Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, July 21, 1995 TAG: 9507210089
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-4 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: IAN ZACK THE DAILY PROGRESS
DATELINE: CHARLOTTESVILLE (AP) LENGTH: Medium
You'd probably think a national group devoted to studying Lewis and Clark's famed westward expedition would hold a meeting or two in Charlottesville, the birthplace for the trip that changed America.
You'd be wrong. Until now.
For the first time in its 27-year history, the National Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation is holding its annual get-together in Charlottesville, bringing to town from all over the country more than 250 devotees of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, who, at the behest of President Thomas Jefferson, explored the great Western frontier of the United States beginning in 1804.
``They've wanted to come for years, but they never really had a sponsoring group,'' said Jane Henley, a member of Charlottesville's recently formed ``Home Front'' chapter of the foundation.
The chapter formed only 21/2 years ago, said Henley, a retired schoolteacher from Charlottesville, who is a great-great-great-great-niece of Meriwether Lewis, who was born in Albemarle County.
About 100 people from around Virginia, mostly nonacademics who got hooked on the famed explorers, have joined, Henley said.
``They're sort of rugged individualists and also the historically inclined and people who have gotten kind of a fever,'' she said.
The president of the local chapter is former Charlottesville Police Chief John Bowen, who also traces his family back to Lewis.
Bowen laughs when asked why Charlottesville never had a group of Lewis and Clark enthusiasts until recently, given all their historical ties to the area.
``Here in the East, we're just very casual about history, we have so much it,'' he said.
The national foundation, which formed in 1969, has held only a few meetings east of the Mississippi, so Western members are eager to visit the place where the idea of westward expansion began.
As president, Jefferson acquired the Louisiana Territory for the United States from France in 1803 and put Lewis and Clark in charge of exploring the new frontier and finding a passage to the Pacific Ocean.
``It was really in Jefferson's mind this was conceived, so in that sense, we are going back to the source,'' said former foundation President Robert Doerk Jr. of Great Falls, Mont.
Doerk said people out west have a different perspective of Lewis and Clark because they live in the territory first described by the explorers during their trek up the Missouri River and over the Rocky Mountains.
``You can go out and experience the sites here in the West more than you can in the East,'' said Doerk, who noted that the expedition camped in 228 locations in Montana alone, recording details of flora, fauna and Indian culture in extensive journals.
The thrill for Doerk and many of the other 260 foundation members expected from 34 states; Washington, D.C.; and Canada will be to see the many historical sites in Virginia related to the explorers and their families.
Included on the four-day meeting's itinerary from July 30 through Aug. 2 are trips to Jefferson's home at Monticello; Lewis' birthplace at Locust Hill in Ivy; and Buena Vista, birthplace of Clark's older brother George Rogers Clark, a frontier military leader who also helped expand the Colonies westward during the Revolutionary War.
Only three foundation events are open to the public, including a map exhibit at the University of Virginia's Alderman Library that examines the planning of the Lewis and Clark expedition and Jefferson's view of the West; a seminar by University of Virginia historian Peter S. Onuf on Thomas Jefferson and the Western expansion; and the unveiling of a historic marker at the newly discovered birthplace of William Clark.
by CNB