Capt. Meriwether Lewis

Meriwether Lewis

• BIRTH 18 Aug 1774, Ivy, Albemarle County, Virginia, British Colonial America
• DEATH 11 Oct 1809 (aged 35), Hohenwald, Lewis County, Tennessee, USA
• BURIAL Pioneer Cemetery, Hohenwald, Lewis County, Tennessee, USA Show Map
• MEMORIAL ID 623 · View Source

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/623/meriwether-lewis

Explorer. Born on a plantation in Albemarle County, Virginia, he and his family moved to Georgia when he was ten but by thirteen he was sent back to Virginia for education by private tutors. By 1794 he had joined the Virginia militia and was sent as part of a unit involved in putting down the Whiskey Rebellion.

In 1795 he joined the regular army and for a brief period, he was attached to a sub-legion of General Anthony Wayne commanded by Lieutenant William Clark. He served until 1801 achieving the rank of captain. Thomas Jefferson recruited Lewis as his secretary-aide that same year and he soon became involved in the planning of the Corps of Discovery expedition across the Louisana Purchase.

In 1803 Congress appropriated funds for the Expedition, and Lewis was commissioned as its leader. With Jefferson's consent, Lewis offered the post of co-captain of the expedition to William Clark. The expedition took almost three years and solidified the United States’ claims to land across the continent, and acquainted the world with new species, new people, and new territory. Upon the Corps’ successful return, Jefferson appointed Lewis governor of the Louisiana Territory and granted him a reward of 1500 acres.

In October of 1809, while en route to Washington, D.C., Lewis died of violence at a wayside inn called Grinder's Stand outside Nashville, Tennessee. No completely satisfactory explanation for his death has ever been found. Mrs. John Grinder who served as his landlady on the last night of his life reported: “… heard the sound of a gunshot and then the sound of something heavy falling to the floor… followed by the words, “Oh Lord!” … heard the sound of another gunshot and in a few moments, Lewis’ voice … “Oh, Madame, give me some water and heal my wounds.” … [she] refused to leave the room where she had been sleeping … she waited nearly two hours before … [rousing] the servants. They came inside and found Lewis on his pallet … He had been [shot] in the side and once in the head. The buffalo robe that he lay on was soaked with blood and Lewis was barely hanging on to life. … He died just as the sun was rising.” Lewis was buried there on the property. The land is now the Meriwether Lewis State Park in Tennessee.

Thomas Jefferson is credited with the inscription on Lewis' tombstone: Immaturus obi: sed tu felicior annos Vive meos, Bona Republica! Viva tuos (I died young: but thou, O Good Republic, live out my years for me with better fortune.) A year after his death, John Grinder, in whose home Lewis died, was brought before a grand jury on a warrant of murder. The charges were dismissed since no evidence or motive existed against him. Whether Lewis’ death was suicide, as was widely believed, or murder, as contended by his family, is still an open question.

Meriwether Lewis (August 18, 1774 – October 11, 1809)

Was an American explorer, soldier, and public administrator, best known for his role as the leader of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, also known as the Corps of Discovery, with William Clark. Their mission was to explore the territory of the Louisiana Purchase, establish trade and sovereignty over the natives near the Missouri River, and claim the Pacific Northwest and Oregon Country for the United States before European nations. They also collected scientific data and information on indigenous nations. President Thomas Jefferson appointed him Governor of Upper Louisiana in 1806. He died of gunshot wounds in what was a murder.

American explorer, best known as the leader of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. After crossing the Rocky Mountains, the expedition reached the Pacific Ocean in the area of present-day Oregon (which lay beyond the nation's new boundaries) in November 1805.

[]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meriwether_Lewis Wikipedia article on Meriwether Lewis]

These two Captains shared a common progenitor and were second cousins once removed. John Lewis was grandfather to Richard Ashcraft and G-grandfather to Meriwether Lewis. John Lewis married Elizabeth Warner (GGGGG-granddaughter to King James IV Stewart of England). John and Elizabeth Lewis were parents of Elizabeth (mother of Captain Richard Ashcraft) and Colonel Robert (father of Captain William Lewis who fathered Meriwether Lewis). So Richard Ashcraft's mother was a Great aunt to Meriwether Lewis.

