Alexander Lewis (mayor)

Lewis remained with Bridge & Lewis until 1862, when he established a flour and grain business.^[1] This he built into one of the largest and most prosperous enterprises in the city.^[2] Lewis retired in 1884 to look after his various property interests and real estate.^[1][2] Lewis was also a director of the Detroit Fire & Marine Insurance Company, a director of the Detroit National Bank, president of Detroit Gas Light Company, and in 1862 president of the Detroit Board of Trade.^[1]

Lewis served as Police Commissioner from 1865 to 1875 and was elected mayor of Detroit in 1876 as a Democrat.^[1] He was also a member of the Detroit Library Board of Commissioners from 1881 to 1888,^[2] and, with Thomas W. Palmer, established the Michigan Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.^[3]

Lewis married Elizabeth J. Ingersoll in 1850; the couple had 13 children, of which 8 lived into the 1890s: Ida Frances (Lewis) Healy, Edward L. Lewis, Josephine (Lewis) Carpenter, Hattie I. (Lewis) Currie, Harry B. Lewis, Julia Velaire (McMillan) Penrose, Marion Marie (Lewis) Muir, and Alexander Ingersoll Lewis.^[1] Through his daughter Julia, Alexander is the great-great-grandfather of Baroness Sybille de Selys Longchamps, the mother of Princess Delphine of Belgium (Delphine Michèle Anne Marie Ghislaine de Saxe-Cobourg; born 22 February 1968),^[4][5] known previously as Jonkvrouw Delphine Boël, who is a Belgian artist and member of the Belgian royal family. She is the daughter of King Albert II of Belgium with de Selys Longchamps, and the half-sister of King Philippe of Belgium.^[6]

Around 1900, Lewis built a home in Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan, which is now the parish house for the Saint Paul Catholic Church.^[7] The complex was designated a Michigan State Historic Site in 1992.^[7] Alexander Lewis died on April 18, 1908.^[2]