Exploring Death of a Trailblazer

He was Magellan in buckskin, Moses in reverse. Instead of trying to lead his flock out of the wilderness, he led them straight into it. At a time when most people seldom left their farms, he took a small band of daredevils across the vast continent, mapping the unknown and solving the mystery of America, only to become a mystery himself at the end.

For years, schoolchildren have been taught that Meriwether Lewis, head of the storied Lewis and Clark expedition, blazed a trail West at the start of the 19th century, then shot himself to death a few years later. But some experts tell a different story, one that could be historical dynamite. They say Lewis was murdered, cut down in his prime, and next week they’ll ask for the chance to prove it.

At a meeting planned for Dec. 16 in the southeast regional office of the National Park Service here, an impassioned group of scholars, scientists and Lewis descendants will make a case for opening the grave of America’s greatest explorer, believing his dustbound, disputed remains could solve one of history’s most tantalizing riddles.

More than mere curiosity compels them. Unlike past disputes over the remains of Jesse James and John Wilkes Booth, whose demises provided fodder for idle academic debates, the dispute over Lewis pits two innate perceptions of the American hero (inevitably flawed or irreproachably perfect?) and two deeply held views of America’s infancy.

If our first post-Revolutionary celebrity--a 35-year-old national icon who seemed destined for the White House--fell victim to an assassin, rather than depression, then historians may have to recalibrate their original carbon dating on the loss of American innocence. No longer his own shame, the death of Lewis would be tacked onto the ever-growing list of America’s collective shames.

Should it also turn out that nearly 200 years of whispered suspicions about a sensational death were, in fact, well-founded, then everyone with a sinister, unorthodox slant on the deaths of John F. Kennedy or Abraham Lincoln or Vince Foster could gain new credibility.

Finally, for the 160 Lewis descendants asking that the remains be exhumed, the dispute is about nothing less than peace of mind, about laying a cherished ancestor to rest. Some insist that Lewis, who possibly attended church with his dear friend Thomas Jefferson, awaits a proper Christian burial, denied him 188 years ago because of the scandalous nature of his death.

“The main reason I want the exhumation and autopsy done is I want the truth established,” says William Anderson, 80, great-great grandson of Lewis’ older sister, Jane. “I think he was murdered. But if it was suicide, that’s all right. I just want to know.”

Park Service officials, meanwhile, worry where it will all end. If they permit the Lewis exhumation, will someone come along next year and ask to dig up a Civil War battlefield? Or a Native American burial ground? Or Martin Luther King Jr., whose gravesite also falls under Park Service jurisdiction?

“This would set a terrible precedent,” says Park Service spokesman Paul Winegar. “We have thousands of historical figures buried in parks throughout the country.”

Even without the pending Park Service meeting, Lewis has been crossing millions of minds these days, thanks to a lavish Ken Burns documentary about the 1804-6 expedition with William Clark. The documentary, which debuted several weeks ago on public television, reminded viewers of Lewis’ often-forgotten feat: More heroic then Neil Armstrong, more humane than Columbus, he navigated the uncharted immensity of North America from St. Louis to the Pacific Northwest with determination and dignity. He was the first U.S. citizen to stand atop the Continental Divide and witness the dreamscape of the West--which is why it is so ironic that no one witnessed his fatal injuries on Oct. 11, 1809.

Some things are known. At the end of his life, Lewis was under immense stress, traveling from St. Louis to Washington, D.C., for a showdown with federal bureaucrats over questionable expense reports he had filed as governor of the new Louisiana Territory. On Oct. 10, he stopped at a lonely outpost called Grinder’s Inn, on the Natchez Trace, 72 miles southwest of Nashville. Mrs. Grinder, the proprietor, a woman whose first name seems to have vanished in the mists of time, heard strange noises that fateful night, followed by the pioneer’s plaintive cries:

“O madam!” Lewis called. “Give me some water, and heal my wounds.”

If only Mrs. Grinder had opened her door, there might be no mystery. But she chose to cower in her cabin until daybreak.

The Burns documentary hews closely to the majority opinion, that Lewis shot himself twice--once in the head, once in the breast--then finished the job by cutting himself from head to foot with a razor.

Ridiculous, say people like L. Ruth Frick, of Washington, Mo., an amateur historian who has spent 40 years studying Lewis.

“A man who’d killed many animals,” she says, “and knew how to commit suicide painlessly, to do it in the way that’s been descibed, doesn’t make any sense.”

“The historical version of the death is historical folderol,” says James E. Starrs, a law professor and forensic scientist at George Washington University and the leader of the crusade to exhume Lewis. “There’s no way, scientifically, Lewis could die in the way and the time span described.”

Starrs suggests that Lewis may have been the victim of a robbery, a likely fate for any rich-looking gent along the Natchez Trace, which seethed with bandits back then. Other historians agree, among them Richard Dillon, history professor at the University of San Francisco, who wrote a widely respected biography of Lewis about 30 years ago.

