Dead at Dawn: The Story of Meriwether Lewis

Meriwether Lewis is known for being half of Lewis and Clark, who in 1804 led an extraordinary expedition into the lands of the Louisiana Purchase. But having survived that harrowing journey, just five years later, Lewis was found shot to death in a remote cabin in Tennessee. Is this a true crime? The question of what happened to him has plagued historians for centuries.

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Executive Producer- Clare O'Donohue
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Executive Producer - Margaret Smith

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Theme Song “My Carnal Life I Will Lay Down” - Rob Brereton
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Interview: Ben Winn, Lewis & Clark State Historic Site
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Voice of Meriwether Lewis: Nnamdi Ngwe
Insta: https://www.instagram.com/nngwe17


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Transcript

0:06

Near Hohenwald Tennessee, 1809. In the early morning hours of October 11th in a Tennessee town about 75 miles from Nashville, all was quiet around the two small cabins that served as an inn for travelers along the Natchez Trace. Then suddenly, around 3 a.m., a gunshot rang out. There was loud thud followed by a second shot. At dawn, the inn's only guest would be found dead, America's most famous explorer, Meriwether Lewis. Was it suicide or something more sinister? It's the History of Murder and I'm your host, Clare O'Donohue. The Natchez Trace is one of America's earliest highways. Originally used by indigenous people for thousands of years, in the early 1800s, Old Trace was a major transportation route for traders, settlers, soldiers, and enslavers going from Nashville, Tennessee to Natchez in what is today Mississippi. The Trace ran parallel to the Mississippi River and could be a hazardous journey, according to Brad Wynn the site superintendent of the Lewis and Clark State Historic Site. It's a road that is fraught with lot of dangers in and of itself, right? There are highwaymen on the road, there are robbers along that road. It is at the fringe of civilization and law and order and so on. 35-year-old Meriwether Lewis had become a national hero three years earlier. He and his friend, William Clark, had successfully completed the westward journey we now call the Lewis and Clark Expedition. On October 10th, 1809, he was traveling the Old Trace with his personal servant, a free man of color named John Pernier, and a man Lewis only just met, James Neelly, a federal agent, as well as Neelly's enslaved servant. Two of the horses had gotten loose, so Neelly went to retrieve them while Lewis and the others went on to an inn owned by Robert Grinder. Grinder was not at home, but his wife Priscilla was. She offered one of their cabins to Lewis while Pernier and Neelly's servant stayed in the barn. During the night, she heard a gunshot and something fall heavily on the floor and the words, "O Lord." And then there was another shot, followed by Lewis calling out."O madam, give me some water and heal my wounds." She's afraid to go into the room. It's in the middle of the night. She doesn't know what has just happened. When she hears the room where Mr. Lewis, Governor Lewis was was being housed, but she refuses to go in, refuses to respond to this, perhaps, call for water. And I say refuses perhaps because this is where it gets really, really gray, right? But what we do know is that when the sun began to rise and the cabin was checked by a servant of the Grinder's, Meriwether Lewis, the great explorer, was close to death. Two gunshot wounds were clearly visible, one to his head and another to his abdomen. There are reports that there were cuts on his body. Several accounts reveal Lewis's mysterious dying words."I am no coward, but I am so strong, so hard to die." A few minutes later, he was gone. Had he shot himself twice or had someone else done it? Before we continue, please remember to leave a comment, like the video and subscribe to our channel. it will help us continue to make new content. Now, back to the story. The newspaper, the Nashville Democratic Clarion, believed Lewis had committed suicide since they reported that he, quote, "had shot a ball that grazed the top of his head and another through his intestines," unquote. Neelly, who arrived at the scene after Lewis died, reported the tragic news to former president Thomas Jefferson. Sir, 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. Jefferson accepted that his friend had killed himself. He ordered no investigation into the matter. In his public account of the life of Lewis, Jefferson wrote,"He did the deed which plunged his friends into affliction and deprived his country of one of her most valued citizens." And William Clark, the man whom Lewis would be linked to forever in history, also believed it was suicide. After hearing of his friend's death, he wrote, quote,"I, fear O! I fear the weight of his mind has overcome him." Unquote. They both knew Meriwether Lewis well, his personality, his moods. They were saddened, but not shocked that he would take his own life. But there were others