William H. Lewis '95, Virginia-born Negro center, who achieved fame on Harvard football teams in 1892 and 1893 and later became a prominent Boston criminal lawyer, died yesterday at the age of 80.

Lewis, the son of a Methodist minister who had been born a slave, came to the Harvard Law School in 1893 after a highly successful career as an athlete, scholar, and debater at Amherst. Under the eligibility rules of that time he was able to continue playing football at Harvard while a law student.

Was Center

Twice during the two years he starred at center for the Crimson Lewis captained Harvard elevens. He led the football varsity for a portion of a game against Pennsylvania in 1892 and then again served as captain against Princeton the following year. Lewis thus precedes Levi Jackson of Yale as the Ivy League's first colored football captain by 57 years. In 1912 Walter Camp placed Lewis on his all time All-American team.

For 15 years thereafter Lewis served as a line coach at Harvard. He was noted as a defensive expert and he devised the defense strategy that stopped Pennsylvania's then unbeatable "guards back" offense through his knowledge of Napoleon's military tactics.

Another "First"

Another Lewis "first," along with two other Negroes, was his admission to the American Bar Association in 1911. At that time the executive committee of the association attempted to cancel the memberships of the three Negroes and a heated dispute resulted in which prominent attorneys led the fight on behalf of Lewis. Although Lewis' membership was not rescinded, until 1943 no other Negro was admitted to the American Bar Association.

President Theodore Roosevelt '80 appointed Lewis United States attorney for Boston in 1903 and eight years later President Taft named him assistant United States attorney general, the highest point to which a Negro has risen in this country's judicial system