Meriwether Lewis' Mysterious Death

Two hundred years later, debate continues over whether the famous explorer committed suicide or was murdered

  • By Abigail Tucker
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Monument for explorer Meriwether Lewis Controversy over Meriwether Lewis' death has descendants and scholars campaigning to exhume his body at his grave site in Tennessee.

Connie Ricca / Corbis

 

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    Captain Meriwether Lewis—William Clark’s expedition partner on the Corps of Discovery’s historic trek to the Pacific, Thomas Jefferson’s confidante, governor of the Upper Louisiana Territory and all-around American hero—was only 35 when he died of gunshot wounds sustained along a perilous Tennessee trail called Natchez Trace. A broken column, symbol of a life cut short, marks his grave.

    But exactly what transpired at a remote inn 200 years ago this Saturday? Most historians agree that he committed suicide; others are convinced he was murdered. Now Lewis’s descendants and some scholars are campaigning to exhume his body, which is buried on national parkland not far from Hohenwald, Tenn.

    “This controversy has existed since his death,” says Tom McSwain, Lewis’s great-great-great-great nephew who helped start a Web site, “Solve the Mystery,” that lays out family members’ point of view. “When there’s so much uncertainty and doubt, we must have more evidence. History is about finding the truth,” he adds. The National Park Service is currently reviewing the exhumation request.

    The intrigue surrounding the famous explorer’s untimely death has spawned a cottage industry of books and articles, with experts from a variety of fields, including forensics and mental health, weighing in. Scholars have reconstructed lunar cycles to prove that the innkeeper’s wife couldn’t have seen what she said she saw that moonless night. Black powder pistols have been test-fired, forgeries claimed and mitochondrial DNA extracted from living relatives. Yet even now, precious little is known about the events of October 10, 1809, after Lewis – armed with several pistols, a rifle and a tomahawk – stopped at a log cabin lodging house known as Grinder’s Stand.

    He and Clark had finished their expedition three years earlier; Lewis, who was by then a governor of the large swath of land that constituted the Upper Louisiana Territory, was on his way to Washington, D.C. to settle financial matters. By some accounts, Lewis arrived at the inn with servants; by others, he arrived alone. That night, Mrs. Grinder, the innkeeper’s wife, heard several shots. She later said she saw a wounded Lewis crawling around, begging for water, but was too afraid to help him. He died, apparently of bullet wounds to the head and abdomen, shortly before sunrise the next day. One of his traveling companions, who arrived later, buried him nearby.

    His friends assumed it was suicide. Before he left St. Louis, Lewis had given several associates the power to distribute his possessions in the event of his death; while traveling, he composed a will. Lewis had reportedly attempted to take his own life several times a few weeks earlier and was known to suffer from what Jefferson called “sensible depressions of mind.” Clark had also observed his companion’s melancholy states. “I fear the weight of his mind has overcome him,” he wrote after receiving word of Lewis’s fate.

    At the time of his death Lewis’s depressive tendencies were compounded by other problems: he was having financial troubles and likely suffered from alcoholism and other illnesses, possibly syphilis or malaria, the latter of which was known to cause bouts of dementia.

    Surprisingly, he may also have felt like something of a failure. Though the Corps of Discovery had traversed thousands of miles of wilderness with few casualties, Lewis and Clark did not find the Northwest Passage to the Pacific, the mission’s primary goal; the system of trading posts that they’d established began to fall apart before the explorers returned home. And now Lewis, the consummate adventurer, suddenly found himself stuck in a desk job.

    “At the end of his life he was a horrible drunk, terribly depressed, who could never even finish his [expedition] journals,” says Paul Douglas Newman, a professor of history who teaches “Lewis and Clark and The Early American Republic” at the University of Pittsburgh. An American icon, Lewis was also a human being, and the expedition “was the pinnacle of Lewis’s life,” Newman says. “He came back and he just could not readjust. On the mission it was ‘how do we stay alive and collect information?’ Then suddenly you’re heroes. There’s a certain amount of stress to reentering the world. It was like coming back from the moon.”


