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 . 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 either a murder or suicide . Biography . 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 who were both of English ancestry . ( Thornton was the daughter of Francis Thornton and Mary Taliaferro ) . After his father died of pneumonia , he moved with his mother and stepfather Captain John Marks to Georgia in May 1780 . They settled along the Broad River in the Goosepond Community within the Broad River Valley in Wilkes County ( now Oglethorpe County ) . Lewis had no formal education until he was 13 years of age . But 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 dog to go hunting . Even at an 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 . In the Broad River Valley , Lewis first dealt with American Indians . This was the traditional territory of the Cherokee , who resented encroachment by the colonists . Lewis seems to have been a champion for them among his own people . While in Georgia , he met Eric Parker , who encouraged him to travel . At thirteen , Lewis was sent back to Virginia for education by private tutors . His father ' s older brother Nicholas Lewis became his guardian . One of his tutors was Parson Matthew Maury , an uncle of Matthew Fontaine Maury . In 1793 , Lewis graduated from Liberty Hall ( now Washington and Lee University ) . That year he joined the Virginia militia , and in 1794 he was sent as part of a detachment involved in putting down the Whiskey Rebellion . In 1795 Lewis joined the U . S . Army , commissioned as an Ensign ( an Army rank that was later abolished and was equivalent to a modern Lieutenant ) . By 1800 he rose to Captain , and ended his service there in 1801 . Among his commanding officers was William Clark , who would later become his companion in the Corps of Discovery . On April 1 , 1801 , Lewis was appointed as an aide by President Thomas Jefferson , whom he knew 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 . He compiled information on the personnel and 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 plan for an expedition across the continent , he chose Lewis to lead the expedition . Meriwether Lewis recruited Clark , then age 33 , to share command of the expedition . The Expedition . After the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 , Jefferson wanted to get an accurate sense of the new land and its resources . The President also hoped to find a " direct and practicable water communication across this continent , for the purposes of commerce with Asia . " In addition , Jefferson placed special importance on declaring U . S . sovereignty over the Native Americans along the Missouri River . The three - year exploration by Lewis and Clark was the first transcontinental expedition to the Pacific Coast by the United States ; however , Lewis and Clark reached the Pacific 12 years after Sir Alexander Mackenzie had done so overland in Canada . They were accompanied by a fifteen - year - old Shoshone Indian woman , Sacagawea , the wife of a French - Canadian fur trader . 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 . They returned in 1806 , bringing with them an immense amount of information about the region as well as numerous plant and animal specimens . They demonstrated the possibility of overland travel to the Pacific coast . They found Native Americans in the trans - Mississippi West accustomed to dealing with European traders and already connected to global markets . The success of their journey helped to strengthen the idea that United States territory was destined to reach all the way to the Pacific . Return and gubernatorial duties . After returning from the expedition , Lewis received a reward of of land . He also initially made arrangements to publish the Corps of Discovery journals , but had difficulty completing his writing . In 1807 , Jefferson appointed him governor of the Louisiana Territory ; he settled in St . Louis . He died in 1809 on his journey to deliver his journals to a Washington publisher . Lewis ' record as an administrator is mixed . He published the first laws in the Upper - Louisiana Territory , established roads and furthered Jefferson ' s mission as a strong proponent of the fur trade . He negotiated peace among several quarrelling Indian tribes . His duty to enforce Indian treaties was to protect the western Indian lands from encroachment , which was opposed by the rush of settlers looking to open new lands for settlements . But due to his quarreling with local political leaders , controversy over his approvals of trading licenses , land grant politics , and Indian depredations , some historians have argued that Lewis was a poor administrator . That view has been reconsidered in recent biographies . Lewis ' s primary quarrels were with his territorial secretary Frederick Bates . Bates was accused of undermining Lewis to seek Lewis ' s dismissal and his own appointment as governor . Because of the slow - moving mail system , former president Jefferson and Lewis ' s superiors in Washington got the impression that Lewis did not adequately keep in touch with them . Bates wrote letters to Lewis ' s superiors accusing Lewis of profiting from a mission to return a Mandan chief to his tribe . Because of Bates ' accusation , the War Department refused to reimburse Lewis for a large sum he personally advanced for the mission . When Lewis ' s creditors heard that Lewis would not be reimbursed for the expenses , they called Lewis ' s notes , forcing him to liquidate his assets , including land he was granted for the Lewis and Clark Expedition . One of the primary reasons Lewis set out for Washington on this final trip was to clear up questions raised by Bates and to seek a reimbursement of the money he had advanced for the territorial government . The U . S . government finally reimbursed the expenses to Lewis ' s estate two years after his death . Bates eventually became governor of Missouri . Though some historians have speculated