In 1812, the upper part, or Louisiana, was named the
Territory of Missouri, and Captain Clark (otherwise General), was
appointed Governor of the Territory, July 1, 1813, his old friend and
comrade having died a few years earlier.
The end of Captain (otherwise Governor) Lewis was tragical and was
shadowed by a cloud. Official business calling him to Washington, he
left St. Louis early in September, 1809, and prosecuted his journey
eastward through Tennessee, by the way of Chickasaw Bluffs, now Memphis,
of that State. There is a mystery around his last days. On the eleventh
of October, he stopped at a wayside log-inn, and that night he died
a violent death, whether by his own hand or by that of a murderer, no
living man knows. There were many contradictory stories about the sad
affair, some persons holding to the one theory and some to the other.
He was buried where he died, in the centre of what is now Lewis County,
Tennessee. In 1848, the State of Tennessee erected over the last
resting-place of Lewis a handsome monument, the inscriptions on which
duly set forth his many virtues and his distinguished services to his
country.
The story of the expedition of Lewis and Clark is the foundation of the
history of the great Northwest and the Missouri Valley. These men
and their devoted band of followers were the first to break into the
world-old solitudes of the heart of the continent and to explore
the mountain fastnesses in which the mighty Columbia has its birth.
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