who immediately doubted that Lewis had killed himself. especially his mother, Lucy, whose religious views considered suicide a sin. She was convinced her son had been murdered. And while it might be easy to dismiss a mother's grief, there is evidence to suggest she could have been right. So what had happened? And how did Meriwether Lewis end up dead in a remote part of the country after living a life filled with so much success? Lewis grew up literally in the shadow of Thomas Jefferson. He grew up in Albemarle County, which is where Monticello or near where Monticello is located. His family were friends of the Jeffersons. And so you can imagine as a young boy here, he's living next to a founding father in the case, y'know co-author of the Declaration of Independence. There was probably some early idolatry in that regard. Lewis was raised on a plantation in Virginia. Both his father and stepfather died when he was a child. So it was his mother, Lucy Merriweather Lewis Marks. who became both his sole parent and close confidant. So he was very much raised almost exclusively by his mother and she was a presence in a lot of his life. She lives well past his own death and he certainly was a force in Lewis's life. As a young man, Lewis joined the local militia and eventually entered the U.S. Army. There he got a taste of military life and the sense of brotherhood and camaraderie. But he also got into trouble. Lewis commits or basically accuses another officer uh of slandering his name. Lewis is also accused of intoxication. Lewis is reassigned to another officer where the officer he's reassigned to is Clark. And so it's that first fortuitous meeting between Lewis and Clark. Lieutenant William Clark led a company of sharpshooters. He and Lewis struck up a friendship that would continue throughout their lives. Shortly after his election to the presidency, Thomas Jefferson asked Lewis to become his personal secretary, and he would also ask Lewis to assist in one of his greatest achievements. In 1803, Jefferson purchased for the United States 828,000 acres of land from France. At the bargain price of less than three cents an acre, the Louisiana Purchase doubled the size of the country, and Jefferson asked Lewis to lead an expedition into the new lands. Lewis accepted and wrote his friend Clark, inviting him to join the expedition."If, therefore, there is anything under those circumstances in this enterprise which would induce you to participate with me in its fatigues, its dangers and its honors, believe me, there is no man on earth with whom I should feel equal pleasure in sharing them as with yourself." Military history almost always, there's very few instances of co-commanding anything, right? There's always a clear chain of command. There's always a commanding officer and an XO. Here, you see two individuals co-commanding as equals. It's pretty rare. Clark accepted and began assembling men for the journey. Lewis traveled to Philadelphia and took classes in medicine and science to prepare for a journey that had several key goals. So Jefferson's instructions to Lewis, the first of those, he wants, he calls it a direct and practicable water route to the Pacific. Like, tell me if there's a river that goes all the way there, right? He also was interested in really claiming as much of Louisiana. I mean, we bought, as it turned out, $15 million worth of land. And so he wants clear claim to that territory. And that means that there has to be mapping and surveying and scientific discovery. So that leads to the third thing. Tell me what's out there, right? Tell me who the people are. And he lists a long set of instructions about what are their cultures, what are their religions, what are their political structures, what are their trade goods. And then finally, just tell me what the plants and animals, in other words, dispel some of the myths. Jefferson felt there might be really mammoths out west, megalofauna and so on. You know, there could be any number of things that are out west. On May 14th, 1804, the expedition called the Corps of Discovery, left their camp at Camp DuBois, in what is now Hartford, Illinois, north of St. Louis. The group included 45 men, one of whom was Clark's enslaved manservant, York. The journey quickly became a test of strength, endurance, and determination, as they rowed and pulled their boats filled with supplies, up and down rivers and confronted enormous dangers. So, Lewis, at some point, almost about two weeks after they left, is up on a bluff above the Missouri River. and he slips and he falls. And he probably by all rights should have fallen perhaps to his death, right? But Lewis in this weird MacGyver crazy moment, has the wherewithal to take his dagger, his knife out of his sheet and slams it into the side of the cliff as he's sliding down and catches himself and then just hauls himself back up. Another member of the team was Lewis's dog, a Newfoundland named Seaman. It's Lewis's companion. I would suspect Seaman was with Lewis a lot. He does journal about him a little bit. He bought this Newfoundland and he was a work dog, right? He was a swimmer, but the dog was interesting. Seaman saved their life at one point. They were out west