Meriwether Lewis, in addition to being a great explorer and trailblazer, was the Governor of Louisiana. Meriwether Lewis never married and never had any children.

Meriwether Lewis was born in Albemarle County, Virginia, to Captain William Lewis (1712 – 1781) who was of Welsh ancestry, and Lucy Meriwether (1751 – 1837). He moved with his family to Georgia when he was ten. It was there that he met Eric Parker, who was the first to introduce him to the idea of traveling. At thirteen, he was sent back to Virginia for education by private tutors. One of these was Parson Matthew Maury, an uncle of Matthew Fontaine Maury. Parson Maury was a son of Charles Goodyear Maury who was Thomas Jefferson's teacher for two years. In 1793, Lewis graduated from Liberty Hall (now Washington and Lee University), joined the Virginia militia, and in 1794 was sent as part of a detachment involved in putting down the Whiskey Rebellion.

In 1795, he joined the regular U.S. Army, as a Lieutenant, where he served until 1801, at one point in the detachment of William Clark, who would later become his companion in the Corps of Discovery.

In 1801, he was appointed as an aide by President Thomas Jefferson, whom he knew personally through Virginia society in Albemarle County. Lewis resided in the White House, and frequently conversed with various prominent figures in politics, the arts, and other circles. Originally, he was to provide information on the politics of the United States Army, which had seen an influx of Federalist officers as a result of John Adams's "midnight appointments." When Jefferson began to formulate and to plan for an expedition across the continent, he chose Lewis to lead the expedition.

Jefferson selected Captain Meriwether Lewis to lead the proposed expedition, afterward known as the Corps of Discovery. Lewis became intimately involved in planning the expedition and was sent by Jefferson to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for instruction in cartography and other skills for making scientific observations. In June 1803, Jefferson provided Lewis with basic objectives for the mission, focusing on the exploration of the Missouri river and any related streams which might provide access to the Pacific Ocean.

Lewis concluded the expedition would benefit from a co-commander and, with Jefferson's consent, offered the assignment to his friend and former commanding officer, William Clark. Clark and Lewis were both relatively young and adventurous and had shared experience as woodsmen-frontiersmen and Army officers. However, the two men were quite different in education and temperament. Lewis was introverted and moody while Clark was extroverted, even-tempered, and gregarious. Lewis, who had a better education, possessed a philosophical and speculative outlook and was at home with abstract ideas. Clark was more pragmatic and practical. Because of bureaucratic delays in the U.S. Army, Clark officially only held the rank of Second Lieutenant at the time, but Lewis concealed this from expedition members and shared the leadership of the expedition, always referring to Clark as "Captain".

Lewis departed Pittsburgh for St. Louis—the capital of the new Louisiana Territory—via the Ohio River in the summer of 1803, gathering supplies, equipment, and personnel along the way. Between 1804 and 1806, the Corps of Discovery explored thousands of miles of the Missouri and Columbia River watersheds, searching for an all-water route to the Pacific Ocean. Generally sharing leadership responsibilities with William Clark, although technically the leader, Lewis led the expedition safely across the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific and back, with the loss of just one man, Charles Floyd, who died of apparent appendicitis. In the course of the journey, Lewis observed, collected, and described hundreds of plants and animal species previously unknown to science. The expedition was the first point of Euro-American contact for several Native American tribes; through translators and sign language, Lewis conducted rudimentary ethnographic studies of the peoples he encountered, even as he laid the groundwork for a trade economy to ensure American hegemony over its vast new interior territory.

On August 11, 1806, near the end of the expedition, Lewis was shot in the left thigh by Pierre Cruzatte, a near-blind man under his command, while both were hunting for elk. His wound hampered him for the rest of the journey.

After returning from the expedition, Lewis received a reward of 1,400 acres (5.7 km²) of land. In 1807, Jefferson appointed him governor of the Louisiana Territory; he settled in St. Louis. Lewis was a poor administrator, often quarreling with local political leaders and failing to keep in touch with his superiors in Washington.

