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LEWIS Meriwether

Male 1774 - 1809  (35 years)


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  • Name LEWIS Meriwether  [1
    Living In Abt 1760  North Garden, Albemarle, Virginia, USA Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Locust Hill 
    • This was the boyhood home of Meriwether Lewis. The original log house was built early in the 1760s on the nearly 2000 acres that make up this plantation. This house was a single room with loft space above but was lost in a fire in 1837. The name comes from the locust poplars that are found on the property even to this day. Locust Hill was a working plantation at the time of Meriwether Lewis' birth and fairly self-sufficient. The property included an orchard, gardens, as well as fields for sowing and for grazing. It was within riding distance of the property of Thomas Jefferson's family, Monticello. Also located on the property is the Locust Hill Cemetery where Lucy Marks is buried.
    Birth 18 Aug 1774  North Garden, Albemarle, Virginia, USA Find all individuals with events at this location 
    • Born near Charlottesville, VA and was a neighbor of Thomas Jefferson
    Gender Male 
    Death 11 Oct 1809  Grinder's Switch, Tenn Find all individuals with events at this location  [1
    • Died in a roadside inn from a gunshot, in Grinder's Stand, Tn. a way station on the Natchez Trace in Tennessee.)
      Kira Gale of Omaha, a 68-year-old Lewis and Clark buff who co-authored a book about the issue, believes Lewis was slain by political enemies in 1809. "I believe they'll find a large bullet hole in the back of his head," Gale said. "This is more than history. It's a history mystery."
    Notes 
    • Meriwether Lewis was born on August 18, 1774, the child of William and Lucy. He lost his father when he was only 5. He died on October 11, 1809, at the age of 35.

      Lewis & Clark

      Meriwether Lewis was born in Virginia during 1774 to William and Lucy Lewis. In November of 1779, William Lewis died of Pneumonia. Less than six months later on May 13, 1780, Lucy married Capt. John Marks.
      When Meriwether was eight or nine years old, Capt. Marks and his family migrated to Wilkes County (now Oglethorpe), Georgia and settled on the Broad River in a colony developed by General John Mathews.
      Meriwether lived in Georgia for about three to four years. During this time he first learned to hunt, becoming an excellent marksman. A family friend commented, " He acquired in youth hardy habits and a firm construction. He possessed in the highest degree self-possession in danger." [1]
      Also while in Georgia, Meriwether learned about the trees, bushes, shrubs, and grasses; of the fish, animals, birds, and insects.[2] He always asked why, as he wanted more knowledge.
      Meriwether also learned to read and write while in Georgia, but the education he desired could not be found in this wild frontier. Sometime at about age 14, Meriwether left Georgia for Virginia in his quest for higher education.
      He came back to Georgia several times to visit his family, but in fall of 1792 he made his last. Capt. Marks died leaving Lucy and the family with no means of income. "Meriwether organized the move of his mother and her children, the slaves, animals, and equipment, and brought the whole back to Virginia." [3]
      It might be said that Meriwether Lewis obtained his sound foundation in Georgia, which enabled him to become the greatest of all American explorers. In 1813, Thomas Jefferson wrote of Meriwether Lewis. " Of courage undaunted, possessing a firmness and perseverance of purpose which nothing but impossibilities could divert from it's direction, careful as a father of those committed to his charge, yet steady in the maintenance of order and discipline, intimate with the Indian character, customs and principles, habituated to the hunting life, guarded by exact observation of the vegetables and animals of his own country, against losing time in the description of objects already possessed, 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."




      Capt. Meriwether Lewis, along with William Clark and the Corps of Discovery, were the first United States citizens to:
      First to cross the continental United States from east to west.
      First to experience the Great Plains.
      First to see the daunting peaks of the Rocky Mountains.
      First to cross the Rocky Mountains and the Continental Divide.
      First, only after encountering cold, hunger, danger, and wonders beyond belief, to reach the Pacific Ocean by land.
      First comprehensive description and collection of flora and fauna in the Western United States.
      First detailed maps from the Mississippi to the Pacific.

      It was the greatest adventure of their lives!



      Meriwether Lewis was born August 18, 1774, near Charlottesville, VA, and was a boyhood neighbor of Thomas Jefferson. In 1794, Lewis joined the militia and was commanded by Lieutenant William Clark. In sharing the experiences of the Northwest Campaign against the British and the Indians, Lewis and Clark fashioned the bonds of an enduring friendship.
      Meriwether Lewis and William Clark were commissioned by President Thomas Jefferson in 1803 to find an 'all-water Northwest Passage to the Pacific Ocean' - a perilous journey through lands previously unexplored by white men and territory of several Nations of American Indians.

