Meriwether Lewis
Meriwether Lewis
Meriwether Lewis (1774–1809) was an American explorer, soldier and public official who led the Lewis and Clark Expedition of 1804–1806, the first American overland crossing to the Pacific. Born in Albemarle County, Virginia, he served on the frontier as an Army officer before President Thomas Jefferson chose him as his private secretary in 1801. When Jefferson planned an expedition into the Louisiana Purchase, Lewis studied botany, medicine and celestial navigation with leading scholars, then invited his friend William Clark to share command. The Corps of Discovery traveled up the Missouri River, crossed the Rocky Mountains and reached the Pacific Ocean, aided by many Native American nations and by the interpreter Sacagawea. Lewis's detailed journals described scores of plants and animals new to science. He later governed the Louisiana Territory and died in Tennessee in 1809. The expedition opened the American West to further exploration and scientific study.
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Seeking a Passage to the Pacific
For centuries explorers sought a waterway across or around North America to the Pacific. Jacques Cartier sailed up the St. Lawrence River, Henry Hudson explored the river and bay that bear his name, and James Cook searched the Arctic coast from the Pacific side. Sent by Thomas Jefferson, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark crossed the continent overland, and Roald Amundsen became the first to sail the Northwest Passage.
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