Lewis was a Freemason, initiated, passed, and raised in Door To Virtue Lodge No. 44 in Albemarle, VA between 1796 and 1797.[5] On August 2, 1808, Lewis and several of his acquaintances submitted a petition to the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania in which they requested a dispensation to establish a lodge in St. Louis. Lewis was nominated and recommended to serve as the first Master of the proposed Lodge, which was warranted as Lodge No. 111 on September 16, 1808. Here his heavy drinking persisted.[6]

Lewis died under mysterious circumstances of two gunshot wounds in 1809 at a tavern called Grinder's Stand, about 70 miles (110 km) from Nashville, Tennessee, on the Natchez Trace, while in route to Washington to answer complaints about his actions as governor. Whether Lewis committed suicide or was murdered remains a mystery to this day. Jefferson believed the former, while his family continually maintained the latter.

The explorer was buried not far from where he died. He is honored today by a memorial along the Natchez Trace Parkway.

Due to his shy personality, Lewis never married. Although he died without legitimate heirs, he does have the putative DNA model haplotype for his paternal ancestor's lineage, which was that of the Warner Hall. He was also related to Robert E Lee and Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, among others. He was related to George Washington by marriage: his first cousin once removed was Fielding Lewis, Washington's brother-in-law. He was also a second cousin once removed of Washington's on his father's side.

For many years, Lewis's legacy was overlooked, inaccurately assessed, and even tarnished by his alleged suicide. Yet his contributions to science, the exploration of the Western U.S., and the lore of great world explorers are considered incalculable.

Several years after Lewis's death, Thomas Jefferson wrote:

   Of courage undaunted, possessing a firmness and perseverance of purpose which nothing but impossibilities could divert from its direction, ... honest, disinterested, liberal, of sound understanding and fidelity to the truth so scrupulous that whatever he should report would be as certain as if seen by ourselves, with all these qualifications as if selected and implanted by nature in one body for this express purpose, I could have no hesitation in confiding the enterprise to him.

Jefferson also stated that Lewis had a "luminous and discriminating intellect."

The alpine plant Lewisia (family Portulacaceae), popular in rock gardens, is named after Lewis, as is Lewis's Woodpecker. Geographic names that honor him include Lewis County, Tennessee; Lewisburg, Tennessee; Lewiston, Idaho; Lewis County, Washington; the U.S. Army fort Fort Lewis, Washington, the home of the US Army 1st Corps (I Corps), and especially Lewis and Clark County, Montana, the home of the capital city, Helena.

The US Navy Polaris nuclear submarine USS Lewis and Clark was named for him and William Clark.

Capt. Meriwether Lewis (August 18, 1774 - October 11, 1809)

Meriwether was the firstborn son of Lucy Meriwether and William Lewis. By the age of eight, he was already showing the characteristics of courage and resourcefulness that stood him in good stead when he later commanded Jefferson’s great expedition to explore the Missouri and Columbian Rivers from 1804 to 1806. At that young age, he hunted alone at night in the mountains and dark woods of Albemarle County. When his father died in 1779, he inherited his “Locust Hill” estate. William Douglas Meriwether became his legal guardian and his Uncle Nicholas Lewis exercised unofficial oversight (Bakeless). Meriwether moved to Georgia with his mother and her second husband, Capt. John Marks, along with his brother Reuben, in 1784. (There is a question about whether Meriwether did move to Georgia with his family. It is known that he visited at least twice. {Benson}) They settled in the Goose Pond community in the Broad River area of northeast Georgia, where the boys enjoyed plentiful hunting and fishing. At home in Albemarle County, he pursued his studies with Dr. Charles Everitt, a physician, and then Rev. James Waddell, a blind parson, and Parson Matthew Maury. One visit to Georgia occurred in the summer of 1789 but Meriwether returned to his schooling in the fall. He kept in touch with his mother and family through long, chatty letters (Anderson, p. 501, Bakeless). In 1792, after the death of his step-father the year before, he traveled to the Broad River community to accompany his mother and his two half-siblings, John and Mary, back to “Locust Hill”.

