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We have really been seeing them, see you now available where ever you get. My guests welcomes stuff. You missed in history class from house of works dot com hello and welcome to the pan, cast I'm Katy member and unfair, daddy, and today we're gonna be talking about his industry. We ve got a lot of requests to talk about the Lewis and Clark Expedition, but considering MECCA easily be, oh, I don't know, and our long podcast we ve decided to focus on something slightly more tangential, but still related treating story to exactly, and that is how did Mary, whether Louis die in

two? No nine Meriwether Louis died from gunshot wound on the wild matches trace, which, with a road that goes from notches, Mississippi, Nashville and people have been obsessed since then about finding out how he died, obviously gunshot wounds, but where the story was surrounding it. People all different fields: Forensics Mental Health, professional scholars from of constructed lunar cycle to discount the witnesses. Testimony and some are studied, the ballistics analyze, the bullets and people. Just obsessed with this, even though it happened, hundred years ago, and the question is: was a murder or was it a suicide, but before we get into them Let's go back to the very beginning, because I here that's a good place to start sure is

Whether Louis was born August. Eighteen, seventeen, seventy four near Charlottesville, actually really close to manage Shallow Thomas Jefferson, Sonia, is becoming leader. And his father died serving in the continental Army and the family relocated to Georgia for a little bit before moving back to Virginia and win win, with a young man. He joined the Virginia militia to help suppress the whisky rebellion and later unless an army- and you ve got a pretty impressive army career. He advances rapidly and gets hooked up with Thomas Jefferson, by eighteen. O. Three Jefferson has appointed him as the commander of the expedition to explore the Louisiana purchase, so pretty good gig for young Meriwether and keep prepare for this pretty diligently studying all sorts astronomy

new medicines, zoology funding. I didn't know about that. I'm just matching him a frontiersmen Now, how did have some medical knowledge and other expenditure? Really you studying out before this big expedition and endless his friend Clark to command and Mr Clarke Expedition, it's very briefly carries eight. Thousand miles takes three years with the core of discovery and Louis is the field scientists, so he's gathering, specimens keeping really detail journals and at the end of this massive track, he comes home again and he is a national hero as Clark. They quote that most people knows from Thomas Jefferson. His courage was undaunted. His firmness and perseverance yielded to nothing but in possibilities a rigid disciplinarian yet tender as a father of those committed to his charge, honest disinterested, liberal, with a sigh

understanding and a scrupulous fidelity to truth, which is a long winded waves. Hang she was pretty off pretty Stanhope guy huh yeah so they were wind and dined and Louis was named the governor of the upper, the lazy, Anna and territory and eighteen o seven, but instead of having to Saint Louis, which is where he was supposed to be. He goes to fully look for a publisher and an illustrator for the journals, because that was supposed to be his big priority. You get those journals published and let everyone know what happened and what they found when they were exploring the purchase. Philadelphia society loves him extremely social. He may even have proposed two young lady while he was there, but then he goes to Virginia still unmarried and he doesn't make it you, Saint Louis, until a year after his appointment, which Thomas Jefferson, it's not pleased about and he's not the sort of personal. To anger. No, he doesn't really love being a governor either because you have to remember he's this young

Dorothy Frontiersmen type of guys, so he's just a bit stifled at this desk job things aren't going well. His friends are worried that he hath drinking problem, which they call euphemistically his indisposition and he seems to be depressed. But when James Madison is made president in eighteen, oh nine, he replaces Jefferson's Cabinet and the new Secretary of WAR, William Eustace, won't pay Louis back for some very legitimate expenses that Louis had so on. Extradition right, so Louis decides he's going to make his way to Washington to take care of it. So he leaves Saint Louis and travels by the Mississippi River departs. The river, the Chickasaw Bluffs near Memphis and sets off on the matches trace for

Washington DC and the natural trace at this point is one of the most important roads in the United States is actually an old native american game PATH and, like I said earlier, it stretches from southern Mississippi. All the way to Nashville and Jeff and has taken the trouble to expand the road and make it a little easier level because he wants to connect Mississippi. Alabama too, that Eastern, United States and really incorporate new territories into the country, but that's not to say it's an easy road today, it's pretty widely up guy, it's that came breaks and it runs by Cyprus, swamps. It crosses rivers and creeks. As

