In October 1809, newspapers across the U.S. ran a startling story that left many Americans grieving. Meriwether Lewis, the famed explorer who journeyed west to survey newly acquired land, had died of gunshot wounds while traveling through Tennessee on the Old Natchez Trace, a historic forest trail spanning around 440 miles across the southeast, according to the Tennessee State Museum.
At the time of his death, Lewis was serving as governor of the Louisiana Territory. Managing this territory, however, proved a tremendous burden for Lewis, and according to the Lewis & Clark Research Database, financial stress from debt accrued during his expedition compelled Lewis to plan a trip to Washington, D.C., where he had hoped the government would reimburse him.
On his journey eastward, Lewis stopped at Grinder’s Stand, an inn south of Nashville. In the early hours of October 11, the innkeeper’s wife heard gunshots and found Lewis bleeding from multiple wounds. He died before sunrise.
Lewis’s close friends, President Thomas Jefferson and fellow explorer William Clark, admitted in letters that they believed the gunshots were self-inflicted.
“They both were shocked but not surprised,” Clay S. Jenkinson, a public humanities scholar and author of The Character of Meriwether Lewis: Explorer in the Wilderness, told Discover.
Explore All OptionsLewis’s cause of death has been the subject of much debate over the years. While it’s widely believed in most scholarly circles that Lewis took his own life, some historians argue that the explorer may have instead been murdered.
Personality of Meriwether Lewis and the Expedition
Meriwether Lewis was born in 1774 in Virginia, near family friend and future president Thomas Jefferson’s estate. When Lewis was just five years old, his father died of pneumonia. Soon after, his mother remarried and moved the family to Georgia. It was here that Lewis developed a knack for wilderness skills and hunting, establishing his roots as an outdoorsman, according to the National Museum.
Lewis inherited his late father’s estate at age 18 but then left to join the Virginia Militia in 1794 to help quash the Whiskey Rebellion in western Pennsylvania. He transferred to the regular army the following year, eventually rising to the rank of captain, but left after Jefferson won the presidency and asked him to serve as his private secretary.
By 1803, Jefferson and Lewis agreed that a westward expedition was needed to explore the land acquired in the Louisiana Purchase. Jefferson named Lewis as the head of the expedition.
Soon after his appointment, Lewis tapped William Clark to serve alongside him on the expedition. The two had met in the army about six years earlier, and Clark eagerly accepted the offer.
“Clark was the steadying influence. Lewis was mercurial, often neurotic, self-punishing, driven,” Jenkinson said.
Despite their clashing personalities, the two became close friends, and both excelled at distinct skills that helped the expedition succeed. Lewis served as the expedition’s natural scientist, collecting samples of plants and animals they encountered, while Clark had the crucial job of mapping their route as the expedition’s cartographer.
It’s likely that without Clark’s presence, the expedition would have been much more difficult for everyone involved because of Lewis’s temperament, Jenkinson added to Discover.
“When Clark was with Lewis, things generally went very well, but when they were separated, things usually fell apart,” Jenkinson said.
After the expedition successfully reached the Pacific coast in 1805, the two explorers parted ways, with Lewis moving to St. Louis after Jefferson named him governor of the Louisiana Territory in 1807.
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Mental Health Issues That Lead to Suicide, or Was He Murdered?
By the time Lewis began his 1809 trip to Washington, D.C., he was deep in debt, troubled, and suffering from suicidal ideation. Twice he had tried to take his own life, but others intervened.
The mysterious circumstances behind Lewis’s death have prompted historians to take a closer look at the explorer’s background — from his purported mental health issues to the people around him.
In his research, Jenkinson has analyzed the arguments between those who support the suicide theory versus those who believe Lewis was murdered.
Historians who support the suicide conclusion — the majority view — point to Lewis’s previous attempts on his own life as well as reports from others that his behavior became increasingly erratic. Many believe that Lewis may have suffered from depression and bipolar disorder, something that Clark, Jefferson, and other contemporaries of Lewis alluded to, according to the State Historical Society of North Dakota.
Meanwhile, those who believe Lewis was murdered have considered several suspects, including close companions of Lewis, like John Pernier, his free black servant, and James Neelly, a traveling companion from the Chickasaw Nation.
Some believe that the murder was political in nature, potentially arranged by General James Wilkinson, the first governor of the Louisiana Territory and a double agent for Spain, according to the Thomas Jefferson Hour. Others say that the murderer could have been someone Lewis didn’t even know: either Robert Grinder, the owner of Grinder’s Stand, or bandits along the Natchez Trace, which was notorious at the time for being ridden with outlaws and gangs.
While these theories surrounding Lewis’s death did attract significant attention — Lewis’s own family believed that he was murdered by Pernier, according to the Oregon Historical Society — there was no evidence to support the murder accusations, nor any witnesses.
A New Theory
The view that Lewis committed suicide is largely accepted over the murder theories, but a closer look at the explorer’s health has introduced a new angle in recent years; there was documentation that Lewis was confused and incoherent on the journey to Washington. It’s believed that malaria may have caused his worsening condition, which is the basis behind a new theory that Lewis took his own life during a malaria-induced psychosis.
That theory, Jenkinson said, reflected the persisting stigma against suicide. It acknowledged that Lewis killed himself while arguing he didn’t technically commit suicide, which therefore freed him of the stigma.
Article Sources
Our writers at Discovermagazine.com use peer-reviewed studies and high-quality sources for our articles, and our editors review for scientific accuracy and editorial standards. Review the sources used below for this article:
- This article references information from the book, The Character of Meriwether Lewis
- This article references information from the Tennessee State Museum: Go See Tennessee: Tracing History on the Old Natchez Trace
- This article references information from the Lewis & Clark Research Database: Meriwether Lewis’s Personal Finances
- This article references information from the National Museum: Meriwether Lewis
- This article references information from the State Historical Society of North Dakota: Corps of Discovery - Was Meriwether Lewis Murdered or Did He Commit Suicide?
- This article references information from the Thomas Jefferson Hour: Who Killed Meriwether Lewis?
- This article references information from the Oregon Historical Society: Death of Meriwether Lewis