    Captain Meriwether Lewis—William Clark’s expedition partner on the Corps of Discovery’s historic trek to the Pacific, Thomas Jefferson’s confidante, governor of the Upper Louisiana Territory and all-around American hero—was only 35 when he died of gunshot wounds sustained along a perilous Tennessee trail called Natchez Trace. A broken column, symbol of a life cut short, marks his grave.

    But exactly what transpired at a remote inn 200 years ago this Saturday? Most historians agree that he committed suicide; others are convinced he was murdered. Now Lewis’s descendants and some scholars are campaigning to exhume his body, which is buried on national parkland not far from Hohenwald, Tenn.

    “This controversy has existed since his death,” says Tom McSwain, Lewis’s great-great-great-great nephew who helped start a Web site, “Solve the Mystery,” that lays out family members’ point of view. “When there’s so much uncertainty and doubt, we must have more evidence. History is about finding the truth,” he adds. The National Park Service is currently reviewing the exhumation request.

    The intrigue surrounding the famous explorer’s untimely death has spawned a cottage industry of books and articles, with experts from a variety of fields, including forensics and mental health, weighing in. Scholars have reconstructed lunar cycles to prove that the innkeeper’s wife couldn’t have seen what she said she saw that moonless night. Black powder pistols have been test-fired, forgeries claimed and mitochondrial DNA extracted from living relatives. Yet even now, precious little is known about the events of October 10, 1809, after Lewis – armed with several pistols, a rifle and a tomahawk – stopped at a log cabin lodging house known as Grinder’s Stand.

    He and Clark had finished their expedition three years earlier; Lewis, who was by then a governor of the large swath of land that constituted the Upper Louisiana Territory, was on his way to Washington, D.C. to settle financial matters. By some accounts, Lewis arrived at the inn with servants; by others, he arrived alone. That night, Mrs. Grinder, the innkeeper’s wife, heard several shots. She later said she saw a wounded Lewis crawling around, begging for water, but was too afraid to help him. He died, apparently of bullet wounds to the head and abdomen, shortly before sunrise the next day. One of his traveling companions, who arrived later, buried him nearby.

    His friends assumed it was suicide. Before he left St. Louis, Lewis had given several associates the power to distribute his possessions in the event of his death; while traveling, he composed a will. Lewis had reportedly attempted to take his own life several times a few weeks earlier and was known to suffer from what Jefferson called “sensible depressions of mind.” Clark had also observed his companion’s melancholy states. “I fear the weight of his mind has overcome him,” he wrote after receiving word of Lewis’s fate.

    At the time of his death Lewis’s depressive tendencies were compounded by other problems: he was having financial troubles and likely suffered from alcoholism and other illnesses, possibly syphilis or malaria, the latter of which was known to cause bouts of dementia.

    Surprisingly, he may also have felt like something of a failure. Though the Corps of Discovery had traversed thousands of miles of wilderness with few casualties, Lewis and Clark did not find the Northwest Passage to the Pacific, the mission’s primary goal; the system of trading posts that they’d established began to fall apart before the explorers returned home. And now Lewis, the consummate adventurer, suddenly found himself stuck in a desk job.

    “At the end of his life he was a horrible drunk, terribly depressed, who could never even finish his [expedition] journals,” says Paul Douglas Newman, a professor of history who teaches “Lewis and Clark and The Early American Republic” at the University of Pittsburgh. An American icon, Lewis was also a human being, and the expedition “was the pinnacle of Lewis’s life,” Newman says. “He came back and he just could not readjust. On the mission it was ‘how do we stay alive and collect information?’ Then suddenly you’re heroes. There’s a certain amount of stress to reentering the world. It was like coming back from the moon.”

    Interestingly, John Guice, one of the most prominent critics of the suicide theory, uses a very different astronaut comparison. Lewis was indeed “like a man coming back from the moon,” Guice notes. But rather than feeling alienated, he would have been busy enjoying a level of Buzz Aldrin-like celebrity. “He had so much to live for,” says Guice, professor emeritus of history at The University of Southern Mississippi and the editor of By His Own Hand? The Mysterious Death of Meriwether Lewis. “This was the apex of a hero’s career. He was the governor of a huge territory. There were songs and poems written about him. This wasn’t just anybody who kicked the bucket.” Besides, how could an expert marksman botch his own suicide and be forced to shoot himself twice?

