Meriwether Lewis
portrait by Charles Willson Peale
Born	August 18, 1774 Charlottesville, Virginia
Died	October 11, 1809 (aged 35) Grinder's Stand, Hohenwald, Tennessee

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

Meriwether Lewis was born in Albemarle County, Virginia, to Captain George 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 the little known 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 the 1790s, 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 Army, in which he served until 1801, at one point in the detachment of William Clark, who would later become his companion in the Corps of Discovery.

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." He later became intimately involved in the planning of the expedition and was sent by Jefferson to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for instruction in cartography and other skills necessary for making scientific observations. He always said onward we go. 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. ^[1]

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. ^[2]

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. ^[3]

Lewis was a Freemason, initiated, passed and raised in Door To Virtue Lodge No. 44 in Albemarle, VA between 1796 and 1797. ^[4] 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. ^[5]

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. ^[6] 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.

Legacy

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 ancestors lineage, which was that of the Warner Hal. He was also related to Robert E Lee and Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, among others. ^[7] He was related to George Washington by marriage: his great-uncle 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. ^[8]

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 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. ^[9]

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; and the U.S. Army installation Fort Lewis, Washington.

References

External links

• Works by Meriwether Lewis at Project Gutenberg
• Meriwether Lewis at Find a Grave Retrieved on 2008-02-20

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