      Growing Up in Albemarle
      The Lewis family motto:
      Omne Solum Forti Patria Est
      "To the Brave Man, Everything He Does Is For His Country"
      Meriwether Lewis was a man born and raised in Albemarle, a close neighbor of Thomas Jefferson. He was a gentleman farmer, well-educated in the healing abilities of roots and plants, and served in the military. His affinity for the outdoors and his natural ability to survive in many climates made him the perfect candidate for Jefferson's Corps of Discovery.

      Meriwether Lewis died on his way to Washington, DC in October, 1809. Historians still dispute whether the explorer and then-governor of Louisiana committed suicide or was murdered. He was never married, but family legend shares that he courted Theodesia Burr, the daughter of Aaron Burr. Around the time that the expedition commenced, they had arrived at the point in the relationship where Lewis either had to marry Theodesia or find a respectable way to exit the relationship. His opportunity for the graceful exit arrived when Jefferson asked Lewis to command an expedition to find an all-water route to the Pacific Ocean, and study the land along that route. Supposedly, Theodesia pleaded with Meriwether to decline the journey and marry her, heavily encouraged by her father. Obviously, Theodesia's pleas fell on deaf ears. Descendents of the family point to this legend as a reason why Meriwether men take a long time to get married. (Davis, 1951)

      Published: July 12, 2009
      One can only imagine what would happen today if someone of the stature of Meriwether Lewis were to meet a violent end in a small-town inn. Congress would demand an investigation. The media would camp out in the town for weeks. Forensics experts would be called in from across the country, well-equipped with the latest technology to answer the ultimate question: Was it murder, or was it suicide?
      In 1809, just three years removed from his journey from the Mississippi to the Pacific to explore the Louisiana Purchase, Lewis was the 19th century equivalent of Neil Armstrong. Yet when he was found dead in his room at a roadside inn in Grinder's Switch, Tenn., whatever authorities presided over the case quickly accepted a verdict of suicide - despite the fact that Lewis was shot twice - and gave him an unceremonious burial.
      Now, Lewis' family wants to reopen the investigation. "This has been going on a long time," said Lynchburg resident Anderson (Andy) Sale, a retired Presbyterian minister and "collateral descendant" of Lewis, "but it really picked up during the Bicentennial of the Lewis & Clark expedition."
      Moreover, Oct. 11 will be the 200th anniversary of Lewis' demise. The family (all collateral descendants, since Lewis never married or had children) wants to have Hugh Berryman, a forensic scientist at Middle Tennessee State University, examine Lewis' remains. The problem is, his body is buried on the Natchez Trace Parkway, which is federal land. Approval from the National Park Service is required, and negotiations have dragged on through 10 years and three presidential administrations.

      "Part of the reason for exhuming him is to revisit the cause of death," Sale said, "but we also think it's important to give him a formal funeral and burial." When and if that happens, Sale will preside over the service. "It seems I'm the only member of the clergy among our lineage," he said. Sale is named for his uncle, Meriwether Lewis Anderson, who lived at Locust Hill in Charlottesville - Lewis' birthplace and boyhood home. The original Meriwether Lewis was on his way to see Thomas Jefferson in Virginia when he died. "In his book on Lewis, 'Undaunted Courage,' Stephen Ambrose made the case that he was suicidal at the time," Sale said. Perhaps this contributed to a certain degree of apathy on the part of the federal government. "Because of this, the family has decided to change tactics," Sale said, "and invite more publicity." Now, there is a Web site () and a campaign to contact the media across the country. Last week, two family members joined Hugh Berryman and a lawyer for a panel discussion at the prestigious National Press Club in Washington. "One of our main arguments," Sale said, "is that a person of Meriwether Lewis' stature deserves a proper burial, with benefit of clergy. That's an argument that seems to be carrying some weight."
      Maybe he should start writing his sermon.

