Meriwether Lewis

Meriwether Lewis (1774–1809) was an American soldier and explorer from Virginia who served as private secretary to Thomas Jefferson and was chosen by him to lead the expedition to the Pacific that set out from St. Louis in 1804. With his co-commander William Clark he took some thirty men up the Missouri, across the Rockies and down the Columbia and back, returning in 1806 after more than two years, long given up for lost. Jefferson made him governor of the Louisiana Territory. He died in 1809 of gunshot wounds at an inn on the Natchez Trace, probably by his own hand, at the age of thirty-five.