THE LAST JOURNEY OF MERIWETHER LEWIS AND HIS FINAL RESTING PLACE

Meriwether Lewis captained the Corps of Discovery in an epic transcontinental journey. In recognition of Lewis’ resourcefulness and leadership abilities, President Thomas Jefferson appointed him Governor of the Louisiana Territory, with its headquarters in St. Louis, Missouri. But just three years after the successful completion of his cross-country trek, Lewis died of gunshot wounds while on the Natchez Trace (an Indian pathway) in Tennessee while en route to Washington, D.C. His death and burial along the Natchez Trace have been shrouded in uncertainty and debate since its occurrence on October 11, 1809.

This paper examines the trip taken by Lewis from his Governor’s residence in St Louis to the site of his death. Of principal concern is an analysis of the route chosen by Lewis from Chickasaw Bluffs (now Memphis) to the place where he died. What was it that motivated him and his freed slave, Pernod, to undertake a southeastern route from Memphis taking him out of the line of direct travel to Washington, D.C.?

However this last journey may have been planned, it is known that his burial place is graced by a broken shaft monument constructed in 1848 by a grant from the Tennessee legislature of $500. The monument was built with a total height of 20.5 feet comprised of an eight-foot high pyramidal base of local limestone. A four-foot square plinth tops the base and supports an eleven-foot high shaft of marble. Where the shaft joins the plinth it has a base diameter of 2.5 feet.

The monument site became the locus for the burial of more than 100 persons from the immediately surrounding area. In order to determine the location of these other burials as well as the grave of Lewis, presumptively under the monument, ground penetrating radar (GPR) scans were conducted under the supervision of the authors.

Over the years the monument has suffered damage from natural as well as human causes to the extent that it was completely dismantled and reconstructed in the late 1990s. The alterations necessitating the reconstruction will be described. On the possibility that permission might be secured to exhume the remains of Lewis to evaluate whether his death was by suicide or not, the soil pH, the water table level, depth of soil cover and other geological factors were evaluated in order to predict the possible state of preservation of the remains.