Oregon Historical Quarterly/Volume 6/Meriwether Lewis
MERIWETHER LEWIS.[1]
Lewis Day of the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition is a proper occasion for a review of the leading events in the life of Meriwether Lewis. The only authentic account of his early life and genealogy is contained in the memoirs of Thomas Jefferson. We learn more of the man from the Journals of Lewis and Clark's Expedition than from any other source. It is a marvelous fact that the records of this expedition have never been fully published. There is now an edition in the course of preparation as the explorers wrote them.
Meriwether Lewis was born on the 18th day of August, 1774, near the town of Charlottesville, in the county of Albemarle, in 'Virginia. John Lewis, one of his greatuncles, was a member of the king's council before the Revolution; and Fielding Lewis, another great-uncle, married a sister of George Washington. Colonel Robert Lewis, his grandfather, had five sons, of whom William, the youngest, was the father of Meriwether and Reuben. Charles Lewis, an uncle, was colonel of a Virginia regiment; he died early in the Revolution. Nicholas Lewis, an uncle, commanded a regiment of militia in 1776 against the Cherokee Indians. This member of the Lewis family was endeared to all who knew him for probity, courteous disposition, and modesty of manners. After William Lewis's death, Nicholas Lewis was appointed guardian of Meriwether and Reuben. The mother married John Marks, and from this marriage there were two children, John Marks and Mary Garland Marks. Reuben Lewis 392 ANDREW T. LEWIS. is mentioned in connection with the Missouri Fur Com- pany at St. Louis in 1809. and in the Mandan towns in the fur trade in 1811. There are no descendants of either Meriwether or Reuben Lewis. Of the early life of Meriwether Lewis it is said that at the age of eight years he often went out in the middle of the night, into the forests, with his dogs, to hunt the raccoon and opossum. At thirteen he was sent to a Latin school and continued there for five years. At eighteen he returned home, and for two years had the charge of his mother's farm. At twenty he was a volunteer in the militia, and took part against the discontent produced by the excise taxes in the western part of the United States. Through the influence of Jefferson, he was transferred to the regular army and commissioned a lieutenant in the line, and afterwards was appointed paymaster of his regi- ment. Jefferson had long desired knowledge oT the West; he proposed to the American Philosophical Society in 1792, the year of the discovery of the Columbia River, to raise money for an expedition to ascend the Missouri, cross the Stony Mountains, and descend the nearest river to the Pacific Ocean. Meriwether Lewis applied at the time to make the journey. When Jefferson was inaugurated President the young lieutenant became his secretary; he was commissioned captain in the regular army April 15, 1802. Lewis assisted the President with his confidential mes- sage to Congress of January 18, 1803. In this message the President proposed to send an exploring expedition up the Missouri River, cross the high lands and follow the best water courses to the Pacific Ocean. The President says of Lewis : "I now had an opportu- nity of knowing him intimately; of courage undaunted ; "possessing a firmness and perseverance of purpose which MERIWETHER LEWIS. 393 "nothing but impossibilities could divert from its direc- tion ; careful as a father of those committed to his charge, "yet steady in the maintenance of order and discipline ; "habituated to the hunting life ; guarded by exact observa- tion of vegetables and animals of his own country against "losing time in the description of objects already pos- "sessed ; honest; disinterested; liberal; of sound under- standing, and with a fidelity to truth so scrupulous that "whatever he should report would be as certain as if seen "by ourselves ; with all these qualities as if selected and "implanted by Nature in one body for this special pur- pose, I could have no hesitation in confiding the expedi- tion to him." Captain Lewis selected for his assistant, William Clark, of Louisville, Kentucky, brother of General George Rogers Clark. This selection was approved, and Clark was com- missioned as captain in the regular army, and assigned second in command of the expedition. On the 20th of June, 1803, the President signed "In- structions to Meriwether Lewis, Esquire, Captain of the "First Regiment of Infantry of the United States of "America." The instructions show that the President at this time had no knowledge of the source of the Missouri, the Columbia, and the Colorado rivers, or of the moun- tains, or of the country beyond. On the 1st day of July there came from Paris that astonishing news that the commissioners had purchased the whole of Louisiana. This did not change the plans or the instructions of the President. ]t rather hastened the expedition than otherwise. Lewis had intended visit- ing his mother before starting. He wrote her on the 3d of July, " Day after to-morrow I shall set out for the west- ern country. I had calculated on the pleasure of visiting you, but circumstances have rendered it impossible." 