George Lewis Burial Site, Rapides Parish Louisiana
Submitted by Jane Parker McManus

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Directions:  Between Gardner and Hineston on LA Hwy. 121, turn left onto the R. 
Goleman Road.  Go about 3.0 miles to cattle guard into Old Camp Claiborne.  The 
old Jose Dyess homestead is several more miles down a gravel road on a wooded hill.  
In the 1940's, several families had homes and farms in this area, but the federal 
government needed the land for a bombing range, and families were forced to move.  
This area is known as Valentine.

* * * Background * * *

In 1921 George Lewis lived in a small house and farmed a few acres on a hilltop 
about 3/4 mile from the Dyess homestead in the Valentine area.  He had arrived a 
few years earlier with all his possessions in one wagon, but nobody knew much about 
him.  He lived alone, had a horse, a mule, a cat, and a dog named Stella.  Although 
he was a loner, he was not a troublemaker, so the neighbors accepted him into the 
community.  One room of his house was a small store, where Mr. Lewis sold tobacco 
and other "necessities."

On Sunday night 3 July 1921, the Dyess family attended services at China Grove Baptist 
Church leaving 15-year old Bertha and her sister at home with an elderly aunt who was 
ill.  About 9:00 pm the girls heard dogs barking and a gunshot in the direction of 
Mr. Lewis's field.  They thought nothing of it, as dogs always bark at night in the 
country, and it was not unusual for men and dogs to be out after dark hunting coons.  
They did not even mention it to their parents when they returned from church.

The next morning a man went to the Lewis store for some tobacco.  The door was open, 
but Mr. Lewis did not come when called.  Stella was barking in the field, and when
The man notified his brother, and the brother went to the Dyess home.  The authorities 
were notified, and the coroner and Deputy Sheriff determined that robbery was apparently 
not the motive, as there was about $200 in the house.  They also stated that George 
Lewis had been shot and was dead.  The authorities then left, taking Stella with them, 
and they never returned, and never returned with the dog either.

The Dyess family kept the wagon and other equipment belonging to Mr. Lewis, including 
the horse and mule, until Lewis's family was found.  As far as the neighbors knew, no 
investigation was ever made and no one was ever charged with the crime.  It was rumored 
in the community that somebody knew who did it and why, but nothing was ever done.  
Apparently, the only witness to the crime was Stella, the bird dog, and the authorities 
took her away.

Through the efforts of Bertha Dyess and her father, relatives were located in Alabama.  
Lewis had mentioned a town in Union County, so Bertha wrote to the postmaster of that 
town and to the Sheriff's Department of Union County.  In a couple weeks, two of Mr. 
Lewis's relatives came by train to Boyce, and hired a buggy and driver to take them 
to Valentine.  Kinship was proved with a picture of George Lewis, and they were given 
his possessions by Mr. Dyess.

During their stay in the Dyess home, Bertha and her father took them to visit the 
gravesite, and explained how the neighbors took charge of the burial.  Boards had 
been removed from the Lewis house to make a coffin, a grave had been dug under a 
walnut tree near the spot where Lewis was killed, and Mr. Dyess had built a picket 
fence around the grave to keep out wild animals and livestock.  One relative walked 
up to the grave, kicked the dirt, and said "poor devil!"

When Lewis's relatives went back to Alabama, they asked for the dog, but were told 
by the authorities that she had died.  However, it was rumored at the time that one 
of the deputies kept her because she was a valuable dog.

Information pertaining to the George Lewis burial site was given to me during several 
pleasant interviews with Mrs. Bertha Dyess Marler.  She was just 15 years old at the 
time of the Lewis murder, but she remembered vividly the details of the crime, the 
conversations she heard, and the part she played in the search for the relatives.  
Bertha still lives just a few miles from her old homestead (1992).


* * *


One cool day in late September 1992, Bertha and her brother, Elbert Dyess, who was 
10 years old when the murder took place and who remembers the incident just as well, 
took me to the "scene of the crime."  Mr. Dyess led me through the saw-briars and 
fallen trees, a quarter of a mile from the gravel road.  The spot is so hard to find 
that he had marked several trees with his own method of identification in order to 
find it.

The gravesite is marked by two old posts near a pine tree.  The little picket fence 
that the elder Mr. Dyess had erected 70 years ago had long since rotted, and the 
walnut tree is gone, too.  Elbert Dyess told me he was going to bring more posts 
and put a fence around the grave, and paint it white, so that maybe it will not 
be bulldozed and lost.  

We sat on an old log and Mr. Dyess pointed out where the field had been, where 
Mr. Lewis was shot, where the Lewis house was, and where the Dyess home had been 
on a nearby hillside (accessible only on foot in that direction).  We looked at a 
copy of the witness report from the man who found the body, and a copy of the 
inquest that stated George Lewis died of a gunshot wound "by person or persons unknown."

I am deeply grateful to "Miss Bertha" and her brother, Elbert Dyess, for their 
assistance in the preparation of this report.  Without their help, I would not 
have been able to include the burial in this series.  One man in one lone grave 
in the middle of the dense woods - he is gone, but certainly not forgotten by 
the Dyess family.  Mary Parker Partain, October 1992

Lewis, George - died 3 Jul 1921