50 Fun Facts About Meriwether Lewis

Which breed was Seaman, the big dog Meriwether Lewis bought for $20 before heading west?

Newfoundland dogs swim well and suit boat work, and Lewis paid half a month's pay for his. Seaman made it to the Pacific and back.

Which animal chased Meriwether Lewis into the Missouri River after he forgot to reload his gun?

A grizzly bear got within 20 paces before Lewis noticed it. He sprinted about 80 yards into the water, planning to fight it off with his espontoon, and the animal ambled away.

Which horse race was founded by Meriwether Lewis Clark Jr., grandson of Lewis's co-leader William Clark?

The Kentucky Derby is run at Churchill Downs, the Louisville track that Clark Jr. built. William Clark had named his first son after Lewis, and the name passed down a generation.

Shoshone chief Cameahwait, whom Meriwether Lewis met in August 1805, was the brother of which expedition member?

Sacagawea recognised the chief when the two parties met, and his band went on to trade the expedition several dozen horses. His people also helped carry its baggage over Lemhi Pass.

Which Army rank did Meriwether Lewis hold on the expedition, one officially denied to his partner William Clark?

Captain was the rank Lewis held, while Clark was officially only a lieutenant, though the two led as equals. Clark was promoted posthumously, ahead of the expedition's bicentennial.

In which state did Meriwether Lewis die of gunshot wounds in 1809, at a remote inn called Grinder's Stand?

Tennessee put up a monument over the grave in 1848, and the surrounding county now bears his name. Whether Lewis shot himself or was murdered is still argued over.

Which weapon did Meriwether Lewis demonstrate to almost every Native nation he met, astonishing those who watched?

An air rifle, probably a Girardoni repeater, fired 22 times on one charge of air for a visitor in 1803. Lewis wrote that the people who saw it shoot thought it great medicine.

Where did Meriwether Lewis live from 1801 while working as President Jefferson's private secretary?

The White House, then simply the presidential mansion, let Lewis mix with leading figures in politics and the arts while Jefferson planned an expedition across the continent.

Which kind of bird, described by Meriwether Lewis on the journey west, now carries his name?

A woodpecker took his name when ornithologist Alexander Wilson described it from skins the expedition brought home. William Clark's name went to a nutcracker instead.

Meriwether Lewis first saw military service in 1794, helping to put down which uprising of Pennsylvania farmers?

The Whiskey Rebellion, a revolt against a federal tax on spirits, brought Lewis to Pennsylvania as a militiaman. He joined the regular Army the following year.

In which colony was Meriwether Lewis born in 1774, a neighbour of his future patron Thomas Jefferson?

Virginia's Albemarle County was home to both men, and Jefferson later said he picked Lewis partly because he came from his own neighbourhood.

After his father died in 1779, the young Meriwether Lewis moved with his mother and stepfather to which state?

Georgia's Broad River Valley is where the boy Lewis learned to hunt, often heading out at night in midwinter with only his dog. He left at 13 to be schooled by private tutors.

Which practical skill did Meriwether Lewis learn as a boy from his mother, Lucy Marks?

Gathering medicinal herbs was something his mother taught him, showing him which wild plants to pick. Natural history became a lifelong passion for Lewis.

Why was the young Ensign Meriwether Lewis court-martialled in 1795, in a trial that ended with his acquittal?

Demanding a duel with a lieutenant after a drunken quarrel put Lewis in the dock. Once cleared, he was moved to a unit of elite sharpshooters led by William Clark, and the two became friends.

Which annual message did Meriwether Lewis carry to Congress in 1801 because Jefferson would not deliver it aloud?

The State of the Union went to Congress on paper, which Jefferson said would spare its members' time. No president delivered it aloud again until Woodrow Wilson in 1913.

Which toxic element in Meriwether Lewis's laxative pills later helped archaeologists confirm a campsite?

Mercury made up more than half of each pill, and most of it passed straight through the men. Traces in the soil at Travelers' Rest in Montana marked the camp latrine two centuries later.

What did the astronomer Andrew Ellicott teach Meriwether Lewis during a stay at his home in spring 1803?

Using a sextant and other navigational instruments was the point of the lessons, and Ellicott's advice went on to shape the expedition's equipment and survey methods.