394 ANDREW T. LEWIS. On the 5th he left Washington for Pittsburg, where he began selecting supplies, men, and boats. These were gathered up from Pittsburg, all along the line down the Ohio, until they reached St. Louis in the following De- cember. Clark joined the expedition at Louisville and took charge, Lewis going overland by way of Vincennes. The expedition intended to winter at the highest settle- ment on the Missouri, but the Spanish commandant would not permit them to pass through the country, so the ex- pedition went into camp at the mouth of the Wood River, on the east side of the Mississippi in Illinois. On the 9th day of March, 1804, the first step in the cer- emony of transferring Upper Louisiana to the United States occurred. On that day the Spanish flag was low- ered, and the French tricolor raised in its place. The old French residents begged that their flag might float over Louisiana until the next day. On the following day the flag of France was lowered and the flag of the United States took its place. Lewis was a witness to the last act which finally and forever terminated the authority of Spain and France to Louisiana. This was an inspiring event for an expedition soon to start for the unknown land beyond the Rocky Mountains. On the 14th of May, 1804, the expedition left the mouth of Wood River and started up the Missouri. They met fur traders coming down the river. They began to note in the Journal the important rivers, streams, islands, and to give an account of the Indian tribes. During the spring and summer they labored up the Missouri against the tur- bulent river current, without incident, except a council held with the Indians, and the death and burial of Sergeant Floyd. They encountered Hudson Bay men, who regretted to see the flag of the United States west of the Mississippi River. They proceeded on and entered a country of the Sioux, where they met with the first hostile demonstration. MERIWETHER LEWIS. 395 A show of force, and the tact and skill of Lewis and Clark, soon commanded the Indians' respect. The two captains were afterwards carried in a buffalo robe by their young men, dressed for the occasion, to the Council House, and were feasted on dog and buffalo meat. Lewis, in the de- scription of the Sioux, mentions their shaved heads, scalp locks, painted faces, the noise of the drums, scalp dance, buffalo robes adorned with porcupine quills, and buffalo- skin lodges. They next found a tribe who refused whisky. From here they entered the Mandan country, near Bis- marck, North Dakota, where they spent the winter. They built two rows of log huts protected by a stockade, the roofs of which were thatched with grass and clay. Here they engaged Charboneau and Sacajawea to accom- pany them. Sacajawea was a Shoshone Indian, who was captured by the Minnetarees near the head of the Missouri, and sold by them to Charboneau, who made her his wife. Lewis believed she would be of great service to the expe- dition when they arrived in the Shoshone country. On April 7, 1805, the soldiers sent as an escort started back. The expedition, consisting of thirty-two persons, again started up the Missouri. Lewis says : "I esteem this moment of our departure as among the most happy of my life." On April 25, Lewis, with four men, found the river known as the La Roche Jaune. He named it the Yellow- stone. On the 26th, from the summit of some high hills, Lewis saw for the first time the Rocky Mountains. On the 2d day of June they reached a point of great importance, two rivers, one from the north, and one from the southwest. Lewis wrote, "On our right decision much "of the fate of the expedition depends ; since, if after "ascending the Rocky Mountains, or beyond them, we "should find that the river we were following did not come "near the Columbia, and be obliged to return, we should 396 ANDREW T. LEWIS. "not only lose the traveling season, but probably dis- "hearten the men." The river from the north Lewis named Maria's River, in honor of his cousin, Maria Wood. On proceeding up the river Clark took charge of the boats, and Lewis, with four men, went by land. On the 13th he heard the sounds of the Great Falls seven miles away. Lewis's description of the falls of Missouri is ac- curate, and is considered at this time a fine description. Lewis was filled with admiration of Nature at the falls. He was impressed with the grandeur of the scenery, the magnitude of the falls, the great herds of buffalo, and the great number of grizzly bears. Nowhere in the Journal is shown his power of description to better advantage. In the distance of ten miles from the first to the last fall, the total descent of the river is 41 2^ feet. The port- age around the rapids was eighteen miles. The clearing of the long path was one of the many examples of hard work done by the explorers. They were about twelve days making the portage. Here they made light canoes to continue their voyage beyond the falls. They passed through a canyon they named "The Gates of the Rocky Mountains," and on to the head of the Missouri, where they found three rivers, as Sacajawea had described them; Lewis named them the Jefferson, Madison, and Gallatin. They proceeded up the Jefferson, and on the 30th of July arrived at a place Sacajawea pointed out, where, tive years before she was captured by the Minnetarees. They were nearing the summit of the mountains, water transporta- tion would soon end, and with it possibly the further progress of the expedition. Lewis took Drewyer, (Drou- illard), Shields, and McNeal, and left Clark and the party not to return until he found the Shoshone Indians. On the morning of the 12th day of August, 1805, they found an Indian road along the banks of a stream which gradually became smaller, until one of the men, with one MERIWETHER LEWIS. 