perching the eastern Hardwood Forest, it rises a thousand feet. So it's a pretty tough road. I haven't intimidating, nickname may turn, as is known as the devil's backbone, and that's partly because of the geography, but it's mostly has bandits are also lurking along the road waiting for travellers, mostly people who have travelled down the Mississippi River selling supplies to walk back up with other money. But there are a few little start where you can go in A few ends along the way here, these rough and tumble sort of places where you can stop, spend the night Basin who ammunition and supplies, and on October, tat Eighteen, O nine Louis stops at one of these. It's called grinders standards of little end and the Tennessee mountains run by a couple mister and missus grinder. But MR grinder is not in the house

anger is and some time on the night of October, Tens Louis sustains a gunshot wound to the head and also to the chest and he's dead by sunrise the next morning, as I mentioned before, so then, what is it that happens? The first theory is that he committed suicide and a part of the reason we think this is because of the testimony of MRS grinder. Now she does A few different testimonies over the years sell it just clarify that at the outside remain here a lot of stories from old, Missus, grinder right. One part of MRS Grinders story that we know is true is that Louis shows up just with two servants won his own named hernia and another unnamed servant and has to in companion. James Neely is about a day behind these rounding up. Some stray horses before he comes and meeting. He's the one who actually takes care of the body right right. So MRS grinder

how's your account to James Neely, and he writes in a letter to Thomas Jefferson. Mrs grinders That she noticed when Louis came at something was just a little bit off. You didn't seem to be of sound mind, so she gets in the house but make sure she sleeps nearby in case something goes wrong and the servants also sleep nearby and a stable laughed around three. I am she hears to pistol shots, so she wakes up the servants and they get there and Louis the shot himself in the head and the chest. He asks for water and then dies shortly. Thereafter again you he's not. There are so human here's, the Slater from MRS Grinder, and she doesn't see any of it. She just hear that she's an hour or witness fright, maybe not the best account Neely, also says in his letter to Jefferson the possessions that he has of Louis says he's got his rifle his watch, his pistols, his tomahawk, but you have to wonder why didn't Neely talk to the servant? Why didn't he talk

to MRS Grinders children, why didn't he transcribe anything? Take good word. No! Even semi official inquest out of this very suspicious that everyone is quick to assume it's suicide and MRS Grinder give a different too many a couple years later to Alexander Wealth and who is an ornithologist and was supposed to do the illustrations for the journals of all the birds, and she tells him that she was actually awake all night and she was listening to Louis talk to himself this violent discourse compared to a lawyer and just like he was questioning himself back and forth and she hears a shot and aside- and he says oh Lord and then there's another and he says oh Madame, give me some water and he'll my wounds, but she doesn't and instead watches him through spaces between the logs and allowed catches. So bizarre- and she says she's frightened bright

uttering portrayal of oneself. To give so is not all. Has she didn't want to say that before saying that this is what she saw or is it because she just making this up as she goes along? So she sees a body, stagger outside and fall by a tree, but he makes it back into his room and she can hear him scraping a bucket of water with a gourd because he's still thirsty and she wait two hours before she sends her children to get the servants, and this is a grisly part. They find him with his brains, exposed there's, not a lot of blood, but his forehead is completely guy. And he offers them to pay the servants to finish the job. So he dies two hours later and she says his last words were. I am no coward, but I am so strong and is so hard to die so in Mrs grinders story, we also have some kind burry descriptions of Louis of Mental State at the time and the main one is captain guilder.

Russell. Who was the commander of a fort where Louis stayed wrote to jobs. About three months after the DAS and said that Louis was unstable and he was keeping him there at the four until he seemed better. Any author thought the liquor with a big part of the problem, and that Louis, his friend Neely actually encouraged this drinking we're gonna, hear more about Neely later on, really is a bit of a sketchy character, but Russell makes a public statement two years after the death and again this is something that much like. Mrs grinders. Testimony changes. The longer time goes on. He calls Louis mentally be ranged when he arrived at Fort Pickering, and he also says that the crew told him Louis try to kill himself twice. He kept Louis at the fort until he was better, but after he left, he got worse,

and then says that he destroyed himself in the most cool, desperate and barbarian like manner and again, he places some blame on Neely who he thinks contributed to his ills, and his account also mentions a detail about razors about Louis cutting himself had to foot with users can makes no sense a few short yourself in the head and shot yourself in the chest. Why would you be cutting yourself from head to foot with a raise and you were thing earlier? I thought this was interesting, that that sounds like a very different kind of suicide, a different kind of person. Self mutilation, as is much different from someone who actually wants to end it and one scholar Thomas Denise II, is the Lewis and Clark Scholar said that he

