On this day 250 years ago on Long Island (in what is now the Queens borough of New York City), British sailors from the brig HMS Halifax raided and stole goods from a warehouse owned by Francis Lewis, one of the members of New York’s delegation to the Continental Congress and a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Later that day the Halifax bombarded Lewis’s home Whitestone as a prelude to a raid by a troop of British light horse. The British pilfered Lewis’s possessions, burned Whitestone to the ground and captured Francis Lewis’s wife, Elizabeth Annesley Lewis. Elizabeth Lewis was imprisoned by the British for several months before she was released on parole, but she was not exchanged and reunited with her husband until the following year. Ill treatment in British captivity broke her health and Elizabeth Lewis would die in June 1779.

Francis Lewis was an immigrant to America born in Wales. Francis and Elizabeth Lewis should both be counted as Founders who made sacrifices for American freedom. The location of the Lewis mansion Whitestone is unmarked but it was located in, and gave its name to, the Whitestone neighborhood of Queens.

Sources: https://navydocs.org/node/7448; https://www.dsdi1776.com/signer/francis-lewis/; https://www.baysidehistorical.org/post/francis-lewis-merchant-patriot-signer-of-the-declarationhttps://www.americanhistorycentral.com/entries/francis-lewis-founding-father/; https://landmarkevents.org/profiles-of-1776-elizabeth-annesley-lewis/