Lewis Williams was a resident of Nansemond County, Virginia by 1677. He moved to Chowan Precinct, North Carolina by 1697, but quickly found himself embroiled in a dispute with the Meherrin American Indian nation. Though Williams purchased land along the Chowan River from the colony of North Carolina, the Meherrin, with the colony of Virginia's backing, claimed the land was theirs, and that North Carolina had no right to sell it. A group of Meherrin established themselves on what Williams' claimed was his land by 1706. There, they grew corn and built cabins. When the Meherrin refused to leave, in 1707 Colonel Thomas Pollock and a group of colonists laid siege to the nearby Meherrin town for a short while. Eventually Williams took control of the land and also purchased several other plots in the area. He died in Chowan in about 1717.