LEWIS AND CLARK
This STB by A. George Mallis from TROWEL Staff is reprinted, by
permission, from the fall, 1996 issue of The Trowel, a publication of the Grand
Lodge of Massachusetts.
Among the many noted explorers of the 17th and 18th centuries on the North
American continent, explorers such as Champlain, de Soto, Hudson, Marquette,
Vespucius and La Salle, the names of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark must be
forever in the first rank. It was through the efforts of Lewis and Clark that
the early United States began to stir for greater expansion in North America.
Meriwether Lewis (177~1809)
Meriwether Lewis was born on August 18, 1774 in Albermarle County, Virginia,
the eldest son of William and Lucy (Meriwether) Lewis. His father served in the
Continental Army and died shortly after the British surrendered at Yorktown.
When Lewis was ten years old, his mother, having married John Marks, the family
moved to upper Georgia to join a large group of kinfolk who had holdings on the
Broad River. Here Lewis developed a liking for the outdoors, hunting and
studying the wildlife and vegetation of the area and recording his findings in a
scientific manner. Lewis returned to Virginia in 1787 at the age of thirteen, to
study Latin, mathematics and rudimentary science under the Reverend Matthew
Maury. He continued his studies with various tutors with the intention of
attending William and Mary College. However, because his stepfather had died and
his mother had returned to the Virginia Plantation, Lewis, now 18 years old,
felt obligated to remain in Virginia with his mother and manage the plantation
and to take over the education of half brother and sister, John and Mary Marks.
In 1794 when the Whiskey Rebellion broke out, Lewis, then a member of the
militia, was called out to help suppress the rebellion. He liked military life
so well, that on May 1, 1795 he enlisted in the regular army and was
commissioned an Ensign in the 2nd Legion. He served under Anthony Wayne at the
treaty signing that ended the northern Indian wars in the Northwest Territory.
In 1796, Lewis was promoted to Lieutenant and stationed with the 1st Infantry at
several posts. In 1797, after the Spanish had evacuated the area near Memphis,
Lewis commanded a company occupying Fort Pickering at that site. This was
Chickasaw Indian Territory and here Lewis showed his great ability by learning
the Chicasaw language and their customs, knowledge that would stand him in good
stead in later years. From here he went to Detroit and was there when his friend
and neighbor, Thomas Jefferson, was elected president of the United States.
Following his inauguration, Jefferson offered the position of private
secretary to Lewis who promptly accepted, still retaining his military rank
while on leave of absence from active duty. Both Jefferson and Lewis had long
harbored a desire to locate a land route to the Pacific. It was on January 18,
1803, that Jefferson requested from Congress an appropriation of $2,500, for
this project. Congress readily concurred.
WILLIAM CLARK (1770-1838)
Clark was born in his family home in Caroline County, Virginia on August 1,
1770, the ninth child of John and Ann (Rogers) Clark. His parents had come to
Caroline County from Albemarle County some fifteen years earlier. With little or
no formal education, Clark developed a practical approach by listening to
others, observing nature about him and learning to draw maps and do practical
field surveying. This frontiersman approach was to stand him in good stead in
later life. William was only six years old when his oldest brother Johnathan,
then a major in the Virginia army was taken prisoner at the Battle of
Germantown. At about the same time, his second brother, George Rogers Clark,
defeated the British at Vincennes.
After the close of the Revolutionary War, the family moved from Virginia to
Kentucky, stopping off near Redstone for the winter. In the spring of 1785, the
family and their belongings rafted down the Monongahela River to Louisville
where their son, George Roger, now a general, received his parents and family.
It was here that the family home, Mulberry Hill was built. In 1799, both of
William's parents died and he continued to live there until he joined with Clark
for the Lewis and Clark Expedition. While there was peace with Great Britain and
the United States was no longer a splinter group of individual states, matters
along the western frontier were not all that quiet. The Indian war still went on
with loss of life on both sides. In 1785, General Clark negotiated a treaty with
the Indians beyond the Ohio but like many previous treaties, it was fragile and
more often broken than adhered to. Several expeditions under various commanders,
and for some seven years, fought constant battles with the marauding Indians.
