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Meriwether Lewis Monument Lewis' burial place.
THE TRAGIC DEATH OF MERIWETHER LEWIS Article by Dawson A. Phelps, National Park Service Historian - William and Mary Quarterly. October 11, 1809. Suicide or Murder--how did Meriwether Lewis die? This is the question that the student of the inquiring lay reader is left with if he surveys the authoritative and scholarly accounts of Lewis's death written since the 1890's. For over half a century the truth of the matter has been in doubt, although earlier historians never questioned the contemporary account. what did happen to the great explorer in the fall of 1809? How did he meet his death? Some three years after the return of Lewis and Clark from their monumental journey to the shores of the Pacific, the Missouri Gazette for November 2, 1809, carried a report that Governor Meriwether Lewis of the Louisiana Territory had, on the preceding October 11, "discharged the contents of a brace of pistols in his head and breast...and died without much apparent pain." Such was the tragic story accepted by the contemporaries as established fact. It was put into authoritative form by Thomas Jefferson in the letter of August 18, 1813, which served as the introduction to Biddle's and Allen's History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark. Except perhaps for the Lewis family, who in later years persisted in believing that their famous kinsman had been murdered, there appears to have been no disposition in either official or literary circles to question Jefferson's narrative prior to 1848. In that year, a commission appointed by the Tennessee Legislature to erect a suitable monument over Lewis' grave suggested that it was "probable" that he was the victim of an assassin and cited a letter to a Tennessee clergyman from Meriwether L. Clark, a son of William Clark. Clark asked the minister if he had "ever heard of the report that Governor Lewis did not destroy his own life, but was murdered by his servant, a Frenchman, who stole his money and horses, returned to Natchez, and was never afterwards heard of?" Clark's query must have evoked some discussion locally, but it made little or no impression in Nashville newspapers or intellectual circles. As late as 1874, Joseph B. Killibrew, state geologist, in his Resources of Tennessee unequivocally stated that Lewis" on the 11th day of October, 1809, committed suicide. "In the meantime, however, a different account was gaining credit. Two events of the 1840's
had revived speculation concerning the manner of Lewis'
death. The first was the creation of Lewis County, Tennessee,
named in the explorer's honor. The second was the
appropriation of five hundred dollars by the Tennessee legislature in
1848 to erect the monument which to this day marks his grave.
These events reflected the continuing interest in Meriwether Lewis
among people who lived in Lewis and adjoining Tennessee
counties. It is not remarkable, considering
nineteenth-century moral attitudes, that many persons living in the
vicinity should have dismissed the possibility of suicide, substituting
in its stead the more exciting, dramatic, and perhaps more acceptable
stories of murder which, emb In 1893 a distinguished ornithologist, Elliot Coues, published a new edition of Biddle's and Allen's History in which he repeated a story told two years earlier by J.D. Parks, correspondent of the Nashville Daily American. Parks, writing from Franklin, Tennessee, under the pseudonym, John Quill, had published a lengthy account of Lewis' death. In that account he sought to discredit Jefferson's introductory letter to the History by repeating the story told him by and elderly female tavern keeper of Newberg, then the county seat of Lewis County.