that Lewis abused alcohol or opiates based upon an account attributed to Gilbert Russell at Fort Pickering on Lewis ' s final journey , others have argued that Bates never alleged that Lewis suffered from such addictions and that Bates certainly would have used them against Lewis if Lewis suffered from those conditions . Freemasonry . Lewis was a Freemason , initiated , passed and raised in the " 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 requesting 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 . " ( See List of Notable Freemasons ) " 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 governor of the Upper Louisiana Territory . Lewis also carried his journals with him for delivery to his publisher . Lewis intended to travel to Washington by ship from New Orleans , but changed his plans while en route down the Mississippi from St . Louis . He decided to make an overland journey via the Natchez Trace and then east to Washington . The Natchez Trace was the old pioneer road between Natchez , Mississippi , and Nashville , Tennessee . Robbers preyed on travelers on the road , and sometimes the land pirates killed their victims . According to an October 18 , 1809 letter written to Thomas Jefferson , on October 10 , 1809 , Lewis stopped at an inn on the Natchez Trace called Grinder ' s Stand , about southwest of Nashville . After leaving 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 , including one to the head . He died shortly after sunrise . The same account was published in the Nashville " Democratic Clarion " and repeated with some embellishment by newspapers across the country . The Nashville newspaper also reported that Lewis ' s throat was cut . Money Lewis had borrowed from Major Gilbert Russell at Fort Pickering to complete the journey was not recovered . While modern historians generally accept his death as a suicide , there is some debate . No one admitted to seeing Lewis shoot himself . Three inconsistent accounts are attributed to the tavern - keeper ' s wife Priscilla Grinder , though Mrs . Grinder did not leave a written account . In one account , the writer said that Mrs . Grinder 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 , she continued to hear him talking to himself . At some point in the night , she heard multiple gunshots , and what she believed was someone calling 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 did not investigate further concerning Lewis ' condition or the source of the gunshots . The next morning , she sent her children to look for Lewis ' servants . In one account , the servants found Lewis in the cabin , wounded and bloody , with part of his skull gone , but he lived for several hours . In another account , Lewis ' s body was found outside . In the last account attributed to Mrs . Grinder , she said that three men followed Lewis up the Natchez Trace and that he pulled his pistols and challenged them to a duel . In that account , Mrs . Grinder said that she heard voices and gunfire in Lewis ' s cabin about 1 a . m . She found the cabin empty and a large amount of gunpowder on the floor . Priscilla 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 hers is fabricated , and the suicide advocates point to her testimony as proof of suicide . In the book " The History of the Lewis and Clark Expedition " , first printed in 1893 , the editor Elliott Coues expresses doubt about Thomas Jefferson ' s conclusion that Lewis committed suicide as presented in the former President ' s " Memoir of Meriwether Lewis " , which is included in the book . In a lengthy review of information available to him in the 1890s , Elliott Coues states : Undoubtedly Jefferson wrote in the light of all the evidence that had reached him in 1813 , but it appears that his view of the case was far from being that of persons who lived in the vicinity of the scene at the time . That Governor Lewis did not die by his own hand , but was murdered and robbed , was common report at the time , as vouched by some persons still living . . . The only doctor to examine Lewis ' body did not do so until 40 years later , in 1848 . The Tennessee State Commission , including Dr . Samuel B . Moore , charged with locating Lewis ' s grave and erecting a monument over it , opened Lewis ' s grave . The commission wrote in its official report that though the impression had long prevailed that Lewis died by his own hand , " it seems to be more probable that he died by the hands of an assassin . " When Clark and Jefferson were informed of Lewis ' death , both accepted the conclusion of suicide . His mother and relatives contended it was murder . A coroner ' s jury held an inquest immediately after Lewis ' s death as provided by local law ; however , they did not charge anyone with murdering Lewis . The jury foreman kept a pocket diary of the proceedings . The pocket diary disappeared in the early 1900s . From 1993 – 2010 , about 200 of Lewis ' kin ( through his sister Jane , as he had no children ) sought to have the body exhumed for forensic analysis , to try to determine whether the death was a suicide . A Tennessee coroner ' s jury in 1996 recommended exhumation . Since Lewis is buried in a national park , the National Park Service must approve ; they refused the request in 1998 , citing possible disturbance to the bodies of more than 100 pioneers buried nearby . In 2008 the Department of Interior approved the exhumation , but that decision was rescinded in 2010 upon policy review , and the Department stated that its last decision is final . It is making improvements to the grave site and visitor facility . Memorials . The explorer was buried near present day Hohenwald , Tennessee , near his place of death . His grave was located about 200 yards from Grinder ' s Stand at the side of the Natchez Trace . ( That section of the 1801 Natchez Trace was built by the U . S . army under the direction of Lewis ' s mentor Thomas Jefferson during Lewis ' s lifetime ) . At first , the grave was unmarked . Alexander Wilson , an ornithologist