Meriwether Lewis
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50 free Meriwether Lewis trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Meriwether Lewis packed a remarkable amount into a short life. He was a soldier, a president's private secretary, a naturalist and the leader of the first American overland crossing to the Pacific, and his death on a lonely road still divides historians. This quiz collects the fun facts people go looking for: the huge dog that travelled with him, the strange gadgets and remedies he hauled west, the close calls with wildlife, the places and species that carry his name, and the odd corners of his legacy in film, coins and family trees. It suits history buffs, students working on a Lewis and Clark project, and anyone who enjoys a good frontier story. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you pick up the tale as you play.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which breed was Seaman, the big dog Meriwether Lewis bought for $20 before heading west?
Newfoundland
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.
Q 02Which animal chased Meriwether Lewis into the Missouri River after he forgot to reload his gun?
A grizzly bear
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.
Q 03Which horse race was founded by Meriwether Lewis Clark Jr., grandson of Lewis's co-leader William Clark?
The Kentucky Derby
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.
Q 04Shoshone chief Cameahwait, whom Meriwether Lewis met in August 1805, was the brother of which expedition member?
Sacagawea
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.
Q 05Which Army rank did Meriwether Lewis hold on the expedition, one officially denied to his partner William Clark?
Captain
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.
Q 06In which state did Meriwether Lewis die of gunshot wounds in 1809, at a remote inn called Grinder's Stand?
Tennessee
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.
Q 07Which weapon did Meriwether Lewis demonstrate to almost every Native nation he met, astonishing those who watched?
An air rifle
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.
Q 08Where did Meriwether Lewis live from 1801 while working as President Jefferson's private secretary?
The White House
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.
Q 09Which kind of bird, described by Meriwether Lewis on the journey west, now carries his name?
A woodpecker
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.
Q 10Meriwether Lewis first saw military service in 1794, helping to put down which uprising of Pennsylvania farmers?
The Whiskey Rebellion
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.
Q 11In which colony was Meriwether Lewis born in 1774, a neighbour of his future patron Thomas Jefferson?
Virginia
Virginia's Albemarle County was home to both men, and Jefferson later said he picked Lewis partly because he came from his own neighbourhood.
Q 12After his father died in 1779, the young Meriwether Lewis moved with his mother and stepfather to which state?
Georgia
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.
Q 13Which practical skill did Meriwether Lewis learn as a boy from his mother, Lucy Marks?
Gathering medicinal herbs
Q 21Which animal bit through an artery in the leg of Seaman, Meriwether Lewis's dog, in May 1805?
A beaver
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.
Q 22Near which city was Meriwether Lewis's keelboat built in 1803, before he floated it down the Ohio River?
Pittsburgh
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.
Q 23How did Meriwether Lewis mark his 31st birthday in August 1805, while trading for Shoshone horses?
With a gloomy diary entry
Gathering medicinal herbs was something his mother taught him, showing him which wild plants to pick. Natural history became a lifelong passion for Lewis.
Q 14Why was the young Ensign Meriwether Lewis court-martialled in 1795, in a trial that ended with his acquittal?
Demanding a duel
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.
Q 15Which annual message did Meriwether Lewis carry to Congress in 1801 because Jefferson would not deliver it aloud?
The State of the Union
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.
Q 16Which toxic element in Meriwether Lewis's laxative pills later helped archaeologists confirm a campsite?
Mercury
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.
Q 17What did the astronomer Andrew Ellicott teach Meriwether Lewis during a stay at his home in spring 1803?
Using a sextant
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.
Q 18Which Declaration of Independence signer, a Philadelphia doctor, taught Meriwether Lewis frontier medicine in 1803?
Benjamin Rush
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.
Q 19At which federal armoury did Meriwether Lewis collect firearms, tomahawks and knives for the expedition in 1803?
Harpers Ferry
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.
Q 20What did the men call Meriwether Lewis's collapsible iron-framed boat, which leaked badly when launched in 1805?
The Experiment
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.
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.
Q 24Which Montana landmark did Meriwether Lewis, the first white visitor, call the grandest sight he had ever beheld?
The Great Falls
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.
Q 25On reaching Lemhi Pass in August 1805, Meriwether Lewis and three men crossed which great geographic boundary?
The Continental Divide
The Continental Divide gave Lewis a sobering view: immense ranges of high mountains, their tops partly covered in snow, still lay to the west.
Q 26Meriwether Lewis named Montana's Marias River in honour of Maria Wood, who was which relation to him?
His cousin
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.
Q 27What name did Meriwether Lewis give his northernmost halt in 1806, after the Marias River failed to reach far north?
Camp Disappointment
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.
Q 28Meriwether Lewis's party fought the expedition's only deadly skirmish in July 1806 against men of which nation?
The Blackfeet
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.
Q 29Down which river did Meriwether Lewis and the expedition paddle canoes to reach the Pacific coast in November 1805?
The Columbia
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.
Q 30On an 1806 hunt, Pierre Cruzatte accidentally shot Meriwether Lewis after mistaking him for which animal?
An elk
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.