Meriwether was drawn to army life and at the age of 20, he joined the Virginia Militia to help defeat the “Whiskey Rebellion” which began in Western Pennsylvania but spread through other western states. He then joined the regular army and achieved the rank of captain at the age of 23. President Jefferson asked him to be his private secretary; the president then appointed him commander of the Lewis and Clark expedition at the age of 30. Following his return from the West, he visited President Jefferson at the White House where he became ill – probably in late 1807. “He withdrew from public circles for several months, staying with his mother in Albemarle County, where he was probably treated by her and his physician [sic] brother Reuben.” (Dary, p. 80) By March 1808, he had arrived in St. Louis to assume his duties as governor of the Louisiana Territory. As governor, Meriwether was traveling to Washington, D.C. to meet with officials when he died in 1809. Controversy surrounded the circumstances of his sudden death along the Natchez Trace in Tennessee – a controversy that continues to this day.

Meriwether Lewis (August 18, 1774–October 11, 1809) was an American explorer, soldier, and public administrator, best known for his role as the leader of the Lewis and Clark Expedition also known as the Corps of Discovery, with William Clark, whose mission was to explore the territory of the Louisiana Purchase.

Biography

Lewis was born in Albemarle County, Virginia, to Lt. William Lewis of Locust Hill (1733 – November 17, 1779),[1] who was of Welsh ancestry, and Lucy Meriwether (February 4, 1752 – September 8, 1837), daughter of Thomas Meriwether and wife Elizabeth Thornton, in turn daughter of Francis Thornton and wife Mary Taliaferro. He moved with his mother and stepfather Captain John Marks to Georgia in May of 1780. They settled along the Broad River in the Goosepond Community within the Broad River Valley in Wilkes County (now Oglethorpe County). During his time in Georgia, Lewis enhanced his skills as a hunter and outdoorsman. He would often venture out in the middle of the night in the dead of winter with only his dogs to go hunting. Even at his early age he was interested in natural history, which would develop into a lifelong passion. His mother taught him how to gather wild herbs for medicinal purposes. It was also in the Broad River Valley that Lewis first dealt with a native Indian group. The Cherokee lived in antagonistic proximity to the white settlers, but Lewis seems to have been a champion for them amongst his own people. It was in Georgia that he met Eric Parker, who was the first to introduce him to the idea of traveling. At thirteen, he was sent back to Virginia for education by private tutors. One of these was Parson Matthew Maury, an uncle of Matthew Fontaine Maury. Parson Maury was a son of Charles Goodyear Maury who was Thomas Jefferson's teacher for two years. In 1793, Lewis graduated from Liberty Hall (now Washington and Lee University), joined the Virginia militia, and in 1794 he was sent as part of a detachment involved in putting down the Whiskey Rebellion.

In 1795, he joined the regular U.S. Army, as a Lieutenant, where he served until 1801, at one point in the detachment of William Clark, who would later become his companion in the Corps of Discovery.

On April 1, 1801, he was appointed as an aide by President Thomas Jefferson, whom he knew personally through Virginia society in Albemarle County. Lewis resided in the presidential mansion, and frequently conversed with various prominent figures in politics, the arts and other circles.[2] Originally, he was to provide information on the politics of the United States Army, which had seen an influx of Federalist officers as a result of John Adams's "midnight appointments." [3] When Jefferson began to formulate and to plan for an expedition across the continent, he chose Lewis to lead the expedition.

Expedition

Jefferson selected Captain Meriwether Lewis to lead the proposed expedition, afterwards known as the Corps of Discovery. Lewis became intimately involved in planning the expedition and was sent by Jefferson to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for additional instruction in cartography and other skills for making scientific observations. In June 1803, Jefferson provided Lewis with basic objectives for the mission, focusing on the exploration of the Missouri river and any related streams which might provide access to the Pacific Ocean.