and there was a buffalo stampede. He barked and woke everyone up and the stampede, they got out of the way and the stampede roared through their campsite. Had they been asleep, they might not have gotten out of the way at the time. In South Dakota, the expedition met a young indigenous woman named Sacagawea. She was 16, a member of the Shoshone tribe, married to a French fur trader. and she was pregnant. Lewis, who learned a lot about herbal medicines from his mother, offered to assist in the birth of her child. He created a tonic made of crushed rattlesnake rattles. It eased Sacagawea's delivery, and she gave birth to a son whom she brought along during the expedition. Her contributions as translator, guide, and as a working member of the group were crucial. After a sudden wind squall filled their boats with water, Lewis wrote about her in his journal."The Indian woman to whom I ascribe equal fortitude and resolution, with any person on board at the time of the accident, caught and preserved most of the light articles which were washed overboard." But Lewis also wrote something else that year. In August on the evening of his birthday, he wrote something that many see as a sign of his depression."This day I completed my 31st year and conceived that I had in all human probability now existed half the period which I am to remain in this sublunary world. I reflected that I had as yet done but little, very little indeed, to further the happiness of the human race or to advance the information of the succeeding generation. I viewed with regret the many hours I have spent in indolence, but since they are past and cannot be recalled, I dashed from me the gloomy thought and resolved in future to live for mankind as I have heretofore lived for myself." At that point, Lewis was in the middle of the mission, encamped somewhere in Montana, clearly reflecting on his life. While he couldn't have known just how important the expedition would become to American history, he must have known he was exploring territory that few white men had ever seen, let alone had ever mapped, surveyed and documented. It's a type of story that should be told over and over again and you cannot leave a single group out of that story. It is the story of Lewis and Clark but it's the story of York. It's the story of Sacagawea. It's the story of all those indigenous people who helped the expedition to succeed, who allowed them through their territory. It's also the story of all those individuals that went along with them right the 43 men that left from here. It's the story of dog lovers right who doesn't love Seaman. So it's a great story. But only for the people on the expedition and those waiting for them in the East. For the indigenous people, the expedition had a darker side. The Lewis and Clark expedition opens the West. They open up that territory that within the end of century, there's thousands of people killed as a result of that conflict. And it's going to happen, right? The Americans are not going to stop. The indigenous people could only be pushed so far before they say, that's enough, we're fighting back. And so for the expedition and for the indigenous folks, Lewis and Clark is a blip in their history. And it is a challenging story for them because how do you celebrate? You don't in their regard. You don't celebrate the coming of the end. September 23rd, 1806, two years, four months and 10 days after they'd set off, the expedition returned to St. Louis. They succeeded overwhelmingly, I think beyond anyone's expectations. And they did. They made it all the way. They didn't find a water route, but that wasn't their fault. They did make it all the way across. They did map and survey all that territory. They did discover all these lands. They did make these introductions to all these Western tribes. During the entire expedition, they only lost one man, and he had died, apparently, of appendicitis. Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Discovery were hailed as heroes. On November 28th, 1806, the Sprig of Liberty newspaper out of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, wrote,"Captains Lewis and Clark, with their noble company, will receive the general applause and be rewarded with thanks from a grateful country." Thomas Jefferson was both pleased and relieved that Lewis had returned safely. I received, my dear sir, with unspeakable joy, your letter of September 23rd announcing the return of yourself, Captain Clark, and your party in good health to St. Louis. The members of the expedition settled their affairs and were paid for the mission, except for York and Sacagawea. Then they returned home. But for Lewis and Clark and a few others who had kept journals, there was more work to be done. These journals, filled with valuable information and observations, needed to be published. They're coming back with these stories and that legitimizes everything. For Jefferson, it legitimizes the expense of 15 million dollars. Nowhere in the Constitution at that time did it say a president could buy that land. So he politically has got a little bit of a problem there. And so he needs this expedition. He needs the justification. He needs those journals. to validate what he