The beginnings of an American legend.
Lewis’s life began in 1774 in Albemarle County, Virginia, just as America was becoming a country. He was the oldest child of William and Lucy Meriwether Lewis. When he was just five years old, his father passed away from pneumonia while serving in the Continental Army. Soon after, his mother remarried Captain John Marks and moved the family to northeast Georgia and settled along the Broad River in present-day Oglethorpe County.
Instead of attending school, Lewis spent most of his time honing his skills as a young outdoorsman and hunter. His mother even taught him how to gather wild herbs for medicinal purposes. It was in the Broad River Valley that Lewis had his first interaction with Native Americans. When he turned 13, Lewis’s mother and stepfather sent him back to Virginia for a more formal education, but he continued visiting his family in Georgia as often as possible.
When his stepfather passed away in 1792, Lewis learned to manage the family’s plantation in Virginia, Locust Hill. During these years, Lewis also became acquainted with the owner of a large neighboring plantation, Thomas Jefferson. He and Jefferson shared an interest in the natural sciences, and Lewis often borrowed books from Jefferson’s library to satisfy his desire to learn.
Lewis enlisted in the United States Army in 1795 and excelled through the ranks to captain. One of his commanding officers during this time was William Clark, who would become a close friend and future co-explorer. When Jefferson became president in 1801, he asked Lewis to be his personal secretary. Lewis spent two years working with the president before Jefferson offered him his next opportunity, one that would secure his name in American history books for all time.
The Lewis and Clark Expedition.
After other failed attempts at sending explorers to the Pacific Ocean, President Jefferson asked Lewis to lead an important expedition to accomplish this feat. In 1803, Jefferson bought a large amount of land from France, a region that stretched from present-day Louisiana all the way to Montana. Already home to many Native Americans who did not get a say in the sale of their land, Jefferson tasked Lewis with leading an expedition to contact and learn more about these Native peoples while mapping the area and gathering data on the animals and plants he encountered along the way.
First, the president arranged for Lewis to move to Philadelphia to study wayfinding and medicine to aid in this journey. When it was time to form a team, Lewis selected his friend and former commander, William Clark, to be his co-captain for the expedition. Together, they gathered a team of soldiers and the necessary supplies for what they knew would be a long journey. The expedition ultimately traveled more than 8,000 miles to the Pacific Ocean and back to St. Louis. Lewis, Missouri. Clark spent much of the journey representing young America in peace talks and trade with Native tribe leaders they met along the way.
When the large-scale expedition concluded, President Jefferson rewarded Lewis for his hard work with 1,600 acres of public land as well as the family plantation in Virginia. A year later, Jefferson appointed Lewis as the governor of the newly acquired Louisiana Territory, a role he would only serve for just over a year.
Lewis’s Death in Lewis County
His journey during the Lewis and Clark Expedition cost Lewis a significant amount of his own money, which he expected the government to reimburse him for. The Department of War did not see the necessity of some expenses, such as tobacco traded with Native American groups, and refused to pay. This delay in funds left Lewis in a difficult financial situation. In 1809, at the age of 35, he set off for Washington to meet with government officials and plead his case. Unfortunately, Lewis would never make it to D.C.
According to a lost letter from October 19, 1809, to Thomas Jefferson, Lewis stopped at an inn on the Natchez Trace called Grinder’s Stand (in present-day Lewis County) on October 10. After dinner, he retired to his one-room cabin. In the early morning hours of October 11, the innkeeper’s wife heard gunshots, and servants found Lewis badly injured from gunshot wounds to the head and gut. He died shortly after sunrise and was buried nearby, a site marked today by the Meriwether Lewis Monument located at 191 Meriwether Lewis Park Rd, Hohenwald, TN.
While Jefferson and some modern historians have generally accepted Lewis’s death as a suicide, debate continues to this day. Despite the exact details of Lewis’s death, most can agree that his life was an important contribution to American history.