Henry Clay Lewis
Henry Clay Lewis was an American physician and writer born on June 26, 1825, in Charleston, South Carolina. After relocating to Cincinnati, Ohio, his life was marked by personal hardships, including the death of his mother and financial difficulties that hindered his education. Despite these challenges, Lewis became a doctor, initially opening a medical practice in Yazoo City, Mississippi, which did not succeed. He later established another practice in a remote area of Madison Parish, Louisiana, where he began writing humorous sketches that captured the experiences of frontier life. His writing, reflective of Southwestern humor, included both comedic and darker themes, often exploring topics like deformity and death. In 1848, he published his collection titled *Odd Leaves from the Life of a Louisiana Swamp Doctor*, which garnered positive reviews. Tragically, Lewis's life was cut short when he drowned later that same year. His dual legacy as a physician and a writer provides insight into the cultural and historical context of 19th-century American life.
On this Page
Subject Terms
Henry Clay Lewis
Fiction Writer
- Born: June 26, 1825
- Birthplace: Charleston, South Carolina
- Died: August 5, 1850
Biography
Henry Clay Lewis was born in Charleston, South Carolina, on June 26, 1825. He moved with his family to Cincinnati, Ohio, as a young child. After the death of his mother, he drifted from one brother’s home to another, finally ending up in Yazoo City, Mississippi. His brother, Joseph, had promised to fund Lewis’s education, but financial setbacks made this impossible. Lewis worked as a field hand until he became a doctor’s apprentice, and he eventually attended medical school in Kentucky. He returned to Yazoo City to open a medical practice which failed because of lack of business. Lewis eventually opened another medical practice in a swampy, remote area of Madison Parish, Louisiana. Here he began to write humorous sketches in the Southwestern humorist style, and these sketches were published in a sporting journal, The Spirit of the Times, owned by William T. Porter.
Lewis had published his first sketch in 1845 while he was still a medical student. The subject of the story was a young doctor who treated his frontier patients with a certain degree of ineptitude and sarcasm. Eventually, Lewis created the character of Madison Tensas, who was an elderly man looking back on his life. Although many of Lewis’s sketches were comedic, other stories were much darker and reflected his fascination with deformity, disease, and death. Twenty-two of these stories were published in book form, Odd Leaves from the Life of a Louisiana Swamp Doctor, in 1848. Lewis eventually moved to Richmond, Louisiana, which was the parish seat of Madison Parish. In 1850, Lewis’s book was published and he received good reviews. Unfortunately, he drowned while crossing a river later that same year, having tired of waiting for a boat to come.