had just done, right? We made a good deal. We made a good decision, right? Look at all this that we just accomplished. And so they have to get those journals published. The first to get published was Patrick Gass, a sergeant on the expedition. His journal was rushed into print in 1807 and became an instant bestseller. That same year, Lewis was appointed governor of the new Louisiana territory, a job he began in 1808 when he left the East to return to St. Louis. Clark was already living there, got married, and was appointed the chief Indian agent for the territory. The two men remained close friends. But problems began to arise for Lewis. During the year between his appointment as governor and when he arrived to actually start the job, his secretary, Frederick Bates, had been in charge of the territory. When Lewis finally arrived to begin his governorship, he and Bates immediately clashed. I would suspect it was a learning curve. for him pretty quickly, if that makes sense. I don't know that Lewis was unprepared, but I don't know that it was something that he could have prepared himself for as any of us would. I don't know that anybody is prepared for their first experience on whatever those circumstances in life suddenly throw us into. So I don't want to necessarily blame Lewis entirely for that, but some people aren't suited for every aspect of their future lives. There were rumors that Lewis had begun drinking when he was back East and had suffered several bouts of illness. In addition, he was also unable to find a wife. even though he had several prospects. It was said he was so intense that women seemed to run from him. Plus, Lewis's friend Thomas Jefferson was no longer president. By 1809, a year into his governorship, some of the expenses for the territory that Lewis had submitted to the new James Madison administration were rejected. He has lost his support network, if you will, in Washington. And now he's a politician, right? And he's got to settle his accounts, reimbursement for expenses that are being questioned by the president and being questioned by the secretary of war. Lewis has not published his journals by 1809. Jefferson is frustrated certainly with Lewis about why he's not published. In September of 1809, Lewis decided to go to Washington and defend his expenditures and get help with his journals. Traveling with him was his free black servant, John Pernier, who had once worked for Thomas Jefferson. When Lewis arrived in New Madrid, about 250 miles from St. Louis, he wrote his will. He left his estate after all debts had been paid to his mother, Lucy. And he sent a letter to his friend, William Clark. After Louis's death, Clark said it seemed to have been kind of a suicide note. We'll never know since that note has been lost to history. Others say it was simply a smart decision when traveling long distance in those days. to prepare a will and settle personal affairs. But Lewis also did something else. He decided to suddenly change the route he'd planned to travel. He's got to go down the Mississippi River eventually, down to the New Orleans and then sail around. But he makes a decision at Fort Pickering, which is Memphis basically, to decide to travel overland. And he makes a rash decision. And I say rash in the sense that it was unplanned in that regard. So he's putting himself in a potentially dangerous circumstance. Dangerous because the new route was over the Natchez Trace, which was known to have robbers lurking around who would target travelers. But Lewis may have made that decision for two reasons. One, he was concerned about losing the expedition journals he was carrying. In June of that year, some of the expedition artifacts on their way to Jefferson's home, had been lost on a ship in Chesapeake Bay. Lewis may have been worried about something similar happening if he continued his trip down the river. And two, Lewis apparently was sick and needed help. When Lewis arrived at Fort Pickering, which is modern day Memphis, the commander of the fort, Gilbert Russell, put him under a doctor's care. Lewis was forced to stay and rest. Gilbert later wrote that when Lewis arrived at the fort, he was in a state of quote, "mental derangement," unquote. What Russell meant by that is not clear. But Lewis must have been showing signs of instability and many speculate he was suffering from malaria, which was common throughout the country, and can cause hallucinations and agitation. In addition, he could also have been showing the effects of too much alcohol. On September 29th, Lewis was well enough to continue his journey, but now he had an escort. James Neelly, a former militia major, was a Chickasaw Indian agent and had been visiting Fort Pickering. He agreed to accompany Lewis as far as Nashville. So it was decided that Neelly with his enslaved servant would ride along with the recovering Lewis and Pernier. When they camped on October 9th, two of the group's horses got loose. Neelly stayed behind to find them while Lewis, Pernier and Neelly's servant went on ahead. Arriving at Grinder's Inn, also known as Grinder's Stand, on the afternoon of October 10th. Priscilla Grinder was there alone with her children and her enslaved servant, Melinda.

