In 1812,
The Upper Part, Or Louisiana, Was Named The Territory Of Missouri,
And Captain Clark (Otherwise General), Was Appointed Governor Of
The Territory, July 1, 1813, His Old Friend And Comrade Having Died
A Few Years Earlier.
The end of Captain (otherwise Governor) Lewis was tragical and was
shadowed by a cloud.
Official business calling him to Washington,
he left St. Louis early in September, 1809, and prosecuted his
journey eastward through Tennessee, by the way of Chickasaw Bluffs,
now Memphis, of that State. There is a mystery around his last days.
On the eleventh of October, he stopped at a wayside log-inn,
and that night he died a violent death, whether by his
own hand or by that of a murderer, no living man knows.
There were many contradictory stories about the sad affair,
some persons holding to the one theory and some to the other.
He was buried where he died, in the centre of what is now
Lewis County, Tennessee. In 1848, the State of Tennessee erected
over the last resting-place of Lewis a handsome monument,
the inscriptions on which duly set forth his many virtues
and his distinguished services to his country.
The story of the expedition of Lewis and Clark is the foundation of
the history of the great Northwest and the Missouri Valley. These men
and their devoted band of followers were the first to break into
the world-old solitudes of the heart of the continent and to explore
the mountain fastnesses in which the mighty Columbia has its birth.
Following in their footsteps, the hardy American emigrant,
trader, adventurer, and home-seeker penetrated the wilderness, and,
building better than they knew, laid the foundations of populous and
thriving States.
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