John T. Lewis (1835-1906) was a poor man. A black born in Carroll County, Md., Lewis was an anomaly in a slave-holding society. He was a freeman. And in 1853 he became another anomaly: he joined the Dunker (now known as Church of the Brethren) congregation at the Meadow Branch meetinghouse near Westminster, Md. In 1856 he moved his membership to the Beaver Dam church. Then in 1860 Lewis left Maryland and lived for a time at Marsh Creek, near Gettysburg, Pa. But, still footloose, he moved to New York state in 1862, settling for good in Elmira in 1864. There he married Mary Stover, another uprooted Southern black.

In 1877, in his early 40s, Lewis was a poor farmer. Around Elmira he had found work for a time as a coachman for a wealthy businessman, Jervis Langdon, later to be Mark Twain's father-in-law. Then he had a stint as a blacksmith. In 1870 he returned to employment with the Langdon family. After Langdon's death Lewis rented some of the family's East Hill property for farming. But luck was against him, and he gradually sank deeply into debt.

DARING RESCUE

On August 23, 1877, several of Mark Twain's relatives visited him and his family at Quarry Farm. At sunset Ida Langdon, the wife of Mark Twain's brother-in-law, her little daughter, and the daughter's nurse, Nora, set out in their carriage for the return trip to Elmira. As they descended the hill from Quarry Farm, the horse became frightened by the carriage pressing so closely behind him. Lewis, who was on the road further down the hill with a wagon load of manure, looked up to see the runaway horse and buggy. Without a moment's hesitation, he turned his team diagonally across the road just at the dangerous turn, making a V with the fence that bordered the road. The horse entered this V and Lewis seized the horse's bit as the animal flew past him, thus stopping the runaway and avoiding a catastrophe. For this daring deed, Lewis was rewarded by the Langdon family. Lewis also earned Twain's admiration and friendship.

TALKING RELIGION

Mark Twain enjoyed talking religion with his Dunker friend. From Lewis he learned about the Brethren faith, and as Lewis described and lived it. Twain found much that impressed him. That Lewis, although removed from the Brethren world during the last 40 years of his life, was a faithful member of his church is evidenced in his letter published in The Christian Family Companion (January 28, 1870). Said Lewis from his isolation in upstate New York:

I am trying by the help of God to live in accordance with the gospel and the order of the Brethren. All the preaching I have is in the Bible, The Companion, and the Gospel Visitor, which are great comforters to me... There are many churches here, but their chief object seems to be popularity. You cannot tell the members from the world only by seeing them take communion. They appear to give but little heed to the teachings of the Bible. They don't appear to know anything about the Brethren, and they laugh at the idea of feetwashing... I hope the brethren and the sisters will pray for me, that I may be faithful to the end.

A MODEL FOR "JIM" IN HUCK FINN

Twain's "high and grateful regard" for John Lewis was expressed in print. Soon after the 1877 incident of the runaway horse, Twain returned to work on Huckleberry Finn, the sequel to Tom Sawyer. In it he introduced a new character who had not appeared in the earlier book—a runaway slave whose devotion to an orphaned white boy jeopardizes his own quest for freedom. The saga of the runaway slave and the white boy turned the book in a direction that set it apart from its frivolous predecessor. It became a serious study of the tension between one's own sound heart and the faulty dictates of conventional society, a story of two people who love each other who aren't supposed to. As Twain developed the character of the runaway slave Jim, he had in mind a heroic black man he knew, whose sterling qualities had led him to risk his life for others. The character of Jim, we are told, was based in part on Mark Twain's humble but heroic Dunker friend.

—Kermon Thomasson
Excerpted from Messenger (October 1985)

Published by the Brethren Historical Committee, General Services Commission, Church of the Brethren General Board , 1451 Dundee Avenue, Elgin, IL 60120 in 1992.