Harry Haskell Lew, born January 4, 1884 in what is now Lowell, Massachusetts, started out as a talented violinist and played a solo at his grammar school graduation. His great-great-grandfather, Barzillai Lew, served in the American Revolution and fought at the Battle of Bunker Hill. His grandparents house was a station on the Underground Railroad. His father William Lew was a delegate to the 1891 Equal Rights Convention in Boston.
He joined the YMCA basketball team in 1898 and the team was state champions for the four hears he was with them. In 1902, he was recruited to join Lowell's Pawtucketville Athletic Club of the New England Professional Basketball League. The manager was reluctant to put Lew into the game but after pressure from local press and a series of injuries to other players, Lew was allowed on the court.
The New England League disbanded after the 1905 season. He organized teams around New England before he played his final game in St. John's Vermont in 1926. In 1928, he moved his dry cleaning business to Springfield, Massachusetts, where he died in 1963.
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