    Guice believes that bandits roaming the notoriously dangerous Natchez Trace killed Lewis. Other murder theories range from the scandalous (the innkeeper discovered Lewis in flagrante with Mrs. Grinder) to the conspiratorial (a corrupt Army general named James Wilkinson hatched an assassination plot.)

    Though Lewis’s mother is said to have believed he was murdered, that idea didn’t have much traction until the 1840s, when a commission of Tennesseans set out to honor Lewis by erecting a marker over his grave. While examining the remains, committee members wrote that “it was more probable that he died at the hands of an assassin.” Unfortunately, they failed to say why.

    But the science of autopsies has come a long way since then, says James Starrs, a George Washington University Law School professor and forensics expert who is pressing for an exhumation. For one thing, with mitochondrial DNA samples he’s already taken from several of Lewis’ female descendants, scientists can confirm that the body really is Lewis’s (corpses were not uncommon on the Natchez Trace). If the skeleton is his, and intact, they can analyze gunpowder residue to see if he was shot at close range and examine fracture patterns in the skull. They could also potentially learn about his nutritional health, what drugs he was using and if he was suffering from syphilis. Historians would hold such details dear, Starrs says: “Nobody even knows how tall Meriwether Lewis was. We could do the DNA to find out the color of his hair.”

    Some scholars aren’t so sure that an exhumation will clarify matters.

    “Maybe there is an answer beneath the monument to help us understand,” says James Holmberg, curator of Special Collections at the Filson Historical Society in Louisville, Ky., who has published work on Lewis’s life and death. “But I don’t know if it would change anybody’s mind one way or the other.”

    The details of the case are so sketchy that “it’s like trying to grab a shadow,” Holmberg says. “You try to reach out but you can never get a hold of it.” Even minor features of the story fluctuate. In some versions, Seaman, Lewis’s loyal Newfoundland who guarded his master against bears on the long journey West, remained by his grave, refusing to eat or drink. In other accounts, the dog was never there at all.

    However Lewis died, his death had a considerable effect on the young country. A year and a half after the shooting, ornithologist Alexander Wilson, a friend of Lewis’s, interviewed Mrs. Grinder, becoming one of the first among many people who have investigated the case. He gave the Grinders money to maintain Lewis’s grave and visited the site himself. There, reflecting on the adventure-loving young man who had mapped “the gloomy and savage wilderness which I was just entering alone,” Wilson broke down and wept.


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    i gotta say suicide because he finished the expedition and he may not of got another thing like the expedition so he went into dpression and took his own life.

    Posted by Jeffrey on January 17,2012 | 12:33 PM

    If you could weigh either option- murder or suicide- on a scale it would probably still be dead center.

    It was a dangerous time. If you traveled by boat you risked river pirates, by road - every person you met could be a thief or murderer. Look up the Harpes brothers (or cousins, depending on the source.) I've recently been researching them, they murdered a relative of mine in 1800. The accounts of their crimes is chilling, to say the least. One article claimed they were among the earliest known serial killers in the US. Reading this article brought them to mind. It is not too hard to imagine the Grinders were capable of murder.

    Suicide- as depression and bi polarism runs in my family, this, too, is possible.

    For the sake of history I hope this is looked into.

    Posted by Shelly on December 25,2011 | 01:48 PM

    I used to assume that Lewis committed suicide because that was the final verdict expressed by Stephen Ambrose and Ken Burns. However after visiting the site and reading up on the case there is no doubt in my mind that Lewis was murdered. The Grinder account is completely unreliable. The Grinders' were known crooks who had stolen and murdered from other passerby on the Natchez Trace. The political climate was tense and fractured in the U.S. at the time - The British were plotting against us (Lewis made this point before his death, but it was written off as paranoia - however it turned out to be an accurate insight - the War of 1812 was around the corner)...various political factions were vying for power and their were treason movements to gain control over the western territories. James Wilkinson was known to be a corrupt man who would sell himself to the highest bidder. Lewis was honest and perhaps not adept at a 'desk job' he wasn't going to be intimidated by corrupt politics. Add in the danger on the Natchez Trace - it's safe to say he was murdered. You can have manic depression and be an alcoholic and that doesn't mean you commit suicide. I have depression and have been suicidal, but didn't take the plunge. He was anxious to clear his name and get to Washington. He wanted to finish editing his journal and publish them...I don't think he committed suicide. Regardless he is a truly great American!