Lewis suggested that the expedition would benefit from a co-commander and, with Jefferson's consent, offered the assignment to his friend and former commanding officer, William Clark. Clark and Lewis were both relatively young and adventurous and had shared experience as woodsmen-frontiersmen and Army officers. However the two men were quite different in education and temperament. Lewis was introverted and moody while Clark was extroverted, even-tempered and gregarious. Lewis, who had a better education, possessed a philosophical and speculative outlook and was at home with abstract ideas. Clark was more pragmatic and practical. Because of bureaucratic delays in the U.S. Army, Clark officially only held the rank of Second Lieutenant at the time, but Lewis concealed this from expedition members and shared the leadership of the expedition, always referring to Clark as "Captain".[4]

Lewis departed St. Louis for the Louisiana Purchase—via the Ohio River in the summer of 1803, gathering supplies, equipment, and personnel along the way. Between 1804 and 1806, the Corp of Discovery explored thousands of miles of the Missouri and Columbia River watersheds, searching for an all-water route to the Pacific Ocean. Generally sharing leadership responsibilities with William Clark, although technically the leader, Lewis led the expedition safely across the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific and back, with the loss of just one man, Charles Floyd, who died of apparent appendicitis. In the course of the journey, Lewis observed, collected, and described hundreds of plants and animal species previously unknown to science. The expedition was the first point of Euro-American contact for several Native American tribes; through translators and sign language, Lewis conducted rudimentary ethnographic studies of the peoples he encountered, even as he laid the groundwork for a trade economy to ensure American hegemony over its vast new interior territory.

On August 11, 1806, near the end of the expedition, Lewis was shot in the left thigh by Pierre Cruzatte, a near-blind man under his command, while both were hunting for elk. His wound hampered him for the rest of the journey. At first, Pierre blamed Blackfeet Indians for the injury, but after the Corps found no sign of Indians, he admitted the accident. Clark bandaged and treated Lewis's wound, and the Corps continued the long way back to St. Louis.

Return and gubernatorial duties

After returning from the expedition, Lewis received a reward of 1,600 acres of land. In 1807, Jefferson appointed him governor of the Louisiana Territory; he settled in St. Louis. Lewis was a good administrator, but due to quarreling local political leaders, approval of trading licenses, land grant politics, Indian depredations, and a slow-moving mail system, it appeared that Lewis was a poor administrator who failed to keep in touch with his superiors in Washington.

Lewis was a Freemason, initiated, passed and raised in Door To Virtue Lodge No. 44 in Albemarle, VA, between 1796 and 1797. On August 2, 1808, Lewis and several of his acquaintances submitted a petition to the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania in which they requested a dispensation to establish a lodge in St. Louis. Lewis was nominated and recommended to serve as the first Master of the proposed Lodge, which was warranted as Lodge No. 111 on September 16, 1808.

Death

On September 3, 1809, Lewis set out for Washington D.C. to answer complaints about his actions as governor. On the way, he stopped at an inn called Grinder's Stand, about 70 miles (110 km) from Nashville, Tennessee on the Natchez Trace on October 10, 1809. Lewis requested a glass of whiskey almost as soon as he climbed down from his horse. After he excused himself from dinner, he went to his bedroom. In the predawn hours of October 11, the innkeeper heard gunshots. Servants found Lewis badly injured from multiple gunshot wounds. He died shortly after sunrise.

While modern historians generally accept his death as a suicide, there is some debate. Mrs. Grinder, the tavern-keeper's wife, claimed Lewis acted strangely the night before his death. She said that during dinner Lewis stood and paced about the room talking to himself in the way one would speak to a lawyer. She observed his face to flush as if it had come on him in a fit. After he retired for the evening, Mrs. Grinder continued to hear him talking to himself. At some point in the night she heard multiple gunshots, and what she believed was someone asking for help. She claimed to be able to see Lewis through the slit in the door crawling back to his room. She never explained why, at the time, she didn't investigate further concerning Lewis's condition or the source of the gunshots. The next morning, she sent for Lewis's servants, who found him weltering in his blood but alive for several hours.

When Clark and Jefferson were informed of Lewis' death, both accepted it as suicide, but his family contended it was murder. In later years a court of inquiry explored whether they could charge the tavern-keeper with Lewis' death. They dropped the inquiry for lack of evidence or motive.