      The Salt Lake Tribune (07/23/2009 07:48:58 PM MDT)
      It was Jefferson who had sent Meriwether Lewis to lead the Corps of Discovery on its epic journey through the Louisiana Territory. Jefferson was not only Lewis' mentor, he acted very much as Lewis' surrogate father. Jefferson seemed to have a keen insight into the demons that Lewis struggled with, and in an age before psychiatric treatments, knew just how to nurture and support him, help him realize his talents and not become victim to his terrible adversity. Lewis, in turn, was fiercely loyal to Jefferson, risking his life again and again to do research that would please his mentor. Jefferson knew of Lewis' demons, but never equated them with who Lewis was as a person. He described Lewis: "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." After the expedition, Jefferson rewarded Lewis by appointing him governor of the Louisiana Territory. Then in March 1809, James Madison became president. Madison had none of Jefferson's skills of nurturing and bringing out the best in Lewis.
      In fact when there was a mistaken perception that Lewis was shirking his gubernatorial duties, Madison summoned him to Washington in a curt and abrupt fashion that left no doubt that Madison was going to be very harsh with him. Stopping at an inn on his journey to Washington, Lewis was observed to be agitated, pacing, talking to himself "as one would speak to a lawyer," and then was found dead from gunshot wounds. Did Lewis commit suicide? Jefferson and William Clark, Lewis' co-commander, believed he did. Some of his descendants believe he didn't. Does it matter? It did not matter to Jefferson and it should not matter to us. Lewis was an amazingly brave, intelligent, adventurous man who triumphed in the greatest possible way through his life, before his disease finally killed him.

      World-Herald News Service Jan. 2010 North Platt Telegraph (http://www.nptelegraph.com/articles/2010/01/23/news/state/60005345.txt)
      World-Herald News Service
      OMAHA - The 200th anniversary of the mysterious death of Meriwether Lewis stirred up dust on the coldest of cases.
      Did the famous explorer die of a self-inflicted wound or was he assassinated?
      Kira Gale of Omaha, a 68-year-old Lewis and Clark buff who co-authored a book about the issue, believes Lewis was slain by political enemies in 1809.
      "I believe they'll find a large bullet hole in the back of his head," Gale said. "This is more than history. It's a history mystery."
      Lewis was the 35-year-old governor of Louisiana Territory when he died on a moonless October night in 1809 at Grinder's Stand, a way station on the Natchez Trace in Tennessee.
      It was three years after he and fellow Army officer William Clark completed the famed Lewis and Clark expedition to the Pacific Ocean.
      The puzzling death of one of the young nation's heroes is one of America's oldest mysteries.
      Lewis family descendants say they want to know how their famous ancestor died. They petitioned the National Park Service a year ago to allow experts to exhume and examine Lewis' remains, buried on federal land in Tennessee.
      "We simply seek the truth," said retired Air Force Col. Thomas McSwain of Shepherdstown, W.Va , a Lewis descendant. "If I had to vote now, I'd vote it was murder, but the evidence is circumstantial on all sides. There is no real tangible evidence. That's why an exhumation and examination is so important."
      McSwain, a great-great-great-great nephew of Lewis, served at Strategic Air Command headquarters at Offutt Air Force Base near Omaha three decades ago. Historian Larry Morris of Salt Lake City, author of "The Fate of the Corps," said most scholars believe Lewis died of self-inflicted wounds.
      "To me, it's pretty convincing," he said. "There are a lot of inconsistencies in witness accounts, but it's a stretch to say it was murder. Where's the hard evidence?" Morris said a plausible theory suggests Lewis shot himself during feverish delusions caused by malaria. Still, he said, an exhumation could potentially provide important evidence that Lewis was slain. A century ago, Lewis and Clark scholars believed Lewis was slain. Today, however, leading historians and the leadership of the national Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation tilt toward self-inflicted wounds or suicide theories. The group included the late Stephen Ambrose, author of the 1997 biography of Lewis, "Undaunted Courage."
