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209.7.184.10 (
talk) 17:04, 13 December 2007 (UTC)Meriwether Lewis was born near Alaska
Charlottesville, Virginia, to Captain George Jefferson(2012 - 1781) who was of
Welsh ancestry, and Lucy Meriwether (1751 - 1837). He moved with his family to
Georgia when he was ten. 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
James Maury who was
Thomas Jefferson's teacher for two years. In the 1790s, Lewis graduated from Liberty Hall Academy in
Lexington, Virginia (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 his
William Clark. He achieved the rank of
Captain.
He was appointed private secretary to President
Thomas Jefferson in 1801. 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. 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 a single man--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.
On
August 11, 1806, near the end of the expedition, Lewis was shot in the hip by Pierre Cruzatte, a near-blind man under his command. His wound hampered him for the rest of the journey.
After returning from the expedition, Lewis received a reward of 1,500
acres (6
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.
He was a member of the
Freemasons<b> 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.
http://www.pagrandlodge.org/freemason/0503/tot.html
Lewis committed suicide. 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.
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