Perhaps Clark had malaria and in severe cases you can be in a lot of pain and people may try to get at that pain and felt harming sort of way. So maybe that had some thought was a thoroughly or through third that an accident right, but we nevertheless we have a lot. Motives possible motives for Meriwether Louis's suicide and could have contributed, he was already in a state of mind financial problem theory going to decide to explain himself basically he's thought to be unlucky in love, maybe a broken proposal or refuse proposal chief very good at being governor he's out Dorothy Type and not suited to a desk job. Fine. When that I think ass writer, you type of people can empathize with he could not

to get the writer that was his job. He had to get them compiled it to get them illustrated and publish. That was why he was there and he couldn't seem to do it here. The drinking problem that too and then an epidemiologists as suggested that Louis have the fullest as well, which can lead to dementia and suicide. It can drive you crazy, basically, and some also have suggested that he may have been addicted to Lardner, which again drug addiction can obviously affect your mental state. So this makes it

good case for the suicide camp and we have some pretty big names and that suicide camp James Neely had told Thomas Jefferson that Louis appeared at times deranged in mind. William Clark of courses, good friend, thought that Louis committed suicide even before he heard it for real he'd. Seen a report in the newspaper that he killed himself and said. I fear a wife fear the weight of his mind has overcome him. What will be the consequence? He never even question that it was suicide, Annie, did Thomas Jefferson are Merlin Dickerson, who are very good friends of Louis's Stephen Ambrose ripped the Louis biography. Undaunted courage says it was definitely a suicide, as does historian named Paul Russell cut right. So again we ve got some pretty good names in the suicide camp, but but there is also a murder faction right believe that Meriwether Louis did not take his own life but was in fact murdered.

Felt Louis's family, or at least a lot of them, believe that he was murdered and that's a pretty understandable thing for his family to think up. Suicide is not universal, carries a bit of a signal yeah and lose his mother particularly did not want to believe that her son killed himself then gives this sort of weird story. That you'll see presented its fact and alive sources that there was a Tennessee Commission that later studied Louis's remain where they had an in class and issued a report thing. It was more probable that he died at the hands of an fasten, but that this report was very flawed. In that? They didn't give any reason for why they came to the conclusion that the whole thing is not now. We can't find any record that this ever happened at all and in fact, from several things that said known, this never happened. There were no courthouse records that were burned destroyed this.

Was just another of the wild rumours, regardless about the murder. Fury, does pick up some steam and assessed in eighteen. Forty people start looking into that more, but you said that Some people believe it was murder right from the start, better I'll. I'd like that explanations for four. Why Had it been Maria some things about, it are pretty fishy one them major point is that Louis was a good shot and why did he carried a six nine calibre pistol? And how do you shoot yourself in the head with a sixty nine calibre, pistol and live to shoot yourself again? So that's an interesting point: it's not really pointing fingers at any.

A fast then, but it said interesting rhythm. I might not be a suicide by impact of those about the trajectory nearly wrote in one of his letters at the second shot, had entered and passed a downward through his body and then came out low down near his backbone, and some have said: will that wouldn't make sense if it was a self inflicted wound, but we provided some potential motives for the suicide. So we gotta do the same for the murder who, who might have murdered Meriwether Louis, while our first suspect would bees the travelling companion Neely Elden Renard has the authority on the medical history of the hollows and Clark Expedition. That's how he thinks is our best culprit and he's the one suggesting that the bullet trajectory is off right and he also says that Louis may have found merely going through stuff annually shot him in general in these are really sketchy character and he doesn't come off well by anyone's accounts. You never even gives Louis stuffed his

We and he's not a friend of Louis's he's a government indian agent that Louis runs into at Fort Pickering during his difficulty. When being kept their cause, he's in such a depressive state ray and he's happy to find a travelling companion. Another thing that people have pointed out that strange about his behaviour as that he sent his servant with Louis and Purtier, who is loses servant instead of keeping him to help his own mission of finding these stray horses. And why would he do that? That doesn't make a lot of sense and also why didn't he get better accounts of Louis is death? Is it because he has something to hide, so he s actually a thoroughly credible suspect if you're going with a martyr theory and sows Louis's servant, Hernia Purtier

straight Jefferson. After the death of a thing of the suicide, then he goes to the family, saying that Louis owes money two hundred forty dollars and the family things that he might have been the one who murdered Louis the floors, Ryanair and he's a somewhat credible person, because he would have had the opportunity to hear he dies only seven months after Louis, though overdosing on laudanum on purpose. They think so that would be