The explorer was buried not far from where he died, honored today by a memorial along the Natchez Trace Parkway. During a ceremony on Oct. 7, 2009, marking the 200th anniversary of his death, a bronze bust of Lewis will be dedicated to the Natchez Trace Parkway for a planned visitor center. The Meriwether Lewis Chapter of the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation will host the event, called “Courage Undaunted—The Final Journey.”

On June 4, 2009, collateral descendants of Lewis launched a Web site aimed at garnering public support for exhumation and scientific study of the explorer's remains to determine—once and for all—the cause of his death. The Web site is SolvetheMystery

. The National Park Service, which controls the land where Lewis is buried, repeatedly has stalled the Lewis family's efforts to exhume the remains for scientific examination and to provide a proper Christian reburial.

Legacy

Lewis never married. Although he died without legitimate heirs, he does have the putative DNA model haplotype for his paternal ancestors' lineage, which was that of the Warner Hall. He was also related to Robert E. Lee and Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, among others.[9] He was related to George Washington by marriage: his first cousin once removed was Fielding Lewis, Washington's brother-in-law.[10] He was also a second cousin once removed of Washington's on his father's side.

For many years, Lewis' legacy was overlooked, inaccurately assessed, and even tarnished by his alleged suicide. Yet his contributions to science, the exploration of the Western U.S., and the lore of great world explorers, are considered incalculable.[3]

Four years after Lewis' death, Thomas Jefferson wrote:

   Of courage undaunted, possessing a firmness and perseverance of purpose which nothing but impossibilities could divert from its direction, ... honest, disinterested, liberal, of sound understanding and a fidelity to truth so scrupulous that whatever he should report would be as certain as if seen by ourselves, with all these qualifications as if selected and implanted by nature in one body for this express purpose, I could have no hesitation in confiding the enterprise to him.

Jefferson also stated that Lewis had a "luminous and discriminating intellect."

The alpine plant Lewisia (family Portulacaceae), popular in rock gardens, is named after Lewis, as is Lewis's Woodpecker. Geographic names that honor him include Lewis County, Idaho, Lewis County, Tennessee; Lewisburg, Tennessee; Lewiston, Idaho; Lewis County, Washington; the U.S. Army fort Fort Lewis, Washington, the home of the US Army 1st Corps (I Corps), and especially Lewis and Clark County, Montana, the home of the capital city, Helena. A day use campground at Gates of the Mountains Wilderness, north of Helena, Meriwether Picnic site. A cave, Lewis and Clark Caverns between Three Forks and Whitehall, Montana. The US Navy Polaris nuclear submarine USS Lewis and Clark was named for him and William Clark.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meriwether_Lewis

Meriwether Lewis (August 18, 1774 – October 11, 1809) was an American explorer, soldier, and public administrator, best known for his role as the leader of the Lewis and Clark Expedition also known as the Corps of Discovery, with William Clark, whose mission was to explore the territory of the Louisiana Purchase.

Meriwether Lewis was born in Albemarle County, Virginia, in the present-day community of Ivy. He was the son of Lt. William Lewis of Locust Hill (1733 – November 17, 1779), who was of Welsh ancestry, and Lucy Meriwether (February 4, 1752 – September 8, 1837), daughter of Thomas Meriwether and Elizabeth Thornton. (Thornton was the daughter of Francis Thornton and Mary Taliaferro). He moved with his mother and stepfather Captain John Marks to Georgia in May of 1780. His older brother Nicholas Lewis became his guardian. They settled along the Broad River in the Goosepond Community within the Broad River Valley in Wilkes County (now Oglethorpe County).

During his time in Georgia, Lewis enhanced his skills as a hunter and outdoorsman. He would often venture out in the middle of the night in the dead of winter with only his dogs to go hunting. Even at his early age he was interested in natural history, which would develop into a lifelong passion. His mother taught him how to gather wild herbs for medicinal purposes. It was also in the Broad River Valley that Lewis first dealt with a native Indian group. The Cherokee lived in antagonistic proximity to the white settlers, but Lewis seems to have been a champion for them amongst his own people. It was in Georgia that he met Eric Parker, who was the first to introduce him to the idea of traveling. At thirteen, he was sent back to Virginia for education by private tutors. One of these was Parson Matthew Maury, an uncle of Matthew Fontaine Maury. Parson Maury was a son of Charles Goodyear Maury who was Thomas Jefferson's teacher for two years. In 1793, Lewis graduated from Liberty Hall (now Washington and Lee University), joined the Virginia militia, and in 1794 he was sent as part of a detachment involved in putting down the Whiskey Rebellion.

