any family in the town of Dracut. Dinah Bowman Lew may have been the first African American woman pianist in American history. Barzillai Lew died in Dracut on January 18, 1822 and was buried in Clay Pit Cemetery. Years later, Dinah Bowman Lew petitioned and received from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts a pension for her husband's military service in the American Revolution.