Around 7: 21:15

30 that evening, the servants headed to the barn and everyone else went to bed. Lewis took one of the two cabins and Mrs. Grinder and the kids, the other. And somewhere in the midst of the night, there was gunfire, there was a gunshot, followed by another gunshot and followed by a wail, cry for help. Mrs. Grinder, she's afraid to go into the room. It's in the middle of the night. Priscilla Grinder later said she peered outside and saw Lewis stumbling around and heard him cry out for water. She waited until first light to send the servants into the cabin. There they found Lewis on the verge of death. He died just as the sun rose. Dead of two gunshot wounds, also dead of perhaps some sharp-headed weapon. In later years, Mrs. Grinder had several versions of the story, but she never mentioned seeing any cuts on Lewis. When Neelly arrived, he found Lewis dead in the cabin. He was the one who declared it was a suicide, but Neelly also never mentioned seeing any cuts on the body. That part of the story, that Lewis had slashed his arms and thigh with a razor, was later attributed to the servants who found Lewis as he was dying. But the accounts of those who were there that night all agree that as he died, Lewis uttered this statement."I am no coward, but I am so strong, It is so hard to die." Were these the dying words of somebody who'd managed to shoot himself twice? Or of somebody who had been brutally attacked and was trying desperately to hang on despite his fatal wounds? For those like Lewis' mother, Lucy, there was no question it was murder. She became suspicious when her son's trunks and possessions were never sent to her. And she believed the chief murder suspect was Lewis' servant, John Pernier. Pernier, remember, was not enslaved, but a free man. After Lewis's death, he claimed that the governor owed him two years worth of back pay. In a letter Pernier wrote to his former employer, Thomas Jefferson, on February 10th, 1810, He mentioned his desperate financial situation."I am sorry to trouble you, but from your knowledge of me, flatter myself, you will use your influence to obtain me justice. You will please to observe from the above statement that a balance remains due to me of $271.50, which at this time could I be in the receipt of the same it would ameliorate my distresses.$271 is about the equivalent of $7,000 today. Would Pernier have murdered Lewis for that money? Lewis's mother thought he did. Where's that evidence, right? And in the case of that, was there bias? Pernier was a man of color, right? He's showing up. He is asking for reimbursement. Lewis had not paid him for months. This is part of that expenses that Lewis is hoping to reimburse. He was traveling with Lewis. Did he murder Lewis for money? Well, if he did, he certainly didn't enrich himself. Pernier never got his money impoverished and in poor health. He died of a laudanum overdose the following year. There was another suspect for those who believed that Lewis was murdered. His guide, James Neelly. He's one of the earlier individuals who writes the correspondence to the chain of command and then the process that will eventually report back to the powers that be. So you've got this individual who's in a very key position to say and write the account that he wants to be believed. He's one of the first that starts this process of suicide. Neelly also kept Lewis's horse, his rifle and his pistols, which would make sense if he killed Lewis. He'd want to keep the murder weapons away from the authorities. And it was Neelly who hastily buried Lewis in a shallow grave. He could have preserved the body in alcohol to prevent decay, a fairly common practice in the 1800s, and shipped it off to Nashville for a proper burial. But he didn't. Then there was the question of Lewis's money. Apparently, he was traveling with about $8,000 in cash and carrying a check worth $7,000. None of it was ever found. Along with Neelly, there are two other suspects often mentioned, the Grinders. Even though her husband Robert wasn't there that night, there are lingering questions about Priscilla's account. Actually, Priscilla gave three known accounts. One was to Neelly. One was in 1811 to Lewis' friend Alexander Wilson, who came to visit Grinder's Stand