In 1795 he joined the U.S. Army, as a Lieutenant, where he served until 1801, at one point in the detachment of William Clark, who would later become his companion in the Corps of Discovery.

On April 1, 1801, he was appointed as an aide by President Thomas Jefferson, whom he knew personally through Virginia society in Albemarle County. Lewis resided in the presidential mansion, and frequently conversed with various prominent figures in politics, the arts and other circles. Originally, he was to provide information on the politics of the United States Army, which had seen an influx of Federalist officers as a result of John Adams's "midnight appointments". When Jefferson began to formulate and to plan for an expedition across the continent, he chose Lewis to lead the expedition.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_and_Clark_Expedition

Return and gubernatorial duties

After returning from the expedition, Lewis received a reward of 1,600 acres of land. He also initially made arrangements to publish the Corp of Discovery journals but for some unknown reason never hired an editor or provided any text for the promised publications. In 1807, Jefferson appointed him governor of the Louisiana Territory; he settled in St. Louis. Lewis's record as an administrator is mixed. He established roads and was a strong proponent of the fur trade. His position was to protect the western lands from encroachers which was not favorable to the rush of settlers looking to open new lands for settlements. But due to quarreling with local political leaders, approval of trading licenses, land grant politics, Indian depredations, excessive drinking and a slow-moving mail system, it appeared that Lewis was a poor administrator who failed to keep in touch with his superiors in Washington.

Civic

Lewis was a Freemason, initiated, passed and raised in Door To Virtue Lodge No. 44 in Albemarle, Virginia, between 1796 and 1797. On August 2, 1808, Lewis and several of his acquaintances submitted a petition to the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania in which they requested a dispensation to establish a lodge in St. Louis. Lewis was nominated and recommended to serve as the first Master of the proposed Lodge, which was warranted as Lodge No. 111 on September 16, 1808.

Death

On September 3, 1809, Lewis set out for Washington D.C. where he hoped to resolve issues regarding the denied payment of drafts he had drawn against the War Department while serving as the first American governor of the Louisiana Territory. Lewis started out with the intention of traveling to Washington by ship from New Orleans but changed his plans while en route down the Mississippi and decided to make an overland journey via the Natchez Trace instead. The Natchez Trace was the old pioneer road between Natchez, Mississippi and Nashville, Tennessee. On October 10, 1809 he stopped at an inn on the Natchez Trace called Grinder's Stand, about 70 miles (110 km) from Nashville, Tennessee. After he excused himself from dinner, he went to his bedroom. In the predawn hours of October 11, the innkeeper heard gunshots. Servants found Lewis badly injured from multiple gunshot wounds. He died shortly after sunrise.

While modern historians generally accept his death as a suicide, there is some debate. Mrs. Grinder, the tavern-keeper's wife, claimed Lewis acted strangely the night before his death. She said that during dinner Lewis stood and paced about the room talking to himself in the way one would speak to a lawyer. She observed his face to flush as if it had come on him in a fit. After he retired for the evening, Mrs. Grinder continued to hear him talking to himself. At some point in the night she heard multiple gunshots, and what she believed was someone asking for help. She claimed to be able to see Lewis through the slit in the door crawling back to his room. She never explained why, at the time, she didn't investigate further concerning Lewis's condition or the source of the gunshots. The next morning, she sent for Lewis's servants, who found him weltering in his blood but alive for several hours. Mrs. Grinder's testimony is held as a point of contention from both sides of the murder-suicide debate. The murder advocates point to five conflicting testimonies as evidence that her testimony is fabricated and the suicide advocates point to her testimony as proof of suicide.

When Clark and Jefferson were informed of Lewis' death, both accepted it as suicide, but his family contended it was murder. In later years a court of inquiry explored whether they could charge the husband of the tavern-keeper with Lewis' death. They dropped the inquiry for lack of evidence or motive.