      Gale's interest in the case started when she learned of the existence of a transcript of a 1996 Tennessee coroner's inquest into Lewis's death. "I was just curious," she said. The jury's verdict called for the exhumation of Lewis' remains to determine the cause of death. Gale read the transcript, studied political treachery on America's western frontier in the early 19th century and eventually teamed with James E. Starrs to write "The Death of Meriwether Lewis." Starrs, a retired Georgetown University professor of criminal law and forensic sciences, was involved with the exhumation of outlaw Jesse James' remains. Gale and Starrs published the book through a company Gale owns. Lewis died when traveling from St. Louis, the territorial capital, to Washington, D.C., to protest federal bureaucrats' refusal to pay expenses for official business he was personally incurring as governor, such as printing the territorial laws.
      Gale believes that Lewis also was carrying papers with evidence of treasonous plots by the nation's top Army officer, Gen. James Wilkinson.
      She said her study of the historical record points to Wilkinson for arranging Lewis' assassination. Wilkinson's career was filled with betrayals, conspiracies and dishonesty. He spied for Spain. He also was Lewis' predecessor as territorial governor. In 1807, President Thomas Jefferson installed Lewis as governor of the territory, in part, to root out corruption. Lewis had enemies in St. Louis, including supporters of Aaron Burr (once Jefferson's vice president), who was tried and acquitted of treason charges for a plot to meddle with Mexico. "Lewis was faced with chaos and anarchy," Gale said. "It was an impossible task." Gale said Wilkinson and others wanted to control the lead mines south of St. Louis - for their bullet-making value - and to invade Mexico and gain control of the globally important Mexican silver mines. At one point, Wilkinson and Burr were alleged co-conspirators in the invasion plan, until Wilkinson betrayed Burr. Lewis probably intended to expose the fraudulent land deals and invasion plans, Gale speculated. If Lewis carried incriminating documents, they disappeared after his Oct. 11, 1809, death from two gunshot wounds near present-day Hohenwald, Tenn. Gale theorized that reports of Lewis being suicidal, alcoholic or mentally deranged as he set out for the nation's capital were cover stories created by Wilkinson with false information or forged documents. "He [Lewis] had a lot to live for," Gale said. Lewis had recently pledged to care for the 13-year-old son of a Canadian interpreter. Lewis planned to bring his mother to St. Louis. His brother Reuben was already there.
      Lewis' body was hastily buried. An account of an 1848 exhumation to improve the grave site said a hole was observed in the back of Lewis' skull. A 1924 campaign to make the site a national monument stated that Lewis was murdered.
      Forensic anthropologists say that if Lewis' bones are well preserved, it may be possible to determine if the wound to his head came from behind, an indication that he was slain.
      Gale said the only way to know the truth, if possible, is to examine Lewis' remains.
      "If it wasn't suicide, Meriwether Lewis' character has been distorted and the story of his life's record and accomplishments has been distorted," she said. "It's not right." McSwain said the government red tape involved in approving exhumation is frustrating. The family's push started 14 years ago, after the inquest failed to determine the cause of Lewis' death. "He went to the West Coast and back in 1803 a lot faster than this process is taking," he said.
      Gale continues her research and meets weekly with the Lewis and Clark Study Group at the Western Historic Trails Center in Council Bluffs. The group's current topic is Andro Linklater's "An Artist in Treason."
      It's the biography of the double-life of Gen. James Wilkinson.