It was during this time that William Clark was commissioned a lieutenant of
infantry and was attached to the 4th Sub-legion in September, 1792. Clark served
under General Anthony Wayne for four years and was in charge of a rifle corps
which included several Chickasaw Indians, who at that time were allied with the
United States against the Spanish. Later when General Wayne began his march into
Indian country, Clark was at Cincinnati and started downriver to join the
general. It was at the battle of Fallen Timbers, in August of 1794, that
Lieutenant Meriwether Lewis served under Clark. Clark remained in military
service until July 1, 1796, when he resigned his commission and returned to
Mulberry Hill. Here, in addition to his duties at home, he traveled extensively
from Virginia to Washington DC and even to New Orleans, still under the control
of France. It was in 1803, that Clark received an unexpected letter from Captain
Lewis. This letter, when he accepted the commission, changed his and Lewis' life
forever.
LEWIS and CLARK EXPEDITION
While Lewis was in fact the commander of the expedition, the success of the
project was the result of a combined effort of Lewis and Clark. Initially, Lewis
had obtained a passport to cross the French territory of Louisiana, but the sale
by France of the Louisiana Purchase to the United States on April 30, 1803,
obviated the need for such a passport. The expedition assembled in Illinois,
near the mouth of the Missouri River. The winter of 1803-1804, was spent
recruiting and training the men who enlisted for the expedition. The route of
the expedition was to travel up the Missouri River to its source. One of the
problems with this route was that it took the travelers into territory of the
Sioux Indians who were not always friendly with the white men. By skillful
diplomacy on the part of Lewis and Clark, the expedition passed through the
Sioux lands and finally reached the Mandan Indian villages in North Dakota in
the fall of 1804.
Following a winter with the Mandan, Lewis and Clark obtained the services of
a French-Canadian and his Shoshone wife Sacajawea. The expedition set out in the
spring for a trip to the upper river. In July they reached the falls where it
was necessary to portage and again resume the water journey to the end of the
river. Here horses were obtained and the journey continued across the Great
Divide and on to the Columbia River. Again reverting to the water, the
expedition fashioned canoes and traveled down the Columbia to the Pacific Ocean.
it was an astonishing feat, crossing the continent by using two of its great
rivers.
The explorers returned by basically the same route as they had taken out,
retrieving their stashed canoes from their outward journey. Lewis did make a
short detour up the Maria's River named for his cousin, Maria Wood. It was on
this short journey that the first real trouble with the local Indians took
place, however there is no record of any expedition members being wounded or
killed in the affair.
When the travelers reached the Mandan Indian village, they were able to
persuade the Indian chief to go with them to St. Louis. They arrived on
September 23, 1806 to a great welcome by a nation that had thought them dead.
EPILOGUE
The success of the expedition brought great rewards to both men. In November
of 1807 they returned to Washington, D.C. Here Lewis resigned his military
commission and President Jefferson appointed him governor of all of the
Louisiana Territory above the northern boundary of present day Louisiana. Lewis
returned to St. Louis in the summer of 1807 and remained there until the summer
of 1809 when he decided to return to Washington for some unfinished business in
connection with the expedition. At an area near present day Memphis, he left the
river and headed east at the crossing of the Tennessee River near Muscle Shoals.
On the night of October 11, he stopped at an inn with his two servants. The next
morning he was found shot to death and his money and watch were missing. The
watch was later recovered in New Orleans. To this day, the matter of his death
is still not completely known. Clark also resigned from the army on February 27,
1807, and was at once appointed a brigadier general of the Louisiana militia and
appointed superintendent of Indian Affairs at St. Louis. He worked closely with
Governor Lewis to establish cooperation between both entities of the government.
Upon the death of Lewis, Clark was asked to assume the duty of governor but
declined to accept the post. Later, however, in 1813, he became governor of the
Missouri Territory. Clark served with great distinction and his attitude towards
the native Indians did much to placate any hostility or resentment by the
Western Indians. Clark died in St. Louis on September 1, 1838.
Lewis was a member of Door to Virtue Lodge, No. 44, Albemarle Co., Virginia,
having petitioned the Lodge on December 31, 1796. He also received the Royal
Arch Degree in Staunton Lodge, No. 13 but the exact date is unknown, however, a
diploma in the Library of Congress is dated October 31, 1799. Lewis was one of
the petitioners to the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania for authorization to form St.
Louis Lodge No. 111 and this Lodge was constituted on November 8, 1808, with
Meriwether Lewis as its first Master.
Clark was also a member of St. Louis Lodge No 111 and at his death on
September 1, 1838, he was buried with full Military and Masonic Honors in
Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis.
These two great American soldiers, explorers and Masons have received very
little recognition since their deaths. Yet these two men were instrumental in
allowing the United States to expand westward and help form the great nation
that it is.
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