Charles Lilburn Lewis

Charles Lilburn Lewis (1747 – 1831 or 1837), sometimes referred to as Charles Lilburn Lewis of Monteagle, was one of the founders of Milton, Virginia, as well as one of the signers of Albemarle County, Virginia's Declaration of Independence in 1779.

Charles Lilburn Lewis was the oldest of eight children born to Colonel Charles Lewis of Buck Island and Mary Randolph. (Her sister Jane Randolph Jefferson was the mother of United States President Thomas Jefferson.) On September 12, 1769, Lewis married his first cousin, Lucy Jefferson, President Jefferson's sister. The couple eventually had eight children: Randolph, Isham, Jane Jefferson, Lilburn, Mary Randolph, Lucy B., Martha, and Ann M. (Nancy). In another first cousin marriage, Lewis's daughter, Mary Randolph would eventually marry Randolph Jefferson's son, Thomas, on October 3, 1808.

The family initially lived in a two-story log cabin on a 500-acre tract south of the Rivanna River around eight miles from Charlottesville, Virginia. In 1782 Lewis inherited 1500 acres and other property from his father's estate, on which he built a large new home on a bluff overlooking the river; he named the estate Monteagle or Mt. Eagle.

During the American Revolutionary War, Lewis joined his father in signing a declaration of independence of the citizens of Albemarle County. Although he initially served as a lieutenant, by August 1782 he had achieved the rank of colonel, serving as the county lieutenant. Lewis also served on the Albemarle jury in 1785.

The grown sons Randolph and Lilburn moved with their families to Livingston County, Kentucky from Albemarle County, Virginia in 1806. Charles and Mary followed with their three unmarried daughters by 1808. According to Boynton Merrill, Jr. in Jefferson's Nephews: A Frontier Tragedy, Lewis had fallen on hard times at the end of the 18th century and was forced to sell his land and slaves. Randolph and Lilburn purchased large tracts of land along the Ohio River near Smithland, Kentucky, and Lilburn built his home, "Rocky Hill", on a high point in the center of a 1,000-acre farm.

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