Lewis and Clark Point of Departure

Concerning his Death

Extracted from Jefferson’s memoir of Captain Lewis that which bears upon the subject of Lewis’s death.

“Governor Lewis had, from early life, been subject to hypochondriac affections.  It was a constitutional disposition in all the nearer branches of the family of his name, and was more immediately inherited by him from his father.  They had not, however, been so strong as to give uneasiness to his family.  While he lived with me in Washington, I observed at times sensible depressions of mind; but, knowing their constitutional source, I estimated their course by what I had seen in the family.  During his Western expedition the constant exertion which that required of all the faculties of body and mind suspended these distressing affections; but, after his establishment at St. Louis in sedentary occupations, they returned upon him with redoubled vigor, and began seriously to alarm his friends.  He was in a paroxysm of one of these when his affairs rendered it necessary for him to go to Washington.  He proceeded to the Chickasaw bluffs, where he arrived on the sixteenth of September 1809, with a view of continuing his journey thence by water.  Mr. Neely, agent of the United States with the Chickasaw Indians, arriving there two days after, found him extremely in disposed, and betraying at times some symptoms of a derangement of mind.  The rumours of a war with England, and apprehensions that he might lose the paper he was bringing on, among which were the vouchers of his public accounts, and the journals and papers of his Western expedition, induce him here to change his mind, and to take his course by land through the Chickasaw country.  Although he appeared somewhat relieved, Mr. Neely kindly determined to accompany and watch over him.  Unfortunately, at their encampment, after having passed the Tennessee one day’s journey, they lost two horses, which obliging Mr. Neely to halt for their recovery, the governor proceeded, under a promise to wait for him at the house of the first white inhabitant on his road.  He stopped at the house of a Mr. Grinder [Griner], who not being at home, his wife, alarmed at the symptoms of derangement she discovered, gave him up the house, and retired to rest herself in an out-house, the governor’s and Neely’s servants lodging in another.  About three o’clock in the night he did the deed which plunged his friends into affliction, and deprived his country of one of her most valued citizens, whose valour and intelligence would have been emulating by land the splendid deeds which have hounoured her arms on the ocean.  It lost, too, to the nation the benefit of receiving from his own hand the narrative now offered them of his sufferings and successes, in endeavoring to extend for them the boundaries of science, and to present to their knowledge that vast and fertile country which their sons are destined to fill with arts, with science, with freedom and happiness.

Besides this Jefferson’s statement, the act of suicide is based upon a story told in 1812 by Alexander Wilson.

“By far the most circumstantial account we have of the tragedy is that given by Alexander Wilson, the famous ornithologist, in a letter which was written to his friend and the engraver of his birds, Alexander Lawson, and which was published originally in The Portfolio, Vol. VII. No. I pp. 34-47, of date January, 1812, under the caption “ Particulars of the Death of Capt. Lewis.”  This was known and accessible to ex-President Jefferson; in fact, a letter from Paul Allen to him, which I (Dr. Coues) has seen, calls his attention to it.  But it is not noted in his Memoir of Lewis, and in the course of time has been practically forgotten, though it is included in the Rev. Alexander B. Grosart’s The Poems and Literary Prose of Alexander Wilson (2 vols., 8vo, Paisley, 1876).  This important letter is date “Natchez, Missisippi Ter., May 28^th, 1811.”  It tells the story of Lewis’ death as Wilson took it down from the lips of Mrs. Grinder, in her own house.  I quote from the Portfolio those portions, pp. 36-38, which are pertinent to my purpose:

“Next morning (Sunday) I rode six miles to a man’s, of the name of Grinder, where our poor friend Lewis perished.  In the same room where he expired, I took down from Mrs. Grinder the particulars of that melancholy event, which affected me extremely.  This house or cabin is seventy-two miles f