397 foot on each side of the river, "Thanked God that he had lived to bestride the Missouri." They crossed the Divide, from the waters of the Missouri to the waters that flow into the Columbia, where they camped and ate their last piece of pork. ONE HUNDRED years ago to-day Lewis, Drewyer, and McNeal were the first white men to cross the Rocky Mountains, within the boundary lines of the United States, to the Pacific Slope. Soon after leaving camp, on the 13th, they saw two women and a man and some dogs at a distance, who fled at their approach. They continued a little farther when they suddenly came upon three females, one of them, a young Indian, ran away; the others, an old woman and a little girl, held down their heads expecting death. Lewis put down his gun and went up to them, took the woman's hand and raised her up repeating the words, "Taba Bone," meaning white men, at the same time showing her his bare arm. Drewyer and Shields coming up, Lewis asked Drewyer to request the old woman to recall her companion, which she did. Lewis gave her some beads, a few awls, and a pewter mirror; and then painted the cheeks of the three women vermillion. They proceeded down the road to the Indian camp. They soon met sixty warriors riding at full speed. Lewis put down his gun and with the United States flag flying advanced fifty paces with the Indian woman, when the chief spoke to them and the woman informed him that the party were white men. The chief leaped from his horse and embraced Lewis with great cordiality, applying his left cheek to Lewis's and fre- quently saying, "Ah-hi-e," meaning "I am much pleased." The whole body came forward, and the men received the embraces of the warriors in the same manner. Lewis obtained men and horses to go back after the rest of the party. The next four days form an interesting story of his efforts in the management of the Shoshone 398 ANDREW T. LEWIS. Indians. They were like a flock of quail, ready to fly at the appearance of evil. On their way back the whole party was stampeded, and Lewis carried along on his horse with the rest for a mile before they learned that the Indian who was running toward them desired to inform them that one of the white men had killed a deer. They soon found Clark and the rest of the party with the canoes. The meeting between Sacajawea and her people was very touching; the chief who accompanied Lewis was her brother. From Shoshone Cove to Canoe Camp at the mouth of Clearwater was traveled with horses as pack animals, over the wildest and roughest part of the United States. They left Canoe Camp October 7, and on the 18th started down the Columbia River. Their trip was one continuous ova- tion with the Indian tribes from Canoe Camp to the Great Falls of the Columbia. Lewis gives an interesting de- scription of the horse of the great plains ; he ends by say- ing, "They resemble in fleetness and bottom, as well as in form and color, the best blooded horses of Virginia." On November 7, 1805, the expedition reached the ocean and went into winter quarters at Fort Clatsop on the south side of the Columbia, not far from the city of Astoria. On the 23d of March, 1806, they left Fort Clatsop. Their supplies and trinkets, excepting the salt and am- munition, could have been wrapped in two handkerchiefs. On their way back they discovered the Multnomah River, now called the Willamette. Clark ascended this river twelve miles to the city of Portland. The explorers esti- mated that this country bordering on the Columbia was capable uf supporting fifty thousand inhabitants. When the expedition reached the head of the Missoula at Three Rivers, the party divided, Clark going south with Sacajawea as the guide, and descended the Yellow- stone River; and Lewis with his party proceeded to the MERIWETHER LEWIS. 399 Great Falls, where he left with four men to explore the Maria's River. On this trip Lewis met a party of roving Minnetarees near the north boundary line of Montana. They camped together, the Indians undertook to steal their guns and horses, a fight ensued ; Fields killed one Indian with a knife, and Lewis killed another with his revolver. They recovered their guns and lost one horse, but captured four of the Indian horses in exchange. Lewis, fearing more trouble, started towards the Missouri and made one hundred and twenty miles in the remark- able time of thirty-six hours. Soon after this experience Lewis was taken for an elk by one of his men, and shot through the thigh. After this incident the party proceeded down the river to the mouth of the Yellowstone, where they found a note from Clark, who had passed down some time before. A few miles below the Yellowstone the party was united and proceeded down the river to the Mandan country,' where they parted with Charboneau and Sacajawea, and con- tinued on their way and arrived at St. Louis on the 23d of September, 1806. The actual travel by land and water was 8,270 miles, not counting the side trips, very nearly one third of the distance around the world. Their route was mostly through an unknown land. None but Indians had as- cended the Missouri as far as the Great Falls. No white man had ever crossed the Rocky Mountains within the boundary lines of the United States. None had ascended the Columbia River to the head of tide water. The du- ration of the expedition was two years and four months. The story of their adventure stands alone, as the most successful and important ever accomplished ; they joined the highlands and the Oregon to the Louisiana Purchase. On their return to Washington they were received with tears of joy