Young Meriwether Lewis—he was only thirty-five at death—was born in
Albemarle in 1774. He was ‘Albemarle of Albemarle.’ The Lewis family was
already old Virginia stock when Robert Lewis took up large holdings in
what is now this county. He was Meriwether Lewis’s grandfather. He owned
the handsome estate of Belvoir, near Cismont, and some ten thousand
acres in other parts of the county. Meriwether Lewis’s mother was a
granddaughter of ‘the great Landowner,’ Nicholas Meriwether, who came up
from tide-water where he owned large estates, and in 1727 patented in
one body 17,952 acres, this being the first patent lying within the
bounds of present Albemarle. Eight years later he made an addition of
more than a thousand acres, adjoining, which became his home. He was
Lewis’s great-grandfather. These were families of high standards and
public service—vestrymen, magistrates, officers in the militia and the
Revolution.
Our explorer’s birthplace, Locust Grove, was west of Charlottesville
about seven miles. The name and site remain; the original house was
burned. The village of Ivy is near it.
Meriwether Lewis was Jefferson’s secretary when the government
determined upon exploration of the lands just purchased from France. He
brilliantly headed this expedition—from St. Louis to the mouth of the
Columbia River, 1803-06. Upon his return, Jefferson appointed him
Territorial Governor of Louisiana. In 1809, while journeying to
Washington city, he died by gunshot at an obscure country inn in
Tennessee—whether by his own hand or that of others was not definitely
known. A monument to him was erected at this spot by the Legislature of
Tennessee, 1848.