Meriwether Lewis Park's informant, seventy-seven years old at the time, based her account on recollections of a conversation some forty years earlier. She had known, she said, a "hired girl" or scullery maid who claimed to have been employed at Grinder's Inn the night of Lewis Death in 1809. While washing dishes after the evening meal that fatal night, the maid had heard three shots. Investigation revealed Lewis dead in his bed, and Grinder, the part-Indian innkeeper, fled from the scene. Grinder, the story continued, was captured and tried for murder, but lack of evidence prevented a conviction. He subsequently "bought slaves and a farm and seemed to have plenty of money." These facts, the scullery maid had averred, would be confirmed by elderly neighbors who had all their lives lived in the vicinity of Grinder's Stand. Perhaps the best commentary on this story is that of Coues himself, who wrote that the "actual testimony adduced at this time is from the memory of one person as to the events of about 80 years ago; it is at second hand, indirect, and circumstantial only; thus being fatally defective." Yet on the basis of such evidence, Coues raised doubts as to the fact of suicide. "The mystery remains" he wrote, "and it is not probable that the truth will ever be known." Quite understandably, the appearance of the Coues book evoked a series of articles, letters, and comment in the Tennessee press which served to keep interest in the murder theory alive. Highly colored stories concerning Lewis' death were "grist" for Sunday's supplements, and the purely local folklore became widely circulated. One story was that Lewis had crawled some 150 yards from the inn before death overtook him; that his body was suffered to lie there until late in the morning when a passing post rider found it. This tale was told in 1875 to a prominent attorney of Maury County by a man claiming to be the very post rider himself. Subsequently, it was learned that the glory seeker had not been born until the year 1809. Another story concerned the inquest. Several men living in the 1890's claimed to be grandsons of members of the coroner's jury. While they unanimously admitted that their ancestors had found a verdict of suicide, they now maintained that, because of some unnamed fear, the jury had brought in a verdict which it did not believe to be true. That a coroner's jury was summoned to inquire into the manner of death is highly probably. Yet even this is conjecture, because all the judicial records of Maury County have disappeared. Statements by men who believed or claimed to believe that their ancestors were on the coroner's jury have little value as historical evidence. Numerous variations of these stories, as well as others, might be cited. Illustrative of their variety is one concerning the watch of the deceased explorer, allegedly stolen by his murderer. In 1810, this item, along with Lewis' private papers was in the responsible hands of Isaac A. Coles, brother of Madison's private secretary. Yet it was later claimed that one of Lewis' relatives recovered the watch from the dead governor's servant, Pernia, after a chance encounter in New Orleans or Mobile. A cursory examination of the lot reveals a total lack of evidential value. Without exception they began with some such phrase as "My Grandpa tole me." another remarkable thing is that all elaborations on the supposed murder, in written form at least, appear late in the nineteenth century. What they indicate is that since the 1880's there has been a strong local tradition supporting the murder theory--a theory which seems to have been a somewhat belated reaction to the reawakened interest in Lewis during the 1840's. Despite this strong local tradition, there were doubting Thomas's. It cannot be said that everyone who lived within a 25-mile radius of the scene of Lewis' death subscribed to the murder theory. This qualification was especially true of Hickman County, where Robert Grinder, proprietor of the inn where Lewis died, settled in 1814, where as a respected citizen, he raised a large family, and where his descendants became locally prominent. John H. Moore, an attorney in Hickman County from 1865 to about 1900, wrote shortly after the turn of the century that he had not found "any considerable number of persons who thought Governor Lewis had been murdered. The theory is comparatively new." Nearly a quarter of a century earlier, an elderly attorney from Hardin County had told Moore of a woman who claimed to be an ex-slave of Grinder's. Moore sought her out and obtained her recollections concerning Lewis death. She was, she maintained, about twelve or thirteen years of age at the time Lewis died, and she had been present at the inn the night of October 11, 1809. Her story, substantially the same as Jefferson's dismissed the idea of murder. Like other oral evidence given many years after the event, it cannot be regarded as of compelling importance. Yet it does prove conclusively that local tradition was not unaniGuest article and photos by Edgar D. Byler, 3rd...Development of the iron industry in the upper buffalo river valley. (Allen's Creek and Napier)mous in support of the murder theory. That the alleged murder of Meriwether Lewis should have become imbedded in folklore Guest article and photos by Edgar D. Byler, 3rd...Development of the iron industry in the upper buffalo river valley. (Allen's Creek and Napier)is not at all astonishing. His death occurred in what was then a remote wilderness. The site of the tragedy was a frontier road whose history also became a part of the lore of the region--a perfect setting for legend and romance. And the folklore filtered into standard treatises where the work of the great explorer is discussed, and into reference works such as recent editions of the Encyclopedia Britannica and the Dictionary of American Biography. In the latter work, for example Louis P. Kellogg had this