by the President and were warmly welcomed 400 ANDREW T. LEWIS. by Congress ; they received the applause and gratitude of the people of the United States. The two leaders were voted double pay, and were each granted a large tract of land. Lewis was nominated governor of Louisiana February 28, 1807, confirmed by Congress March 12, and resigned from the army the same day, was commissioned March 3, and entered upon his new duties at St. Louis the follow- ing July, succeeding Governor James Wilkinson. Governor Lewis found the country divided into factions, and general discontent prevailed within the district. He refused to take part in any of the factional controversies, and was able to bring about order and good will among the people. One of his important acts as Governor was his proclamation establishing the Territory of Arkansas. In August, 1808, Governor Lewis held an important council with the Sacs, Fox, and Iowa Indians ; the first post office was established in 1808, and the first book, consisting of the laws of Louisiana, was published during his incum- bency. Before Lewis left St. Louis on his last journey, on the 19th of August, 1809, he appointed his three most intimate friends his lawful attorney, viz., William Clark, Alexander Stewart, and William C. Carr. Some trouble having arisen over his accounts and with a view of editing the Journals, he left St. Louis in the latter part of August for Washington. He proceeded to Chickasaw Bluffs, now the site of the city of Memphis, Tennessee, where he arrived the 16th day of September, 1809. Jefferson says, "While "he lived with me at Washington I observed at times "sensible depressions of mind, he was in a paroxysm of "one of these when his affairs rendered it necessary for "him to go to Washington. Mr. Neely, agent of the "United States with the Chickasaw Indians, arrived at "Chickasaw Bluffs two days afterwards, and found GovMERIWETHER LEWIS. 401 "ernor Lewis extremely indisposed, and he betrayed at "times considerable derangement of mind. Mr. Neely "kindly determined to accompany him and watch over "him. At their encampment, one day's journey beyond "the Tennessee River, they lost two horses, which obliged "Mr. Neely to halt for their recovery. Governor Lewis "proceeded under a promise to wait for him at the house "of the h'rst white inhabitant on the road. He stopped "at the house of Mr. Grinder, who was not at home. His "wife, alarmed at the symptoms of derangement, gave him "up the house and retired to an outhouse. About three "o'clock in the night he did the deed which plunged his "friends into affliction." Jefferson concludes, "I have only "to add that all the facts I have stated are either known "to myself, or were communicated to me by his family or "others, for whose truth I have no hesitation in making "myself responsible." The mother of Meriwether Lewis in 1820, stated that her son's letters before starting on his homeward journey were full of love and affection. She never believed that her son committed suicide. She firmly believed that he was murdered by his Spanish servant. One of the family said that after thirty years this servant sent a trunk of papers to Mary Garland Marks, in which one was a will of Governor Lewis devising his land in St. Louis to her. That she afterwards compromised her claim for the sum cf $6,000. Another relative recognized a gold watch of Meriwether Lewis's in the hands of a man on the Missis- sippi, and secured it, and supposed at the time that the man was Lewis's Spanish servant. . The report of the Lewis Monument Committee of Ten- nessee says that it seems to be more probable that Gov- ernor Lewis died at the hands of an assassin than that he committed suicide. James D. Park, a lawyer of Franklin, Tennessee, sa} T s that the firm belief of the people of that part of the country is that Governor Lewis was murdered and robbed. The story of Polly Spencer, a hired girl in the Grinder family, is that Lewis was killed soon after supper, and that the only servant he had was a negro boy. Grinder was part Indian, and was suspected of the murder of Lewis. He soon moved to the western part of Tennessee, where he purchased slaves and a farm, and had plenty of money. There were other strange and mysterious disappearances of rich travelers in this. locality, and it was believed by the people that Grinder had murdered them. It seems strange that there is no account of Lewis's death by Mr. Neely, the Indian agent; that there is no testimony or statement of the negro boy, or the Spanish servant. Jefferson had no hesitation in saying that Governor Lewis did the deed that plunged his friends in affliction. Yet subsequent development of facts not probably known to Jefferson point strongly to murder and robbery.
The State of Tennessee, where Lewis is buried, created Lewis County out of other counties, and in 1848 erected a monument to his memory. It is twenty-one and one half feet high, with a broken column two and one half feet in diameter upon a square, pyramidal base with hewn steps. Under this monument rest the mortal remains of Meriwether Lewis.
On the west plinth is the following inscription:
Meriwether Lewis,
Born near Charlottesville, Va., August 18, 1774.
Died October 11, 1809.
Age 35 years.
Mr. Park says of Lewis's monument: "FAR OUT IN THE NATIVE FOREST ON THE HIGHLANDS, WITH NO HUMAN DWELLING NEAR, IT IS INDEED A LONELY SPOT, WHERE THE WILD HOUNDS."
Andrew T. Lewis.
- ↑ Address on August 12, 1905, Lewis Day at the Lewis and Clark Centennial and American Pacific Exposition and Oriental Fair.