Gaylord Rockwell sent me further details on the family of Lewis's parents, obtained from Thomas Alexander Rockwell of San Jose, California. This report includes the birth date of 6 January 1807 for Lewis. The only new detail on Lewis and descendants was that his son Lyman E. Rockwell married Dimmis A. Child. The son must be the fourth child in the 1850 census report, called "Eddy L. Rockwell."
Son Charles is called "C. W. Rockwell," aged 13 in the 1850 household. I didn’t find him in 1860, but it is possible that he moved east to Landis, Cumberland Co., New Jersey by 1870, where a 33-year-old Charles Rockwell lived with wife Jane (32, born in England), son Charles (10, born in Wisconsin), and daughters Jessie (4, b. N.J.) and Ellen M (1, b. N.J.). By 1880, this family was in Paterson, N.J., where Charles was a furniture dealer. The children of that household included Charles M., 20; Jessie, 14; and George, 8. In the 1900 census, at Dover, Morris Co., N.J., Charles, at 67, identified himself as a house carpenter [a trade that runs in this family], while son George M. Rockwell worked for him as a plumber. Jane had had seven children, not all of whom have been identified. But one daughter married a Leach, as a 4-year-old grandson, Ernest E. Leach, is in the Rockwell household.
The following article, by Diane Giles, appeared in the Kenosha [Wisc.] News on April 8, 2008. Thanks to Mary Ann Cole for sending it to me.
Rockwell enlisted to fight in Civil War at age 15
By Diane Giles, Kenosha News
Morris (sometimes spelled Maurice) Eugene Rockwell wasn’t known in these parts when he moved to Pleasant Prairie with his family in 1884. But by the time he died in 1940 at the age of 92, everyone knew him as the last Civil War veteran of the Fred S. Lovell post of the Grand Army of the Republic.
Rockwell was born in Madison County, New York, on Nov. 10, 1848, the son of Lewis and Belinda Rockwell. The following year the family moved to Fort Atkinson, where Rockwell spent his formative years.
The Civil War began when Rockwell was just 13 years old. He had heard tales of the battles, and by the time he was 15 he was ready to fight for the Union. He enlisted, claiming to be 18 years old, and he joined up with the 13th Wisconsin artillery in New Orleans.
The 13th Independent Battery was mustered into service in Milwaukee on Dec. 29, 1863, with 156 officers and men initially recruited. The battery spent its entire service in garrisons at New Orleans and Baton Rouge, La. The battery was mustered out on July 20, 1865. During its duration, 14 enlisted men died of disease, for a total of 14 fatalities.
After the war, Rockwell married Charlotte E. Eastick on March 17, 1875 in Walworth County [Wisconsin]. When their son Charles was 6 years old, they moved to Pleasant Prairie and built a homestead farm. The Rockwells had three other children.
Rockwell owned and operated a general store in the area for many years. He also went into the wallpaper-and-painting business, a trade he learned in his early youth. He maintained a sharp mind as he aged and could tell story about his 15 years in Kenosha County. Near the end of his life, he would spend his summers at the Veterans Home in Milwaukee and the winters in Florida. In 1938, he moved to the Veterans Home at Waupaca, where he died two years later. Rockwell was brought to the Hansen Funeral Home and was buried in the Wesley Cemetery in Bristol.