and friend of Lewis ' s who visited the grave in May , 1810 during a trip to New Orleans to sell his drawings , wrote that he gave the innkeeper Robert Grinder money to erect a fence around the grave to protect it from animals . The State of Tennessee erected a monument over Lewis ' s grave in 1848 . Lemuel Kirby , a stonemason from Columbia , Tennessee chose the design of a broken column , commonly used at the time to symbolize a life cut short . An iron fence erected around the base of the monument was partially dismantled during the Civil War by General Hood ' s detachments marching from Shiloh toward Franklin . They forged the iron into horseshoes . A magazine article in 1905 called attention to Lewis ' s abandoned and overgrown grave . A county road worker Teen Cothran took the initiative of opening a road to the cemetery . A local Tennessee Meriwether Lewis Monument Committee was soon formed to push for restoring Lewis ' s gravesite . In 1925 , in response to the committee ' s work , President Calvin Coolidge designated Lewis ' s grave as the fifth National Monument in the South . The state highway providing access to the site was designated by the State of Tennessee as the Lewis and Clark Memorial Highway from the Lewis monument to Dyersburg , Tennessee toward St . Louis . ( Today , a small section of the state Highway 20 outside the park is still officially designated as the Meriwether Lewis Memorial Highway ) . The War Department was given authority to maintain the site . War Department personnel added four feet of dirt over graves surrounding Lewis ' s monument to create the appearance of a military cemetery . Three War Department interpretive tablets were placed at the site to tell the story of Lewis ' death . Stone gates bearing " Meriwether Lewis National Monument " bronze markers were erected at the entrance to the site on the old Natchez Trace . In the 1930s , the Works Progress Administration and CCC workers camped at the site built a cabin museum a few feet southwest of the Grinder ' s Stand site . Their original objective was to duplicate the design of Grinder ' s Stand , however , no reliable description could be located . The War Department turned control of the site over to the National Park Service . In 1961 , President John Kennedy signed legislation incorporating the Meriwether Lewis National Monument into the Natchez Trace Parkway and authorizing the Secretary of Interior to give the monument the appropriate official designation . The Secretary of Interior has never acted to change the designation , and " Meriwether Lewis National Monument " still appears on some official maps , though the stone entrance gates have been dismantled and the bronze markers have been placed in storage . Today , the grave site is maintained by the Natchez Trace Parkway , a unit of the National Park Service . In 2009 , the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation organized a commemoration for Lewis in conjunction with their 41st annual meeting October 3 – 7 , 2009 . It included the first national memorial service at his grave site . On October 7 , 2009 , near the 200th anniversary of Lewis ' death , about 2 , 500 people ( National Park Service estimate ) from more than 25 states gathered at his grave to acknowledge his life and achievements . Speakers included Clark descendant Peyton " Bud " Clark , Lewis collateral descendants Howell Bowen and Tom McSwain , and Stephanie Ambrose Tubbs ( the daughter of the author Stephen Ambrose , who wrote " Undaunted Courage " , an award - winning book about the Lewis and Clark expedition ) . A bronze bust of Lewis was dedicated at the Natchez Trace Parkway for a planned visitor center at the gravesite area . The District of Columbia and governors of twenty states associated with the Lewis and Clark Trail sent flags flown over state capital buildings to be carried to Lewis ' grave by residents of the states , acknowledging the significance of Lewis ' s contribution in the creation of their states . The 2009 ceremony at Lewis ' s grave was the final bicentennial event honoring the Lewis and Clark Expedition . Re - enactors from the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial participated , and official attendees included representatives from Jefferson ' s Monticello . Lewis and Clark descendants and family members , 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 . Samples of plants which Lewis discovered on the expedition were brought from the Trail states and laid on his grave . The U . S . Army was represented by the 101st Airborne Infantry Band and its Army chaplain . The National Park Service announced that it would rehabilitate the site . The cabin has since been restored , and new exhibits have been added inside the cabin and on trails leading to the cabin . Legacy . For many years , Lewis ' legacy was overlooked , inaccurately assessed , and somewhat 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 . 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 wrote that Lewis had a " luminous and discriminating intellect . " William Clark ' s first son Meriwether Lewis Clark was named after Lewis ; the senior Meriwether Clark passed the name on to his son , Meriwether Lewis Clark , Jr . The alpine plant " Lewisia " ( family Portulacaceae ) , popular in rock gardens , is named after Lewis , as is Lewis ' Woodpecker . A subspecies of cutthroat trout , the westslope cutthroat ( " Oncorhynchus clarki lewisi " ) , is also named after him . 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 ; Lewis and Clark Pass ( Montana ) ; Lewistown , Montana ; the Lewis Range of Montana ' s Glacier National Park ; Lewis Avenue in Phoenix , Arizona ; Lewis Avenue in Billings , Montana . 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 . Two US Navy Vessels have been named in honor of Lewis : the Polaris nuclear submarine USS " Lewis and Clark " and the supply ship USNS " Lewis and Clark " were named for him and William Clark , and Lewis and Clark College , Portland , Oregon .