Which Declaration of Independence signer, a Philadelphia doctor, taught Meriwether Lewis frontier medicine in 1803?

Benjamin Rush taught Lewis about frontier illnesses and how to bleed a patient. The doctor's own fierce laxative pills went west in the expedition's medicine chest.

At which federal armoury did Meriwether Lewis collect firearms, tomahawks and knives for the expedition in 1803?

Harpers Ferry kept Lewis for a month, not the week he had planned, because the workmen struggled with a collapsible iron boat frame he had designed himself.

What did the men call Meriwether Lewis's collapsible iron-framed boat, which leaked badly when launched in 1805?

The Experiment floated like a cork at first, then its seams opened: with no pine trees nearby, Lewis had no pitch to seal the hides. He sank it and left the frame behind.

Which animal bit through an artery in the leg of Seaman, Meriwether Lewis's dog, in May 1805?

A beaver's bite cut an artery in the dog's hind leg, and Lewis struggled to stop the bleeding and feared the wound would kill him. Seaman recovered and finished the journey.

Near which city was Meriwether Lewis's keelboat built in 1803, before he floated it down the Ohio River?

Pittsburgh is where the keelboat was finished on August 31, 1803, built to Lewis's own specifications. In 2019 the federal government recognised the city as the expedition's starting point.

How did Meriwether Lewis mark his 31st birthday in August 1805, while trading for Shoshone horses?

With a gloomy diary entry, Lewis regretted hours lost to idleness and judged he had done very little for the human race. He resolved to live for mankind from then on.

Which Montana landmark did Meriwether Lewis, the first white visitor, call the grandest sight he had ever beheld?

The Great Falls turned out to be only the lowest of five waterfalls on the Missouri. Exploring upstream the next day, Lewis found the other four.

On reaching Lemhi Pass in August 1805, Meriwether Lewis and three men crossed which great geographic boundary?

The Continental Divide gave Lewis a sobering view: immense ranges of high mountains, their tops partly covered in snow, still lay to the west.

Meriwether Lewis named Montana's Marias River in honour of Maria Wood, who was which relation to him?

His cousin Maria gave her name to the river in 1805. Lewis returned to explore it on the way home, to learn whether it ran north beyond the Canadian border.

What name did Meriwether Lewis give his northernmost halt in 1806, after the Marias River failed to reach far north?

Camp Disappointment got its name when Lewis found the river's watershed fell short of the 50th parallel. He still called the cottonwood-shaded site a beautiful and extensive bottom.

Meriwether Lewis's party fought the expedition's only deadly skirmish in July 1806 against men of which nation?

The Blackfeet men tried to take the party's weapons during the night, and two of them were killed in the struggle. The clash in Montana is known as the Two Medicine Fight.

Down which river did Meriwether Lewis and the expedition paddle canoes to reach the Pacific coast in November 1805?

The Columbia carried the party past the site of modern Portland to the sea. The river was named for the ship of American explorer Robert Gray, who reached it in 1792.

On an 1806 hunt, Pierre Cruzatte accidentally shot Meriwether Lewis after mistaking him for which animal?

An elk was what Cruzatte thought he was aiming at, and his shot wounded Lewis in the thigh. It happened just as the two halves of the expedition were about to reunite.

Which Montana state flower belongs to the genus Lewisia, named for Meriwether Lewis, who collected it in 1806?

Bitterroot has a fleshy taproot that Lewis ate on the trail. A German-American botanist gave the plant its scientific name from the specimens Lewis brought back.

In which river city did Meriwether Lewis live while serving as governor of the Louisiana Territory from 1808?

St. Louis became his base in March 1808. There he published the territory's first laws, laid out roads and feuded with his own territorial secretary.

Which fraternal order did Meriwether Lewis join in the 1790s, later serving as first Master of a frontier lodge?

The Freemasons initiated Lewis at the Door to Virtue Lodge in his home county. In 1808 he and friends petitioned for a new lodge in the Louisiana Territory, with Lewis as its first Master.

Meriwether Lewis died in 1809 at an inn on which old frontier road, a route notorious for robbers?