to say concerning Lewis' death: "on the night of Oct. 11, at a rude inn in central Tennessee, he died. Jefferson later assumed it was by his own hand. His family and the people of the locality where his death occurred believed he was murdered, and the weight of the evidence seems to be with this surmise. No money was found on his body and his watch was later recovered in New Orleans." Prior to the appearance of Coue's edition of Biddle's and Allen's History, those writers who had occasion to treat the life of Lewis accepted Jefferson's version without question. It is worthy of note that, while Coues familiarized himself with some of the so-called evidence produced by local inquiry, he failed to examine the evidence available in the Jefferson papers, or the events of the last years of Lewis' life. Indeed, this vitally significant phase of Lewis' career was neglected until the publication of the most recent popular biography. Lewis arrived in Washington in December 1806 to report the results of his expedition direct to the President. Shortly thereafter, he was made governor of upper Louisiana Territory. It was not, however, until March 8,1808, that he arrived at St. Louis to begin his new duties. In the meantime, he everywhere was acclaimed as a great explorer, a dashing soldier, an eminent scientist, and the President's friend--fitting tributes to the leader of America's greatest exploring expedition. In St. Louis, the governor was abruptly plunged into a startling change in atmosphere. Lewis found himself beset with the boring and frequently sordid details of a colonial administrator. In the words of Jefferson, "he found the territory disturbed by feuds and contentions among the officers of the Government and people themselves divided by these into fractions and parties." the clash of selfish, grasping, and ambitious personalities made the position of governor most difficult. There was little opportunity to exercise the capacity for leadership-the ability to take decisive action at the proper moment-which he had so conspicuously demonstrated during the long voyage up the Missouri and the dangerous trek over the mountains and down the Columbia to the Pacific. To make matters worse, all was not well in his official family. He quarreled bitterly with his second-in-command, the territorial secretary, Frederick Bates. Having arrived at the age of thirty-four without yet acquiring a competence, Lewis plunged into land speculation in an attempt to make his fortune. He soon exhausted his meager capital and, as security for his debts, pledged his income for many years. so straitened was his financial position that it became necessary to borrow trifling sums for doctors' fees, medicine, and, on one occasion, a gambling debt. With his personal credit stretched to the limit, Lewis became involved in difficulties with the government. Before, during, and after the western expedition, he had been in the enviable position of having a presidential Carte Blanche to spend such money as he deemed necessary to carry out his mission. Drafts on the secretaries of War, Treasury, and State amounting to more than thirty-eight thousand dollars had been promptly paid. Unaware that such fiscal methods should not be used in ordinary public administration, Lewis continued these practices in managing territorial affairs. The upshot was that drafts amounting to several thousand dollars were protested.. Lewis heard the news in a communication from Secretary of War William Eustis, dated July 15, 1809. Realizing that other protested drafts were to come, the governor wrote a bitter and despairing reply defending his transactions. He announced his intention of leaving for Washington, Via New Orleans, the following Thursday to try to justify his official actions. "Be assured Sir, that my Country can never make a "A Burr" of me--she may reduce me to Poverty; but she can never sever my attachment from her." As for the protested bills, they "have effectually sunk my credit; brought in all my private debts amounting to about $4,000, which has compelled me, in order to do justice to my Creditors, to deposit with them, the landed property which I had purchased in this country, as security." After having attended to such details as presiding over the territorial council (the last he was ever to attend), making a will, and selling or pledging all his personal property and real estate to insure the payment of his debts, the governor left St. Louis September 4, 1809. some time later, rumors became current that, being "indisposed," Lewis stopped at New Madrid, Missouri. If such was the case, he apparently improved, and in the words of the Missouri Gazette, October 4, 1809, he "set off in good health for New Orleans on his way to the Federal City." when he arrived in Fort Pickering (now Memphis) on September 15, however, he was in a "state of mental derangement." There he met Captain Gilbert C. Russell, apparently a friend of long standing, who took the suffering man into his own quarters and assumed responsibility for the safety of his property. The fact that Lewis was mentally unbalanced at the time of his arrival at Fort Pickering cannot be doubted. Russell, in a somewhat restrained manner, told Thomas Jefferson nearly four months later that Lewis' "situation that rendered it necessary that he should be stopped until he should recover which I done and in a short time by proper attention a change was perceptible and about six days he was perfectly restored in every respect and able to travel. Sometime in September another old army friend, Major Amos Stoddard, then in Nashville, had news from Fort Pickering concerning Lewis. The account is much more detailed and specific than that furnished to Jefferson by Russell. Lewis, it was reported, was being treated by Dr. Smith, the surgeon's mate at Fort Pickering. Furthermore, Russell had found it necessary to keep a strict watch over the governor