Memorials

Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Paul Allen with a biography of Meriwether Lewis, 1813The explorer was buried near present day Hohenwald, Tennessee, near his place of death. The State of Tennessee erected a monument over his grave in 1848. The Tennessee State Commission charged with locating the grave and erecting the monument wrote in its official report that it was likely Lewis died at the hands of an assassin. Today, the grave site is maintained by the Natchez Trace Parkway.

On October 7, 2009, about 2,500 people (Park Service estimate) from more than twenty-five states met at Lewis' grave on the 200th anniversary of his death. Lewis, who had not been publicly mourned when he died, was honored on that occasion with his first public memorial service. His life and achievements were acknowledged and some in the audience shed tears as the tragedy of his death was noted. Clark descendant Peyton "Bud" Clark, Lewis collateral descendants Howell Bowen and Tom McSwain, and Stephen Ambrose's daughter Stephanie Ambrose Tubbs spoke. A bronze bust of Lewis commissioned for the event was dedicated to the Natchez Trace Parkway for a planned visitor center at the grave site area. The District of Columbia and governors of twenty states sent flags flown over state capital buildings to be carried to Lewis' grave by residents of the states associated with the Lewis and Clark Trail. A reenactment of Lewis' entry into Grinder's Stand was an official concluding event of the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial. Reenactors who participated in the official bicentennial marched to Lewis' grave in period uniform accompanied by drum and fife. The Lewis and Clark families, along with representatives of St. Louis Lodge #1, past presidents of the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation, and the Daughters of the American Revolution carried wreaths and led a formal procession to Lewis' grave. Examples of plants Lewis discovered on the expedition were also brought from the Trail states and laid on his grave to honor him. The U.S. Army was also present through the 101st Airborne Infantry Band and its Army chaplain.

Legacy

Lewis never married. Although he died without legitimate heirs, he does have the putative DNA model haplotype for his paternal ancestors' lineage, which was that of the Warner Hall. He was also related to Robert E. Lee and Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, among others. He was related to George Washington by marriage: his first cousin once removed was Fielding Lewis, Washington's brother-in-law. He was also a second cousin once removed of Washington's on his father's side.

For many years, Lewis' legacy was overlooked, inaccurately assessed, and even tarnished by his alleged suicide.[citation needed] Yet his contributions to science, the exploration of the Western U.S., and the lore of great world explorers, are considered incalculable.

Four years after Lewis' death, Thomas Jefferson wrote:

Of courage undaunted, possessing a firmness and perseverance of purpose which nothing but impossibilities could divert from its direction, ... honest, disinterested, liberal, of sound understanding and a fidelity to truth so scrupulous that whatever he should report would be as certain as if seen by ourselves, with all these qualifications as if selected and implanted by nature in one body for this express purpose, I could have no hesitation in confiding the enterprise to him.

Jefferson also stated that Lewis had a "luminous and discriminating intellect."

The alpine plant Lewisia (family Portulacaceae), popular in rock gardens, is named after Lewis, as is Lewis's Woodpecker. Geographic names that honor him include Lewis County, Idaho, Lewis County, Kentucky; Lewis County, Tennessee; Lewisburg, Tennessee; Lewiston, Idaho; Lewis County, Washington; the U.S. Army fort Fort Lewis, Washington, the home of the US Army 1st Corps (I Corps), and especially Lewis and Clark County, Montana, the home of the capital city, Helena. A day use campground at Gates of the Mountains Wilderness, north of Helena, Meriwether Picnic site. A cave, Lewis and Clark Caverns between Three Forks and Whitehall, Montana. The US Navy Polaris nuclear submarine USS Lewis and Clark was named for him and William Clark.

Meriwether Lewis never married. It is believed that he committed suicide.

'Seaman

Seaman was Meriwether Lewis`s beloved pet Newfoundland dog, and accompanied the Corps of Discovery Team on their Westward Exploration.

''''''some interesting facts about Seaman [http://lewis-clark.org/content/content-article.asp?ArticleID=2295]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meriwether_Lewis