“It was an extremely dangerous place,” Dillon says of the Natchez Trace. “Murder was endemic down there. He was all alone, maybe out of his head to some extent. He’d have been a great target for any kind of prowling predator or murderer. They were called land pirates, you know.”

Besides stray ruffians in the area, suspicion also tends to fall on Maj. James Neelly, U.S. agent to the Chickasaw nation, who accompanied Lewis on part of his journey, then oddly abandoned him the day before his death. (It was Neelly who later delivered the bad news to Jefferson.) Also, there was Lewis’ servant, John Pernier, “who stole [Lewis’] money and horses, returned to Natchez, and was never afterwards heard of,” according to a letter written sometime later by Clark’s son.

Then, of course, there was the curious Mrs. Grinder, whose behavior begs explanation.

That the Burns documentary omits any mention of these possible suspects enrages Starrs and his fellow dissenters. But Burns doesn’t care.

“I’m a narrative filmmaker,” he says. “I’m telling a story. Would you, in the middle of the climax of the story, stop and say, ‘Others many years from now will think differently?’ I’m supposed to give equal time to crackpot theories? I didn’t do it with Huey Long, and I didn’t do it with Lincoln.”

Should the exhumation ever be allowed, Burns won’t be on hand.

“It’ll interest Geraldo,” he says, “but it doesn’t interest me.”

Stephen E. Ambrose, author of the recent bestseller about Lewis, “Undaunted Courage,” which forms the basis of the Burns documentary, also dismisses out of hand the notion that Lewis met with foul play.

“I think the analogy is with Lee Harvey Oswald and JFK,” Ambrose says. “It is just unacceptable to think this little piece of nothing could have killed the president, so therefore there had to have been some conspiracy. Well, in the same way, it’s unthinkable that our first post-Revolutionary national hero, our first superstar, committed suicide.”

Ambrose insists the suicide scenario is the most logical. Though no one saw Lewis take his own life, many saw him deteriorate in the days before his death, and both his best friends never doubted what happened, based on their knowledge of his turbulent mind.

“To say he was murdered is insulting to William Clark and Thomas Jefferson,” Ambrose says. “They would’ve not done anything if they’d had the slightest suspicion? These were two men who loved him best and knew him most.”

“He was so clearly a troubled soul,” says Patricia Limerick, a history professor who heads the Center of the American West at the University of Colorado, Boulder. “If Clark had died in a similar situation, it would be easy to say it doesn’t make sense. Clark was so hardy and chipper. But Lewis’ psychological profile was such a good match with suicide that it reduces the question quite a bit.”

Lewis has already been dug up once. Before his grave became a monument 150 years ago, a committee named by the Tennessee Legislature wanted to make sure he was truly there, and decided the only way to do so was to dig.

In a report on their findings, committee members not only seemed to vouch for the remains’ authenticity, but also concluded that Lewis probably “died by the hands of an assassin.” Sadly, they left no explanation for this assertion, which both maddens and inspires Starrs.

Did committee members find inexplicable bullet holes in the skeleton? Did they find evidence of two different types of bullets, which would suggest two different pistols, not the matching set that Lewis was known to carry? Did they fail to find powder traces on the skull, which must have been there, and still must be there today, if Lewis really shot himself at close range? These are among the many questions Starrs longs to answer.

“I want to give voice to Meriwether Lewis,” Starrs says, “through his bones.”

In addition to Lewis’ descendants, Starrs counts among his supporters the governor of Virginia, where Lewis was born, the governor of Missouri, where Lewis and Clark launched their expedition, and the governor of Tennessee, where Lewis now lies. Another ally is Joe Baugh, district attorney general of Lewis County, Tenn., where a coroner’s inquest last year found plenty of cause for doubt about Lewis’ death, leading a jury to formally recommend exhumation.

“I know from having been in the district attorney’s office a long time,” Baugh says, “in every death there are strange circumstances. But this was really very strange.”

Not only does the truth demand exhumation, Baugh says, but Lewis himself would.

“He was a scientist,” Baugh says. “When he went out to the Pacific Ocean, he killed and brought back many unknown species, brought back alive both plants and animals. [Exhumation] would seem to be something he would want, as a scientist.”

Limerick, however, says exhumation may solve nothing, because all this fighting among Lewis historians may be less about their subject than about themselves. Possibly, she says, they’ve fallen in love with Lewis and can’t let go, a common enough occupational hazard in the world of historiography.

Indeed, Starrs admits that he feels an emotional attachment to Lewis, a kinship far beyond scientific curiosity that may one day prevent him from taking part in the very exhumation he is requesting.

“I’ve come to know the man,” he says. “I’ve analyzed his handwriting. I’ve met his family. I have become so close.”

Researcher Edith Stanley contributed to this story.