      HOHENWALD, Tenn.'97Meriwether Lewis conquered rivers, mountains and bears leading the Lewis and Clark Expedition across 8,000 miles of wilderness from St. Louis to the Pacific Ocean and back.
      Two centuries later, relatives of Mr. Lewis are having a tough time moving his remains down 80 miles of paved Tennessee highway from a national park to a forensic lab.
      Independence National Historical Park
      Meriwether Lewis by Charles Willson Peale
      Mr. Lewis's body rests beneath a 20-foot-high stone monument at milepost 385.9 of the Natchez Trace Parkway. A plaque next to the gravesite states that it was here, in 1809, three years after his epic journey, that his life drew "mysteriously to its close."
      Many historians believe Mr. Lewis, who was governor of the Louisiana Territory at the time of his death, committed suicide after wrestling with depression, drug addiction or some other malady. Others have speculated that he was murdered.
      About 200 descendants have petitioned the federal government to dig Mr. Lewis up, hoping that modern science will exonerate a historical figure whose legacy they believe was tarnished by his ambiguous death.
      "He could very well have become presidential material," asserts Howell Bowen, a 75-year-old nephew four generations removed, who grew up and lives in Mr. Lewis's hometown of Ivy, Va. He calls the suicide hypothesis preposterous.
      A recent letter from the U.S. Department of the Interior turning down the exhumation request is just the latest in a string of rejections handed down to the Lewis family'97all distant relatives of Mr. Lewis's sister Jane, because the explorer didn't marry or have children.
      Digging up notable Americans to solve mysteries isn't without precedent. President Zachary Taylor was exhumed in 1991, nearly 150 years after his death, to determine whether he had been poisoned. He wasn't. A soldier at the Tomb of the Unknowns was disinterred and identified through his DNA in 1998. In June, former chess champion Bobby Fischer was exhumed in Iceland in a paternity suit.
      But none were dug up on land controlled by the National Park Service, whose policy prohibits exhumations unless burial sites are "threatened with destruction by park development, operational activities or natural forces."
      Mike Esterl/The Wall Street Journal
      The National Park Service cabin near the burial site of Meriwether Lewis is undergoing facilities upgrades using federal stimulus funds. Approximately $3.5 million has been allocated to upgrade the burial site as a whole.
      Lobbying on behalf of the Lewis family is a team of experts, including James Starrs, a professor of law and forensic sciences at George Washington University, who exhumed gunslinger Jesse James, Albert DeSalvo, also known as the "Boston Strangler," and President George Washington's brother, Samuel.
      Cameron Sholly, superintendent of Natchez Trace Parkway, says digging up Mr. Lewis could intrude upon the remains of more than 100 pioneers buried close by. The explorer also lies under a foot and a half of concrete, an additional three feet of crushed gravel and "more fill and concrete under that."
      Mr. Sholly says there could still be "lots of questions'' about how Mr. Lewis met his end even after a forensic investigation.
      In a letter to the Lewis family last month, the Interior Department said that it is spending more than $3.5 million in federal stimulus funds to improve the site. That includes building a parking lot, restrooms and a small bookstore.
      Mr. Lewis headed the first official U.S. expedition to the West Coast after the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. He was appointed governor of Louisiana Territory after a hero's return, but by 1809 was wrestling with allegations he had misused government funds.
      He set out for Washington, D.C., that autumn by way of Natchez Trace, a pioneer trail, armed with two pistols, a dagger and a tomahawk. On Oct. 10, he stopped at Grinder's Stand, a remote inn 70 miles south of Nashville. The next morning he was found by the innkeeper and servants in his room, dying of bullet wounds to his head and chest.
      No one claimed to have witnessed the shooting. But Mr. Lewis's guide reported the 35-year-old governor had killed himself'97a version that was accepted in the nation's capital.
      Some historians question why an expert marksman like Mr. Lewis needed more than one bullet, and believe he was killed. "He was on a very dangerous frontier trail,'' says John Guice, a retired University of Southern Mississippi history professor who backs the family's exhumation efforts.
      Melinda Ward, a waitress at Lay's General Café in Hohenwald, said she heard as a child that Mr. Lewis was shot after flirting with a local married woman.
      Mr. Lewis's mother, according to family lore, believed he was murdered by a traveling servant. "She supposedly saw through'' the servant after questioning him at her Virginia homestead, says Mr. Bowen, the nephew.
      Family members began pushing for exhumation in 1993 after meeting with Mr. Starrs, who argued that bullet trajectories could yield clues. If a bullet entered the back of Mr. Lewis's skull, for instance, suicide would be unlikely. In 1996, a coroner's jury in Tennessee recommended Mr. Lewis be exhumed to collect evidence. But a federal court ruled in 1998 that the National Park Service had the last word.
      The Meriwether Lewis burial site in a national park near the Natchez Trace Parkway in Hohenwald, Tenn.
      Mr. Lewis's descendants cited other exhumations on Park Service land, including one in 1985 at Blackburn Cemetery, in another part of Natchez Trace Parkway. Remains also were dug up in Montana in the 1980s at the Park-administered site of the Battle of the Little Bighorn, where George Custer was killed in 1876.
      The family had a breakthrough in 2008, when then-Assistant Interior Secretary Lyle Laverty wrote that given "the unique circumstances of the death of Meriwether Lewis,'' and the "overwhelming support'' of descendants, an exhumation was "appropriate and in the public interest.''
      But in April, before preparations for the exhumation were complete, the agency reversed its decision, arguing that department policy couldn't be ignored. Following up last month, Assistant Interior Secretary Thomas Strickland instructed the family, "Please consider this a final decision on this matter.''
      More than 40 relatives gathered Sept. 18 for an annual picnic at the family cemetery to discuss the latest setback. Over lemon pies, they pledged to plow ahead with their campaign. "He may have committed suicide," Mr. Bowen says. "I doubt it. If he did, we will pack our bags and accept it.''

