Meriwether Liston Lewis Collection

Meriwether Liston Lewis (1877-1969) was a writer, historian and a librarian at the Carnegie Library, Nashville, Tennessee. He was a native of Lenoir City, Tennessee, the son of Dr. Meriwether and Jennie Gentry Lewis. He received his education in Nashville public schools. He worked in the Nashville Public Library for nearly forty-five years and, at the time of his retirement in 1947, was the chief reference librarian. Lewis was the author of many short biographies of famous men and women which were used in children's literature. He also wrote a weekly column on pugilism for the Nashville Banner newspaper from 1924-30 under the pen name Adrian Listina. Mr. Lewis's lifetime study and research on the famous French General Montcalm resulted in publication of a scholarly biography: "Montcalm: The Marvelous Marquis" (New York: Vantage Press, 1962). At age forty-one, Lewis registered with the World War I local draft board of Davidson County, on Sept. 12, 1918, while employed at the Carnegie Library. Lewis, who lived to the age of ninety-two, was a very scholarly gentleman with many historical and cultural interests. Upon his death in 1969, he was interred in Mt. Olivet Cemetery in Nashville, Tennessee.