Lewis C. (Lewis Conger) Lockwood

Born in New Windsor, New York, on December 20, 1815, Lewis Conger Lockwood became a Presbyterian minister and author. He is chiefly remembered for Mary S. Peake: The Colored Teacher at Fortress Monroe, a biographical work that helped document the life of an important Black educator and the beginnings of education among freed people during the Civil War.

Contemporary and library records connect him closely with the American Missionary Association's early work at Fortress Monroe, where he was described as its first missionary to freedmen. That background helps explain the clear sense of purpose in his writing: he was not just recording events from a distance, but writing out of direct involvement in a major moment of social and religious history.

Lockwood died on December 1, 1904, in Ozone Park, Queens, New York. While detailed personal information about him is limited in the sources I could confirm, his surviving book remains a valuable piece of 19th-century historical testimony.