Going Back a Few Stops…

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Most of you don’t want to hear about three old folks sitting around, eating spaghetti and catching up like they hadn’t seen one another in three years. That’s what I did today. It was a wonderful day that cannot be described. If you’ve ever spent the day with friends who are closer than some family members you know the feeling. Therefore, I’ll go back a few stops, to the first day of the trip. That’ll take me back to the Natchez Trace Parkway…and another encounter with Meriwether Lewis. When I was out west a couple of years ago I mentioned that I kept seeing markers for the Lewis & Clark Expedition. Those markers start in Louisville, where Meriwether Lewis and William Clark met up before heading west to start their trip to the Pacific Ocean. That expedition lasted two years, then the two men went separate ways, with Clark becoming one of the “good guys” trying to preserve American Indian life even as the government he worked for encroached more and more on Indian territory. Lewis became the governor of “upper Louisiana” after the Louisiana Purchase. Exactly what happened to Meriwether Lewis has been debated for the past 214 years. About all that is certain is that Lewis died from a gunshot on October 11, 1809 at a boarding/lodging house on the Natchez Trace. Whether it was murder or suicide depends on who you ask, as there are endless theories supporting either belief. Lewis was buried where he fell (actually, about 200 yards from where he died). That is part of the heritage on the Trace. The photo above is the marker on his grave. Meriwether Lewis was an important figure in the development of exploration of the western U.S. While we’ll never know exactly what happened on October 11, 1809, it’s good that I got to visit the site of one of the most significant figures of the early 19th century American history.