Edmund Lewis, of Lynn, Massachusetts, and some of his descendants

EDMUND LEWIS OF LYNN, AND SOME OF HIS
DESCENDANTS.
BY GEORGE HARLAN LEWIS OF LOS ANGELES, CAL.
Edmund Lewis, who came to this country and first settled
in Watertown, is said to have come from Lynn Regis
(King's Lynn), England, but there is no record of him
or any of his family on the church registers there. Alonzo
Lewis, in his history of Lynn (second edition), states that
he was a brother of William Lewis, who was at Roxbury
in 1630, and was a founder of Lancaster, Mass., in 1653,
who descended from a good Welsh family, with a pedigree
running back centuries. (Some Welsh pedigrees run
back to Noah.) Where Lewis obtained his information
is not at my command. I have searched the records of
this colony and visited England and Wales, used the library
of the British Museum, and consulted the records of
Somerset House and Fetter Lane, London, without success.
Alonzo Lewis has his pedigree upon his monument
in the Western Burying Ground, Lynn, running from William,
through Isaac, his son, who died childless. In point
of fact, Alonzo Lewis was descended from Isaac, son of
John, of Charlestown and Maiden. If Alonzo Lewis had
stated his Welsh pedigree, giving the name of the Welsh
ancestor, or the place from which he emigrated, it might
have been traced.
There is no authoritative connection of any of the Lewis
immigrants to New England, during the 17th century,
with any Welsh or English family. Without knowing his
English home, it is impossible to trace a Welshman. It
was not until the middle of the 16th century that the
prominent families of Wales begun to adopt the surname
as used by the English. They then took the name of the
father, and William ap Lewis became William Lewis