Henry T. Lewis

Judge Henry T. Lewis

Henry Thomas "Hal" Lewis (October 21, 1847 – December 10, 1903) was a justice of the Supreme Court of Georgia from 1897 to 1902.

Early life, education, and career

Born in Oxford, Newton County, Georgia, Lewis was the son of Colonel and Mrs. Miles W. Lewis. At the outbreak of the American Civil War, he was at the Georgia Military Institute, from which he went into the Army of the Confederacy, with the Georgia Cadets and remained until the close of the war. Lewis attended Oxford College of Emory University, from where he graduated with distinction in 1870. Following his early education, he taught school for two years at Clinton in Jones county, studying law during that period to gain admission to the bar in 1872. In 1873, he moved to Atlanta and began the practice of law, forming a law partnership with Judge Edgar H. Orr, and afterwards serving as assistant state school commissioner when Orr became the commissioner. Around 1877, Lewis moved back to Greensboro, Georgia, and there practiced law until his appointment to the supreme court bench in 1897.

Lewis became involved in Democratic Party politics, and was a delegate to the 1884 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, where Grover Cleveland was nominated for the presidency. Lewis was again a delegate to the 1896 Democratic National Convention, also in Chicago, where he made the nominating speech for William Jennings Bryan, who won the nomination. Lewis was "a prominent candidate" for nomination to the United States Senate that year.

Judicial service

On November 17, 1897, Governor William Yates Atkinson appointed Lewis to fill a vacancy on the state supreme court. Lewis was thereafter elected for the full term of six years, and gained a reputation as one of the hardest-working judges on the bench. During the period of his service on the court, lynching was prevelant in the region, and in response to one case in which an African American man was lynched in the state after having been accused of rape, Lewis wrote that the lynching occurred not because "the lynchers have less regard for law and order, but because they have more concern for the sanctity of home and the protection of its inmates."

The work that Lewis put into the position affected his health, and his pending resignation was announced in June 1902, following a series of issues that had necessitated taking breaks from the court.

Personal life and death

On December 22, 1880, Lewis married Hattie Poulain, of Greenesboro, with whom he had two sons and one daughter.

Following his retirement from the court, Lewis "spent some time in the north in search of health and finally retired to his home in Greensboro".

He was in feeble health for the last few months of 1903, being "confined almost entirely to his room", until his death at his home in Greenesboro, at the age of 56.