(RNS2-JUNE26) Descendents of famed explorer Meriwether Lewis are seeking to give him a "proper Christian burial." For use with RNS-LEWIS-CLARK, transmitted June 26, 2009. Religion News Service art by Charles Willson Peale, courtesy of Independence National Historical Park. | Download/Purchase this photo
(RNS3-JUNE26) Descdents of Meriwether Lewis would like to exhume the famed explorer from his grave in Hohenwald, Tenn., and give him a "proper Christian burial." His gravesite and the Meriwether Lewis National Monument are shown in this photo. For use with RNS-LEWIS-CLARK, transmitted June 26, 2009. Religion News Service photo courtesy of the Meriwether Lewis National Monument. | Download/Purchase this photo
June 26, 2009
NEWS FEATURE
Family seeks ‘proper Christian burial’ for famed explorer
By Tiffany Stanley
(UNDATED) Two deadly gunshots signaled that Capt. Meriwether Lewis had reached his final destination.
The famed explorer, known for traversing the continent as one-half of the legendary Lewis and Clark expedition, died in the yard of a remote inn in a little town in Tennessee.
Like most cold cases, questions remain: did he kill himself or was he murdered?
Now some 200 descendants of the former governor of the Louisiana Territory are determined to solve the mystery, clear the family name and give Lewis a “proper Christian burial.”
“I like history to be true, and so far most of our history is based on hearsay and people’s imagination,” said Dr. William Anderson, who, at 92, is Lewis’s oldest living relative. “The only way I know to find out the truth is to examine the remains using modern scientific technology.”
According to family members, there is only one thing standing in their way: the National Park Service, or rather the federal laws that guide it.
Lewis’s grave, and the national monument that now marks it, sit on the Natchez Trace Parkway, which is federally protected land. The National Park Service denied a similar request for exhumation in 1997 due to a law that protects archaeological remains.
National Park Service spokesman Bill Reynolds confirmed the request is moving forward in the review process, but officials must complete a lengthy, federally mandated checklist.
“Trying to put a timeframe on things always puts you in a difficult situation,” said Reynolds. “If you finish late, then you have over-promised and under-delivered and we certainly don’t want to do that.”
As the 200th anniversary of Lewis’ death approaches this October, his descendants are pushing harder for permission, with a public relations campaign and a brand new Web site (solvethemystery.org).
“Our family, as you would imagine, is very proud of Meriwether Lewis and our association with him,” said the Rev. M. Anderson Sale, who, as a Lewis descendent and retired minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA), will be conducting the potential Christian service. “The idea of besmirching his memory by saying he committed suicide is not a very positive image of his personality and accomplishments.”
Depending on whom you ask, two very different portraits of Lewis emerge. Either he was the dashing hero from a devout Virginia family and rising star on the American political scene, or he was a deranged, depressed and financially strapped man in poor health.
James E. Starrs, a forensic scientist and professor of law at George Washington University, plans to head the exhumation to look for answers; he first contacted members of the Lewis family in the mid-1990s to open an investigation.
Starrs has made a star of himself by conducting high-profile forensic research of such fabled figures as Jesses James, Huey Long and the Boston Strangler.
Still, real science may be less telling and glamorous than Hollywood crime shows would have us believe.
“The standard in our field is you never know until you get there,” said Starrs, who hopes to at least find clues about Lewis’s gunshot wounds and health at the time of death.
The family has made it clear that they will accept the outcome and a Christian burial will be had no matter what.
The Rev. Sale said he personally does not see suicide as an “unforgivable sin.” The minister defines a Christian burial as one “performed by a recognized clergyperson,” acknowledging “that this person died and is now in the hands of a loving and providential God.”
Concrete evidence of Lewis’s religious beliefs is as mysterious as his death. Starrs said Lewis shared a pew with Thomas Jefferson at an Episcopal Church in Washington. But while his mother was a Methodist and his descendants represent a range of Protestantism, the only organized group Lewis devoutly claimed was a Masonic Lodge.
If all goes according to the family’s plan, Lewis will be examined and reburied ceremoniously under the same monument where he now rests. His body was dug up once before as his monument was built in 1848; the memorial is a simple concrete column with a broken top, signifying Lewis’s early death at age 35.
As a young medical student at Washington University in St. Louis, Anderson remembers frequenting one of the city’s museums that housed an original painting of Lewis’s mother.
His time in the city where Lewis embarked into the great unknown only enhanced Anderson’s interest in his heritage. Now he just wants history to get it right.
“Basically, the thing I want is the truth,” said Anderson. “I want the facts. The best way to get them is to examine the remains. I don’t see any reason why not really.”
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