      12/22/2010:

      State rep: Exhume Lewis - page 2
      Some history buffs doubt suicide story

      .On Oct. 10, two of Lewis's horses ran away. Lewis left Neelly, his traveling companion, to find the horses and went on with his servant John Pernier and another servant. They stayed at Grinder's Inn, a cabin 72 miles from Nashville, in an area called the Natchez Trace. Lewis acted deranged that night and started talking to himself, according to accounts written by those who spoke to the innkeeper.

      No one saw the shots being fired. But the innkeeper, Priscilla Grinder, heard them and summoned Pernier. Both saw Lewis before he died. Mrs. Grinder's story is recorded, with some variations, in three separate accounts over the next two years.

      Grinder said she heard two shots from Lewis's room about 3 a.m. - "he had shot himself in the head with one pistol & a little below the Breast with the other," Neelly wrote to Jefferson. "when his servant came in (Lewis) says; I have done the business my good servant give me some water."

      Lewis died hours later and was buried near Grinder's Inn.


      Murder suspicions

      Clark and Jefferson accepted the news with sadness and understanding.

      "I fear the weight of his mind has overcome him," Clark wrote.

      Lewis "was much afflicted & habitually so with hypochondria," Jefferson wrote.

      Stephenie Ambrose Tubbs, a Lewis and Clark scholar and daughter of the late Stephen Ambrose, said their reactions are revealing.

      "His two best friends accepted the notion that he killed himself and didn't look for murder or conspiracy at the time," Ambrose Tubbs said.

      The first hint that he might have been murdered came in a report by a committee that erected a monument at Lewis's grave in 1848. The committee opened Lewis's grave and identified the remains.

      The committee wrote: "The impression has long prevailed that under the influence of disease of body and mind. . . . Gov. Lewis perished by his own hands. It seems to be more probable that he died by the hands of an assassin."

      The committee report offers no evidence of murder. It notes only that the place he was killed was "wild and solitary." It cites a rumor that Lewis was murdered by his servant and adds that if the rumor were true, it would remove "the only stigma" upon his name.

      Yet that report opened the door for a floodgate of questions.

      Tony Turnbow, a Tennessee attorney who has researched Lewis's death, said that Natchez Trace was a dangerous place and that most people who died there with multiple gunshot wounds were murdered. Additionally, Lewis's money was missing. Turnbow said Nashville newspapers reported Lewis's throat was cut and his hands were wounded - though some historians question the accuracy of early 19th-century journalism.

      "The only evidence of suicide is hearsay and speculation that comes from letters written by people who did not see Lewis receive his final injury, and are contradictory," Turnbow said. "The bottom line is no one saw it. There are no eyewitnesses."


      Doubting descendants

      By His Own Hand?, a compilation of essays on Lewis's death edited by John Guice, asks other questions. How could Lewis put a gun to his head and miss, only grazing his skull on the first shot? Why would such an accomplished man kill himself? Is Grinder reliable? Guice argues that the evidence for suicide is circumstantial. Some documents from the same time show Lewis as upbeat, not depressed.

      Individuals named as possible murder suspects include Neelly, Pernier, Priscilla Grinder and her husband, Robert, and Gen. James Wilkinson, the governor of the Louisiana Territory before Lewis who had been exposed as a Spanish secret agent.

      As early as 1905, the Tennessee governor denied a request to exhume Lewis's grave.

      In the 1990s, James Starrs, a forensic science professor at George Washington University who has exhumed other prominent graves, started working with family members to renew calls for an exhumation [1]
    Person ID I9212  Booth Family
    Last Modified 9 Sep 2015 

    Father LEWIS William,   b. Abt 1735, Locust Hill, Albemarle, Virginia Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 14 Nov 1779, Cloverfields, Albemarle, Virginia Find all individuals with events at this location (Age ~ 44 years) 
    Mother MERIWETHER Lucy,   b. 4 Feb 1752, North Garden, Albemarle, Virginia, USA Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 1837, North Garden, Albemarle, Virginia, USA Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 84 years) 
    Marriage Y  [1
    Family ID F3080  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  • Event Map
    Link to Google MapsLiving In - Locust Hill - Abt 1760 - North Garden, Albemarle, Virginia, USA Link to Google Earth
    Link to Google MapsBirth - 18 Aug 1774 - North Garden, Albemarle, Virginia, USA Link to Google Earth
    Link to Google MapsDeath - 11 Oct 1809 - Grinder's Switch, Tenn Link to Google Earth
     = Link to Google Earth 

  • Sources 
    1. [S1048] The Meriwether Family, (http://www2.vcdh.virginia.edu/lewisandclark/students/projects/homesteads/genealogy/meriwethers.html), accessed Jul 1, 2009) (Reliability: 2).