because "he had made several attempts to put an end to his own existence...." Nearly a fortnight before Lewis' death these facts were communicated in a letter dated September 28, 1809, to Secretary Bates in St. Louis. They undoubtedly provided the basis for Bate's remark, in a letter to his brother, that "Gov. Lewis on his way to Washington became insane." Lewis' "indisposition," as he called it, and his desire to have Captain Russell accompany him from Fort Pickering to Washington, delayed his departure several days, during which he decided to proceed via Nashville rather than New Orleans. Captain Russell, who had requested leave of absence in order to take care of some protested bills of his own, explained that after a wait of six or eight days he was disappointed in his request and could not accompany the governor. In his stead, on this fateful journey, went a Major James Neely, bound for Nashville. It was from Major Neely that Jefferson got the most important written evidence for his reconstruction of Lewis death. Yet Jefferson was by no means restricted to what Neely could tell him of the events surrounding it. He also received the letter from Captain Russell cited above, and one from Captain John Brahan, 2nd U.S. Infantry, who had heard the details from Neely's own lips in Nashville. Moreover, Jefferson was able to interview John Pernier (Pernia), Lewis, servant, on November 26, 1809. In all probability this evidence was supplemented by a letter of Alexander Wilson printed some three years before Jefferson wrote his account. Since the latter appeared in the Port Folio, the best periodical then published in America, it is inconceivable that Jefferson had not read it. These letters, principally Neely's, and the detailed oral account of Lewis' death from Pernier, an eyewitness, were the basis for Jefferson's narrative. James Neely was the United States Agent to the Chickasaw Nation from July 8, 1809, to June 3, 1812. Very little is known of the man. It is said he was appointed at the request of the Chickasaws, and he seems to have taken seriously the duty of presenting the Indian point of view to his superiors in Washington. Only two of his letters have been published. These reveal little about him except that he had the ability to write clearly and succinctly. By virtue of his appointment to the responsible office, and in the absence of evidence to the contrary, it can be said that he was a man of good character, and presumably a competent witness. His account of the events of the last weeks of Lewis' life and of the governor's state of health is peculiarly significant. He is the only witness from whom we have a written report who was with or near the man constantly during the last twenty-three days, save one, before the firing of the fatal shots. Neely arrived at fort Pickering on September 18, remaining there until the 29th. Concerning the events of his ten-day stay at the fort, the impressions received, and the information acquired, Neely reported that he "found the Governor (who had reached there two days before me from St. Louis) in very bad health--It appears that his first intention was to go around by water to the city of Washington; but his thinking a war with England probably, and that his valuable papers might be in danger of falling into the hands of the British, he was thereby induced to change his route, and to come through the Chickasaw nation by land; I furnished him with a horse to pack his trunks etc. on, and a man to attend to them; having recovered his health in some degree at the Chickasaw Bluffs, we set out together..." After leaving Fort Pickering on September 29, Neely, Lewis, and two servants proceeded to the Chickasaw Nation--very probably to the Indian agency located about six miles north of the present Houston, Miss., a distance of not much more than one hundred miles--a two and one half or three days journey. Here Neely noted that Lewis "appeared at times deranged in mind." In deference to the governor's health, the party "rested there two days..." The travelers probably left the agency on October 6. After traveling about 150 miles farther they must have reached the Tennessee River on the evening of October 8. Crossing either on the afternoon of the 8th or the morning of the 9th, they traveled throughout the day and camped at a point not far from what is now the village of Collinwood, Tennessee. During the night, two of the horses escaped. At Lewis' request, Neely remained behind "to hunt them and the governor proceeded on with the promise to wait for me at the first house he came to that was inhabited by white people..." This parting was the last time that Neely was to see Meriwether Lewis alive. The Indian Agent gave no details of his own activity during that day, or where he stayed that night, later remarking that he "came up" sometime after the governors death. The events of the last day of Meriwether Lewis' life and the manner of his death were reconstructed by Neely from the stories told him by the two servants and Mrs. Grinder. Lewis, he wrote, "reached the house of Mr. Grinder about Sun set, the man of the house being from home, and no person there but a woman who discovering the governor to be deranged, gave him up the house and slept herself in one near it, his servant and mine slept in the stable loft some distance from the other houses, the woman reports that about three O'clock she heard two pistols fire off in the Governors room: the servants being awakened by her, came in but too late to save him, he had shot himself in the head with one pistol, and a little below the breast with the other---when his servant came he says, "I have done the business my good servant give me some water." He gave him water. He survived but a short time. "I came up some time after and had him as decently buried as I could in that place..." Captain Brahan's account, derived from Neely, is identical with that of the Indian