Allen Kendrick Manos, Son-in-Law of Daniel A. Lewis

 ©  Kathy Duncan, 2023

For those sitting on the fence about the identity of John D. Lewis's son Daniel Adams Lewis and whether he had one wife (Betsy Young) or several additional wives (Tempe DeSpain and Margaret Masters), consider this additional information. 

In 1870, Daniel's sister Jane (Lewis) Wardlaw was a widow, living in Hunt County, Texas with three of her children and a farm laborer named Allin Manos. Jane and Milton Wardlaw's married daughter Susan Ashmore was living next door.

For too many years, the identity of Allen Manos, the farm hand, was unimportant since he did not seem to have any family connection.

That is he was seemingly unimportant until he turned up again in connection with Daniel Adams Lewis's third set of children with Margaret (Masters) Digman Newby. Allen Kendrick Manos married Missouri Texana Lewis, the middle daughter of Daniel Adams and Margaret (Masters) Lewis. In 1870, Missouri Texana Lewis was living with her mother and step-father L. H. Newby in Johnson County, Texas.

How on earth did Allen K. Manos and Missouri Texana Lewis meet? There are a couple of possibilities. Missouri Texana may have gone to Hunt County to visit her aunt and met him there. Margaret (Masters) Newby's marriage disintegrated by 1880. If she was in need of reliable help and had communicated that to her sister-in-law Jane Wardlaw, then Allen K. Manos may have gone to Johnson County to work for the family. To date, I have not located the marriage record of Allen K. Manos and Missouri Texana Lewis, which might shed some light on a possible place for their meeting.

Allen K. Manos establishes that there was a connection between Daniel Adams Lewis's sister Jane Wardlow and the daughter of Daniel and Margaret (Masters) Lewis. I do not believe that was purely coincidental. 

Digging into the identity of Allen K. Manos turned up even more mysterious information and even more questions. 

In 1860 Allen K. Manos was living in Hunt County, Texas with his parents John and Mary J Manos. John C. Manos was born in Tennessee in 1815 and Mary J Manos was born in Tennessee in 1825. It is notable that they were living in Tishomingo County, Mississippi in 1850. Even more notable, among their many children were Wiley Manos born c. 1842 in Mississippi, Matilda Jane Manos born c. 1848 in Mississippi, and Joel Manos born c. 1859 in Texas. These are names used repeatedly in the Lewis family. 

Further digging revealed that John C. Manos married Mary Jane Lewis in Jefferson County, Alabama on 20 November 1839.

Who was Mary Jane Lewis??? The short answer is that I do not know. She does not seem to be an unidentified daughter of John D. Lewis. The lawsuit brought by the children of Green and Elizabeth (Lewis) Babb against their stepmother does not include any information about Mary Jane (Lewis) Manos and her children. She does, however, seem to have a connection to John D. Lewis. At this point, I think it is very possible that she was an elder, unidentified daughter of John D. Lewis's son Wiley Lewis. At the same time, I cannot figure out how she would have ended up in Alabama in 1839. 

I suspect now that the marriage of Allen Kendrick Manos and Missouri Texana Lewis was a marriage between cousins. More digging needs to be done, but this is a prime example of why it is important to research siblings and associates. It is admittedly tedious, but it pays off.