    Posted by Adele on October 10,2011 | 12:51 AM

    I've been checking into my Lewis lineage.(mother's maiden name Lewis)Today, while searching,I am shocked and amazed at what I have read on this site.One of the main reasons why I have worked so hard to find where I came from is because I fight with depression and have had issues with alcohol and other addictions in my past.I have and aunt and an uncle(also an alcoholic)commit suicide during my lifetime, from what I understand our Lewis roots are where the mental illness stems from. All of my other traceable family lines seem to be normal peaceful law abiding and successful people. I, myself, have a cheetah type personality....I am excellent at everything I put my mind to, I always go straight to the top with jobs and such, but then I crash. I completely shut down. I am fighting with everything in me to overcome this weakness. My grandpa Lewis was very abusive both verbally and physically but at the same time was one of the best people you'd ever meet. He would work himself to death for others but his own family(wife and children) was never treated so well. When he died he had nothing and really had never made anything of himself. I remember having conversations with my uncle before his suicide and he would say.....imagine what I might have done with my life if I wasn't born into this family and raised by this man who always left me feeling that I didn't amount to anything.(by the way, he was salutatorian of his graduating class and earned a purple heart and bronze star in Vietnam) My Lewis line seems to full of tragedy and loss even though we all have the potential to be so successful.

    Experiencing what I have, I would say....dig Mr. Lewis up if you must. I believe with all my heart he committed suicide. I'm willing to bet that no matter how hard he tried he was never good enough for himself.

    To the person who started this site..... your time and efforts and talents and hard work are much appreciated! THANK YOU!

    Posted by Kimberly on August 2,2011 | 08:35 PM

    Suicide folks typically shoot themselves in the head, right? Angling a gun to get an abdomen shot could have been his way to say that the pain from the liver damage was just too much to handle - but that's doubtful that he would leave a "message" of pain in such a way. I believe he was murdered - I think it is a great idea to get his body and take a peek with the experts - Don't we all love to solve a mystery?

    Posted by Joni Halvorson on May 14,2011 | 06:03 PM

    My view is that Lewis suffered from the "gloom of the mountains" in the same manner that so many Welshmen do and it is quite plausible that he took his own life in the depth of depression. Was Jefferson (most probably of Welsh descent too - at least he said he was) also prone to depression?

    Posted by Nigel Fletcher-Jones on May 14,2011 | 11:55 AM

    MAY THE TRUTH ABOUT LEWIS BE REVEALED ! GOOD LUCK TO LEWIS' FAMILY IN AN INVESTIGATION. DON'T GIVE UP !

    Posted by Renae on March 19,2011 | 09:44 PM

    MR.LEWIS IS BEST KNOWN FOR THE EXPEDITION WITH CLARK. HE DID HIS BEST AND CAME BACK TO FACE THE REST OF HIS LIFE,WHATEVER IT HELD.WHETHER HE WAS MURDERED OR COMMITTED SUICIDE SURELY IS IMMATERIAL NOW.THE BIGGEST DIGNITY TO A PERSON IS TO LET THEIR FINAL RESTING PLACE BE THEIRS ALONE,REST IN PEACE,REMEMBER THEM FOR WHATEVER ACHIEVEMENTS THEY ACCOMPLISHED AND REMEMBER THEM FOR THE POSITIVE GOOD INFLUENCES AND MOST OF ALL WE MUST NOT FORGET FIRST AND FOREMOST THAT WHOEVER THEY WERE OR WHATEVER THEY DID THEY WERE AND STILL ARE A HUMAN BEING. I SAY THANK YOU FOR A GOOD JOB,MERIWEATHER LEWIS,REST IN PEACE

