Father, William Lewis, was a soldier. Mother, Lucy Meriwether, was his father’s cousin. The family were life long friends with the Jeffersons and Thomas Jefferson knew Meriwether Lewis his entire life. Meriwether was born in Virginia but moved when his father died. They moved to Georgia and Lucy got remarried to a retired captain named Captain John Marks. They got two children who were half brother and sister to Meriwether. The boy’s name was John Hastings Marks in 1785 and sister was named Mary Garland Marks in 1788. Meriwether stayed there until he was about twelve or thirteen and the decided to move back to Virginia and take care of Locust Hill. Later when he joined the army, he slowley rose rank to a captain and met William Clark. They became friends and the friendship grew more each day. When Thomas Jefferson became president, he asked Lewis to be his personal secretary. Jefferson asked Lewis one day to explore the Louisana Territory, which the French and Spain owned but after they talked about the journey, Jefferson bought the Louisana Territory. Meriwether called William, a old friend in the military and waited for his response. When after a long time, just when Meriwether was about to give up, the answer came. The expedition was to be called the Corpse of Discovery or The Lewis and Clark Expedition. Together they chose healthy and strong men and bought goods to trade with the indians along the way. When they were going, Blackfeet indians tried to steal all the goods and tried to murder the group. And then they asked for a guide and they came upon a man and a woman named Sacagawea who was a Shoshone woman that was pregnant and her husband was a canadian fur trader. When they traveled farther, there was a waterfall and needed to go up the side of it. It took them almost a month to go up and pull all their luggage up the thundering waters. A few weeks later, they found Pacific Ocean. But the weather was terrible. So they decided to vote if they should go across or stay. But William brang his slave along to and let him vote. His name was York and he was very famous because it was the first vote ever to be in history because he is a slave and he is a black man. And in the end they stayed and made shelter for the night. Then when they headed back to the east, they got greeted by surprized men and woman who thoght because they were away for two years and most people belived they were dead and long gone. President Thomas Jefferson came and awarded them and made Lewis the Govener of the famous Louisana Territory. When he and his family were traveling to their new home in the Louisana Territory and started to come home to there new house, they were very tired so they stayed at a inn but Lewis was shot in the head in the night and the inn keeper’s wife heard the gun shot and Lewis moaning but she was too frightened to get out to investigate. In the morning they found him half dead. Was it murder or a accident? No body knows who did it still. Some people say that he suicided himself and others say he was shot and most think he getting murdered is true. But most people agree that he got shot three or two times in th forehead, back of his head, under his chins, sides, chest, abdomen, and neck. Some schools and buildings and places are named after him and he recived many awards during his thirty five years of life in 1809. Stories say that Lewis was on the Natches Trace. Some say it was the owner and places fault. People who live there deny the acusion and says no. When Meriwether was young he attended a school that had taught president Jefferson, Monroe, and Madison. He is almost as famous as those presidents and worked as hard as them. The link I used for this project is : http://www.people.virginia.edu/~mjb6g/LewisHouse/nicolaslewishouse.htm