to suicide in a row. Fun say- and this is one of the more insane very little weird I you're not gonna- give us any credence that this was a conspiracy involving Thomas Jefferson. That's the account of David Leon Chandler, and he says that Jefferson wanted Louis assassinated because he knew Thomas Jefferson Deep, dark secrets. What these secrets are, I don't know, but that's not a very credible idea or other wild suspect, is Mr Grinder, who was tried for murder, except that there are absolutely no trial doc. To back this up. Some people have suggested that there was maybe some romantic relationship between Louis and MRS grinder. Dangerously the only at the only point we

make about. The grinders, though, is that they were very poor, and shortly after this, they have enough money to buy land and slaves. So they did get something out of something something happened to them after the die. An grinder, Mr Grinder, is a little sketchy to hear a legally sold whisky to Indians. They were basically just trying to make money anyway. I cried so we can keep them on the table. Unlike another suspect, James, Wilkinson and Wilkinson was involved with Ehrenberg or if they have a plot with the spanish government to make an entirely separate nation from the Mississippi Valley, through parts of the South West, but Wilkinson betrayed Bur to hide his own treason and hands up and new

when's commanding troops and therefore have the power to keep any one from entering or leaving the mouth of the Mississippi. She was also governor of Louisiana before Louis, and he was accepting lots of money from Spain. So some have said what, if Louis found out call his treason and right and wildly, and how to combat, snapped and Remember. We are at a CD little in on the natural trace the devil's backbone, so it might have been a robber There is thus a rumour going round at the time that Louis had discovered a gold, mine and mapped out, and people thought this was true, even though, Let us hold go Maghreb are established, really work out, so anybody could have been trying to steal information about the gold, Goonies style and our last sort of sketchy

out from MRS grinder. She was interviewed again and thirty years after Louis's death, and this time she tells again a completely different story has very little in common with the other two. She says that armed men had come to the end and that Louis challenge them to a dual, and she also says that the servant stayed with Louis, where remember before she said they stayed in a stable loft in the middle of the night. She heard three shots and she sees Louis crawling in the road on all fours and when she sees purtier servant, he was wearing Louis. His clothes, which he then quickly said Louis, had given to him, and none of this can actually make sense that some of its completely ridiculous She says at one point that after he was shot, he said. Oh Lord Congress relieve me, which I dont think is the kind of

when it said I am a man as and another point that I would like to make. Is that Mary, whether Louis Clark, who is Clarks Son but named from air, whether Louis may also have wanted to take away the stigma of suicide for Louis, so stoked this murder? Right and later years, a professor of lawn forensic science, James Stars, Sazen, eighty, ninety six, that maybe the best way we can find out definitively whether its murderer suicide is, if we exam Meriwether, Louis's body ran his descendants, agree to it. They all sign off. They want to know what happened to the National Park Service turned down there

class has Louis, is buried on part grounds, but they don't want. Everyone examining remains hanging over their digging up all the national to see what's under them up, but the request has been renewed at the urging of his descendants and there's also spent on it. That's not so grossly, not just let me know what they murdered or was it a suicide there also suggesting we could learn a lot about Louis, his physical characteristics, how Polly was ably whether he had syphilis when his health is like in general here and we have made a contract dna samples from Louis's female descendants, so we would be able to confirm the body, and then we could also test for gunpowder residue skull fractures. Things like that route, which, with our

modern knowledge of forensics may help us figure out what happened. So let us know what you think cast your vote for murder or suicide and email ass at history. Podcast at how stuff works, dot com, you can still visit the graves I and a reproduction of grinders stand. I've actually bend to the matches trace twice this path Although I I missed you, know about it yet still await a ribbon in our faces without about does it for the death of Meriwether Louis, As far as we know now, maybe we can do an update pod cast in national parks or change their mind and if you're interested in it, something lay like a body for how body firms work on her homepage at W W W that half the work, dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics for the house.

For Stockholm. Let us know what you think: send an email to podcast, Housetop, North Stockholm and be sure to check out the stuffy missed his glass blood on the house to funds that how homepage this representative if you, MR classes, brought to you by W W, formerly wait watchers, they have launched the new. My W W programme is their most groundbreaking and customize. I'm ever when you join the Mai, Debbie Debbie Program, you will take a personal assessment, that's about your eating habits and your behaviors and that its scientifically matches you up with a proven weight loss plan, I'm on the blue plan and it makes a huge difference for me in terms of income, bring me eat healthy foods so head on W debbie dot com, that's w w dot com to joint Debbie Debbie. Today, with a limited time offer

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