    Posted by patricia downes on February 27,2011 | 09:28 AM

    Too much emphasis has been placed on Mrs. Grinder's story of Lewis' death . She was not consistent and changed her story several times. Anyone who has studied Lewis' life for ten years, I am convinced he was murdered. I don't think he even made it to the cabin. I think he was murdered just as he arrived. He was robbed. Neely was nowhere near his death site , he was in court somewhere for not paying debts. Lewis was a sick man , no doubt, but I think it was due to malaria.
    People were too afraid of the Grinder family to speak up so that stupid suicide story stuck. I have hiked the old Trace and it's scary even today. It was dangerous in Lewis' time.
    Plus, Lewis possibly found out some information that someone high up did not want him to reveal. I also don't believe Lewis was a drunk like what they made out he was . As much as Frederick Bates HATED Lewis, he would have been sure to write letters about it. Lewis was set up , not doubt about it. He was no push over, he was a stand up kind of man. He was not a "team player" so they done him in. Plain and simple. Modern day historians just LOVE the suicide story cos it sounds romantic. That's just wrong !
    If Lewis' family wants him exhumed , then it's their business ! Even though he's been dead for 200 years, they still might find out something. Other bodies have been exhumed after they had been dead for longer than Lewis and they were preserved enough to do an investigation. Lewis' family should get to have the say in this. I think it's time that the truth come out and they quit telling lies on him. He was a great American, let's give him a little credit people !

    Posted by Michelle on January 29,2011 | 08:36 PM

    I feel that one as experienced an outdoorsman, a soldier and an explorer such as Lewis would have been more proficient in a suicide attempt;he would have most certainly not attempted to shot himself in the abdoman,which he would know to cause a long,lingering painful death!His request for a drink of water is also very curious since it would have hasten his death in the event of a stomach wound.Since he was explorer, I speculate that he would have had a knife,in which case,had he wished death he could have finished the job with more haste than lingering in pain until the morning !

    Posted by David Cappetta on January 24,2011 | 06:50 PM

    A couple of points no one seems to be mentioning. The Natchez Trace was probably the most dangerous route in the Americas at that time. It was infested with robbers, renegades, thieves and highwaymen. Lewis was carrying a sum of money in gold coin, which was never found. Grinder, the innkeeper, was a surly, dangerous man of violent temper, who had been rumored to have participated in several robberies and/or murders in the past. We hardly need to dream up a conspiracy theory to find a reason for Lewis' murder, if murder it was.

    Even discounting the letters of the military men involved, Lewis was known to be unwell, physically and quite possibly, mentally. A suicide is not at all out of the question, and does, in fact, seem to be the most likely cause of death, botched as it seems to have been. A murderer would have finished the job.

    For those who cannot give up their dearly beloved conspiracies, I suggest a review of Occam's Razor.

    For what it's worth, my cousins, Robert Melville Cooper and his older brother, were called upon to build the coffin (a split log, actually)in which Lewis was buried. The burial occurred in a graveyard with a number of unmarked graves. Some forty years later, the bodies (plural, you will note) were exhumed, and Col. R. M. Cooper was called upon to identify the burial. The log coffin had rotted away, and the bones were jumbled up. Col. Cooper was able to identify the hand-made spikes with which they had assembled the log coffin. The bones were then reburied, and the existing monument was built above them. And your guess is as good as mine as to which bones, if any remain, belonged to Lewis, and which to the unknown denizens of the Potter's Field. Good luck on that exhumation, folks.

    Posted by Richard E. Davis on December 9,2010 | 01:34 AM

    Hate to say it, but this mystery will nev er be fully solved even if the body is exhumed and examined. It has been almost 200 years since the incident occurred. Both sides have substancial evidence backing them up. Lewis was known to be manic depressive, however there is also evidence backing up his assassination. General Wilkinson had his governorship taken from him and given to Lewis. Wilkinson was later revealed to be a spy for the spanish/mexicans. The officer that detained Lewis in st.louis was appointed by Wilkinson. The major who arrived at grinder's bend and buried Lewis served directly under Wilkinson. Most importantly, there is strong evidence that Lewis was, in fact, a spy that traveled west under Jefferson's orders.

    Posted by Derrick Orion Titley on November 18,2010 | 02:34 PM

    it is very hard to tell what had happend in this death. it is very intusting

    Posted by rian on November 16,2010 | 11:15 AM

    Reading through all the wonderful commentary of the death, it is obvious modern science can conduct quite an investigation from the body which could trigger many avenues of truth in the cause of death.

    Posted by David Marcus on July 7,2010 | 03:00 AM

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