
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, March 20, 1994                   TAG: 9403220012
SECTION: TRAVEL                    PAGE: F-7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By DAN KLINGLESMITH
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO LEWIS AND CLARK?

Meriwether Lewis, William Clark and the Corp of Discovery ended their 28-month expedition into the American West when they arrived in St. Louis on Sept. 23, 1806. No doubt the trip proved to be an adventure of a lifetime. Remembrances of the trek probably peppered their conversations for many years as they settled into life after the journey.

A grateful President Jefferson appointed Lewis the governor of the Louisiana Territory. Along with his administrative duties he supervised the publication of his writings on the Corp of Discovery. The sometimes volatile Lewis became entangled in a tussle with the War Department over his financial management. Unable to clear the misunderstanding from St. Louis he decided to go directly to Washington, D.C., in the fall of 1809. On his way, Lewis stopped near present-day Collinwood, Tenn., booking a room at a roadhouse called Grinder's Stand. That night he died, either by suicide or the hands of highwaymen.

William Clark became superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Louisiana Territory and later the first governor of the Missouri Territory. He married Julia Hancock, a 16-year-old girl from Fincastle, Va. She died in 1820 after bearing five children. A year later, Clark wed her cousin Harriet Radford who bore him two children. In 1838, Clark died at 69 while visiting his eldest son, Meriwether Lewis Clark. He is buried in Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis.

Sacajawea, the Shoshoni woman who acted as interpreter for Lewis and Clark during their mission, went back to live with her adopted people, the Mandan. According to one she lived to old age and died on the Wind River Indian Reservation in the 1880s. A more accepted theory indicates she died young from "putrid fever" in North Dakota in 1812. Her son, Little Pomp, who made the journey with the explorers, became the ward of William Clark after her death.

For the enlisted men who accompanied Lewis and Clark, Congress granted 320-acre plots of land west of the Mississippi plus a bonus of double pay. Some chose to farm the land while others simply sold their parcels and moved on to other adventures.

by CNB