Lewis Evans (surveyor)

Welsh surveyor and geographer

Lewis Evans (c. 170012 June 1756) was a Welsh surveyor and geographer. He had a brother John. In the mid 1730s he emigrated to British America, where he was based in Philadelphia. He was well known for his 1755 map of the Middle British Colonies.

Lewis Evans was born in Caernarfonshire, Wales. He travelled to the British colonies in North America, where he settled in Philadelphia by the mid 1730s. In 1736 he bought a book from Benjamin Franklin, a printer, which was the start of their friendship. Franklin encouraged his geographic and scientific research. In 1743 Evans married Martha Hoskins, a friend of Franklin's wife Deborah Read Franklin. They had a daughter Amelia before Martha died in 1754, when the girl was ten. In 1751 Evans taught a class in geography and natural philosophy, as it was known, in Philadelphia, Newark, and New York. Evans died in New York in June 1756. His body was returned to Philadelphia, where he was buried in the noted Christ Church Burial Ground, now listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Evans's wife had died in 1754. He entrusted care of their daughter Amelia (Philadelphia, 1744 – Hythe, Southampton, 1835) to his brother John, who had followed him to the colony. John Evans died in 1759, and Amelia was brought up by Deborah and Benjamin Franklin. At eighteen she traveled to London for a period. Later she lived in Tunis, where she worked as a tutor to the three daughters of the British consul, James Traill and his wife. The painter and engraver Alfredo Müller (1869–1939), and his brother Rodolfo (1876–1947), a cycling champion, are among her descendants. They were Swiss, born in Herisau, canton de l'Appenzell des Rhodes Extérieures. Afredo later acquired French citizenship.

Evans, Lewis, Brief Account of Pennsylvania, 1753. Evans, Lewis, Geographical, Historical, Political, Philosophical, and Mechanical Essays, Philadelphia, 1755 & London, 1756. Gipson, Lawrence Henry, Lewis Evans, Philadelphia, 1939. (Biography.)