Agency except for two details. First, he specified the date--the morning of October 10--that Neely had remained behind to hunt the horses. Secondly, he failed to mention the highly significant remark which Lewis, after having fired the fatal shots, made as his servant entered the room: "I have done the business my good servant give me some water." These words could refer only to the action which Lewis had from time to time been contemplating since arriving at Fort Pickering. Some twenty months after the tragedy of Lewis' death, the great ornithologist, Alexander Wilson, while riding over the Natchez Trace on a journey from Nashville to Natchez, stopped at Grinder's Inn. There he heard "from Mrs. Grinder the particulars of the melancholy event." Her story of the period after Lewis' arrival at the inn is identical in its main outlines with those of both Neely and Brahan. The governor arrived at sunset. He slept in the house while Mrs. Grinder retired to the kitchen. The two servants slept in the stable loft. She heard two shots and saw two wounds, one in the head and the other in the chest. She summoned the servants, who witnessed the last moments of the dying man. Death occurred about sunrise. Additional details related to Wilson by Mrs. Grinder bear directly on the mental state of Lewis during the last hours of his life. "He walked backward and forward before the door talking to himself." He ate very little of the food that she set before him. Unconsciously she revealed one of the measures which Neely had deemed necessary to protect his friend; when Lewis asked for gunpowder, " the servant gave no distinct reply"--obviously evading the issue. Some parts of her account--namely her recollection that Lewis had stumbled to her door to ask for water after the fatal shots, and that she failed to summon help for an undetermined length of time--create the impression that she had been a badly frightened and hysterical woman. This impression is strengthened by her verbose account of Lewis' last moments and her lengthy recital of his last words. Despite her probable hysteria at the time of the tragedy and a possible lapse of memory during subsequent months, Mrs. Grinder's testimony corroborates that of Neely and makes more convincing his blunt statement of the facts to Jefferson: "It is with extreme pain that I have to inform you of the death of his Excellency Meriwether Lewis, Governor of upper Louisiana who died on the morning of the 11th instant and I am sorry to say by suicide." News of Lewis' suicide doubtless distressed Jefferson. In seeking an explanation he recalled that Lewis "had from early youth suffered from hypochondriac affections...inherited by him from his father." Jefferson also recalled that while serving as his private secretary, Lewis had frequently been subject to "sensible depressions of mind." These symptoms were almost entirely absent during the western expedition, although the introspection he indulged in on his thirty-second birthday, August 18, 1805, suggests a mood of depression. He reflected on "the many hours I have spent in indolence" during half a lifetime; "but I dash from me the gloomy thought, and resolved in future, to redouble my exertions...to live for mankind, as I have heretofore lived for myself." However, when he settled down to "sedentary occupations" after the expedition, symptoms of mental disorder returned" with redoubled vigor, and began seriously to alarm his friends." With this background, the statements of Neely and Russell that Lewis experienced a mental breakdown were easily credible. Such was the evidence which led Jefferson to write that it was Lewis who "did the deed which plunged his friends into affliction, and deprived his country of one of her most valued citizens..." Does it suffice? Proponents of the murder theory say no, alleging that both the Neely and Wilson stories emanate from Mrs. Grinder. This is not true. The two servants witnessed the event, and it is inconceivable that Neely should have accepted Mrs. Grinder's story without the confirmation supplied by the the servants. Moreover, Jefferson had the opportunity to question one servant independently. In the absence of direct and pertinent contemporary evidence to the contrary, of which not a scintilla exists, what verdicts of suicide must stand. In reality there never has been much mystery attached to Lewis' death even though it did occur on the remote frontier. The scene of the tragedy was on the Natchez Trace, the most heavily traveled road of the Old Southwest. Moreover, it was not, in 1809, a dangerous road. The mail passed over it regularly. No robbery had been reported for years. At least seven inns, and probably more, had sprung up to accommodate the numerous wayfarers at fairly regular intervals. It was the only overland route between the territorial capitals and the national capital, and many men of prominence traveled that way. It is worthy of note that of those who passed the lonely grave not one reported rumors of murder or assassination. Meriwether Lewis in 1809 was a national figure. His activities were noted widely in the press, and even more by word of mouth. If the American people in those days reacted in the same way that they do today, news of his death spread quickly, and the details were eagerly sought. That nearly thirty years passed before the possibility of murder was raised is in itself evidence of a high order that the original verdict of suicide was correct. Nothing has been offered since that time which can seriously challenge the fact that Meriwether Lewis died by his own hand.
Replica of Grinders Inn where Lewis died at what is now
Meriwether Lewis Monument in Lewis County, Tennessee. 
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ellished and enlarged in the
passage of time, became established folklore. Such stories,
probably circulated orally for a generation, began to appear in
printing during the 1890's.