and the burial site. And Priscilla told a third version in 1839 to a school teacher friend. In her first and second accounts, Priscilla said Lewis behaved strangely the evening before his death. But in her 1839 account, She mentioned that two or three men rode up to the inn that night and quarreled with Lewis. Could they have been robbers who snuck into Lewis's cabin and killed him? Or could Priscilla have invented that story to cover up for her own involvement in a plot with her husband? Then there's Priscilla's statement that she saw Lewis staggering outside after the gunshots, calling out for water. Could he have done that? Lewis' pistols were about 14 and a half inches long and contained pistol balls much heavier than today's bullets. In the 20th century, Dr. E.G. Chuinard, a noted surgeon who was a past president of the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation, theorized it would not have been possible for Lewis to shoot himself twice with these long weapons loaded with such heavy projectiles and able to walk around afterward. In addition, astronomical records confirm that on the night of October 10th to 11th, 1809, there was a new moon. That's when the sunlight side of the moon is facing away from the Earth, making it pretty much invisible. There would not have been enough light outside for Priscilla to have seen Lewis stumbling around. Also, the lack of light would have made it difficult for an armed robber to shoot a victim directly and cleanly. Therefore, that would explain why there were two bullets fired. A military man like Lewis, the theory goes, would probably have only needed one to kill himself. And there was someone else who wasn't even there that night that became a possible suspect in the minds of some. James Wilkinson. So James Wilkinson was general of the armies and is probably aptly named the most traitorous individual we've ever had in our history. He has been conspiring with the Spanish, perhaps as far back as the revolution, certainly after the revolution, to involve himself and ingratiate himself with wealth and land in situations in New Orleans, in situations farther west. He's a terrible battlefield commander. But yet he's risen to the rank of the highest officer in the land. And he absolutely is involved in conspiracy after conspiracy to sell the United States and our future to the Spanish government. Now, a lot of historians will look at the idea that Wilkinson ordered Lewis to be assassinated, that he, Lewis, was bringing documentation back from St. Louis that would have maybe put the nail finally in Wilkinson's coffin. While some may have suspected Wilkinson, neither he, the Grinders, or anyone else was ever charged or tried for Lewis' murder. But there was something that made the murder theory gain a lot of ground. In 1848, the Tennessee legislature formed a committee to erect a monument to Meriwether Lewis. They disinterred his body and several committee members, including a prominent physician, examined Lewis' remains before they were reburied under the new memorial. The committee released a report that contained a provocative statement, quote,"The impression had long prevailed that under the influence of disease of the body and mind, Governor Lewis perished by his own hands. It seems to be more probable that he died by the hands of an assassin." Unfortunately, the committee did not provide a reason why they came to this conclusion. Over the years, several requests have been made to exhume his remains for new forensic examinations. But since his grave lies on a National Park Service site, that agency would have to grant permission. So far, they have denied all requests. Today, the monument over Lewis's grave features a large column that's broken at the top. This was done deliberately. The broken shaft represents a life cut short by an untimely death. I think the monument that sits where Lewis is buried today is a perfect representation of that. It's an unfinished pillar, right? Here's an individual with strength, the base of the pillar, a life being built but without the capstone, without the pillar being completed. It's a perfect monument to his life. What do you think about this case? Please comment below. 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