The Natchez Trace was a rough pioneer road, and Lewis left his riverboat to ride it overland. His grave lies beside the old route, which is now followed by a scenic parkway.

What form does the monument take that was raised over Meriwether Lewis's grave in 1848?

A broken column was a common emblem of a life cut short; Lewis died at 35. Civil War soldiers later tore down part of the monument's iron fence and forged it into horseshoes.

Which federal agency refused in 1998 to let relatives exhume Meriwether Lewis's body for forensic tests?

The National Park Service manages the grave site and feared disturbing more than 100 pioneers buried nearby. About 200 of Lewis's kin had sought the exhumation.

Which task did Meriwether Lewis fail to finish in the three years between his return and his death?

Publishing the expedition journals defeated Lewis, who had trouble completing the writing. Nicholas Biddle edited them instead, and the account appeared in 1814.

In which state is Lewiston, the city named for Meriwether Lewis that faces Clarkston across the Snake River?

Idaho's Lewiston sits where the Clearwater meets the Snake, a spot where Lewis camped in October 1805. Its twin across the water, Clarkston, lies in Washington state.

Which winter quarters near the Pacific coast, named for a local nation, sheltered Meriwether Lewis in 1805–06?

Fort Clatsop was named on Christmas Day 1805 after the neighbouring Clatsop people, who had recommended the site. It was the expedition's last camp before the journey home.

By what name is the Army unit that Meriwether Lewis led to the Pacific and back best known today?

The Corps of Discovery was formally the Corps of Volunteers for Northwestern Discovery. It was a military unit throughout, and Lewis ran it under Army discipline.

Which acting family, whose father Lewis was named for the explorer, claims descent from Meriwether Lewis?

The Arquettes owe the claim to actor Lewis Arquette, father of Patricia, Rosanna and David. Meriwether Lewis never married or had children, so any link would run through his siblings.

Which star of My Three Sons played Meriwether Lewis opposite Charlton Heston in the 1955 film The Far Horizons?

Fred MacMurray was in his mid-40s when he played Lewis, who was 29 when the journey began. Time magazine later ranked the film among the ten most historically misleading ever made.

Which historian, also known for Band of Brothers, wrote the 1996 Meriwether Lewis biography Undaunted Courage?

Stephen Ambrose took the title from Jefferson's tribute to Lewis as a man of courage undaunted. The book follows his whole life, from planter to governor, not only the expedition.

The 1904–05 Lewis and Clark Exposition dollar, with Meriwether Lewis on one face, was struck in which metal?

Gold dollars were struck for the Portland fair that marked the expedition's centennial. Lewis appears on one side and William Clark on the other.

USS Lewis and Clark, launched in 1964 and named for Meriwether Lewis and his partner, was what kind of Navy ship?

A ballistic missile submarine, it was the first Navy ship to be named for the pair of explorers. A wartime Liberty ship had earlier carried Lewis's name alone.

At Three Forks in 1805, Meriwether Lewis named rivers for Jefferson, Madison and which Treasury Secretary?

Albert Gallatin got the eastern fork, while the western went to the president and the middle one to his Secretary of State. The three rivers join there to form the Missouri.

Which Philadelphia artist and museum founder painted Meriwether Lewis from life in 1807?

Charles Willson Peale's portrait belongs to Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia, and it most likely served as the model for Lewis's face on a commemorative coin of 1904.

What did Meriwether Lewis collect for Jefferson at an Ohio Valley salt lick in 1803, only to lose the shipment?

Fossil bones of mammoths and mastodons drew Lewis to Big Bone Lick, but everything he gathered was lost or stolen. William Clark went back in 1807 and sent Jefferson more than 300 specimens.

Which emergency ration did Meriwether Lewis buy from a Philadelphia cook in 1803 for the journey west?

Portable soup, a broth boiled down until solid, was once made under contract for Britain's Royal Navy. Lewis bought his from a cook named Francois Baillet and carried it overland.

Which vegetable was the keyword in the secret cipher Jefferson devised for Meriwether Lewis to send coded reports?

Artichoke unlocked Jefferson's sample message, an imagined report from the head of the Missouri. Lewis carried a version of the cipher west but never found an occasion to use it.