Meriwether lived in Georgia for three, perhaps four years. It was frontier country, and he learned frontier skills. He gloried in the experience. Jefferson later wrote that he “was remarkable even in infancy for enterprize, boldness & discretion. When only 8 years of age, he habitually went out in the dead of night alone with his dogs, into the forest to hunt the raccoon & opossum. . . . In this exercise no season or circumstance could obstruct his purpose, plunging thro’ the winter’s snows and frozen streams in pursuit of his object.”17
At about this time, according to family legend, eight- or nine-year-old Meriwether was crossing a field with some friends, returning from a hunt. A vicious bull rushed him. His companions watched breathless as he calmly raised his gun and shot the bull dead.18
Another favorite family story about Meriwether at a young age concerned an Indian scare. When one of the cabins was attacked, the transplanted Virginians gathered at another for defense. Then they decided they were too few to defend it from a determined attack and fled for concealment to the forest. As dusk came on, one hungry, not very bright refugee started a fire to cook a meal. The fire attracted the Indians. A shot rang out. The women shouted alarms, men rushed for their rifles, something close to panic set in. In the general confusion and uproar, only ten-year-old Meriwether had sufficient presence of mind to throw a bucket of water over the fire to douse it, to prevent the Indians from seeing the whites silhouetted against the light of the fire.19 A family friend commented, “He acquired in youth hardy habits and a firm constitution. He possessed in the highest degree self-possession in danger.”20
Curious and inquisitive as well as coolheaded and courageous, he delighted his mother by asking questions about her herbs and about wild plants that she used as nostrums. He wanted to know the names and characteristics of the trees, bushes, shrubs, and grasses; of the animals, the fish, the birds, and the insects. He wanted to know the why as well as the way of things. He learned to read and write, and something of the natural world, from one of the adults in the Georgia community. An anecdote survived: when told that, despite what he saw, the sun did not revolve around the earth, Meriwether jumped as high into the air as he could, then asked his teacher, “If the earth turns, why did I come down in the same place?”21
•
He wanted more knowledge. He could not get it in Georgia. And he was a youngster of considerable substance and responsibility, for under Virginia’s laws of primogeniture he had inherited his father’s estate. This included a plantation of nearly 2,000 acres, 520 pounds in cash, 24 slaves, and 147 gallons of whiskey. Though it was being managed by Nicholas Meriwether, it would soon be Meriwether’s to run. His mother agreed that he should return to Virginia, at about age thirteen, to obtain a formal education and prepare himself for his management responsibilities.
There were no public schools in eighteenth-century Virginia. Planters’ sons got their education by boarding with teachers, almost always preachers or parsons, who would instruct them in Latin, mathematics, natural science, and English grammar. Jefferson biographer Dumas Malone notes that “the sons of the greater landowners had all the advantages and disadvantages that go with private instruction. The quality of this instruction was often high, but it naturally varied with the tutors who were available.”22 These men were all overworked, their “schools” too crowded. Finding a place was difficult. Even with his guardian, Nicholas Lewis, and his father’s friend Thomas Jefferson to help him, it took Meriwether some months, perhaps as long as a year, to become a formal student.
His first extant letter, dated May 12, 1787, he addressed to his “Moste loving Mother.” Apparently he had not yet found a place. He began by complaining that he had no letter from his mother, then confessed: “What Language can express the Anxiety I feel to be with you when I sit down to write but as it is now a thing impossible I shall quit the Subject, and say nothing more about it.” He was glad to report that all the Lewises and Meriwethers in Albemarle were in good health. He passed on a rumor, that “Cousin Thomas Meriwether is marryed,” and asked if she knew anything about it. He concluded, “I live in Hopes of recieving a letter from you by which as the only Means I may be informed of your Helth and Welfair. I enjoy my Health at present which I hope is your situation. I am your ever loving Sone.”23
Meriwether’s next surviving letter to his mother, undated, written from Cloverfields, related family news and the complications he was encountering in trying to get into school. His brother-in-law, Edmund Anderson, who had married his older sister, Jane, in 1785, when she was fifteen, was preparing to go into business in Richmond and “would have been there before this, had not the small-pox broke out in that City which rages with great violence and until this Disorder can be extirpated, they will continue where they are”—i.e., in Hanover. “Sister [Jane] and Children are well; the children have grown very much, but I see no appearance of another.”
Parson Matthew Maury, son of one of Thomas Jefferson’s teachers, was the man Meriwether wanted to study with, but so far he had not been able to get started. “I hope Reubin [his younger brother, still in Georgia] is at school tho I am not yet ingaged in that persuit myself,” he wrote. “Robert Lewis and myself applyed to Mr. Maury soon after my return [to Albemarle] who informed us that he could not take us by any means till next Spring and as what we would wish to learn would interfer so much with his Latin business that he had rather not take us at all.”
Meriwether had therefore applied to Reverend James Waddell, but success was uncertain. “If we do not go to Mr. Waddle we shall certainly go to one Mr. Williamson a young Scochman who teaches in about ten Miles of this Place and who was earnestly recommended both by Mr. Maury and Waddle. In this situation I have now been waiting for this three Weaks past.”24
In the fall of 1787, Reuben came to Cloverfields for a visit. As he was leaving, he asked Meriwether to come to Georgia the following fall. On March 7, 1788, Meriwether wrote Reuben to say he could not make the visit, “by Reason of my being at School. I set in with Parson Maury, soon afer you left me, with whom I continued till Christmas, and then I fully expected to have stayed six Months longer at least, if not another Year; but couzen William D. Meriwether then said he did not think it worth while, as I had got well acquainted with the English Grammer, and mite learn the Georgraphy at Home. Upon this, I concluded to stay at Uncle Peachy Gilmers, and go to school to a Master in the Neighbourhood in Order to get acquainted with Figurs, where I am now stationed.”
He hated not being able to visit Georgia: “I should like very much to have some of your Sport, fishing, and hunting,” he told Reuben. But he was determined to improve himself and said he must “be doing Something that will no Doubt be more to my advantag hereafter”—that is, getting an education.25
In June 1788, Meriwether’s guardian paid seven pounds for room, board, and tuition. In January 1789, he paid thirteen pounds and in July another two pounds. That summer Meriwether was able to go to Georgia for a visit.
In the fall, he studied under Dr. Charles Everitt. His schoolmate and cousin Peachy Gilmer, five years younger than Meriwether, hated Dr. Everitt. According to Gilmer, he was “afflicted with very bad health, of an atrabilious and melancholy temperament: peevish, capricious, and every way disagreeable. . . . He invented cruel punishments for the scholars. . . . His method of teaching was as bad as anything could be. He was impatient of interruption. We seldom applied for assistance, said our lessons badly, made no proficiency, and acquired negligent and bad habits.”
Young Gilmer described Meriwether as “always remarkable for persevereance, which in the early period of his life seemed nothing more than obstinacy in pursuing the trifles that employ that age; a martial temper; great steadiness of purpose, self-possession, and undaunted courage. His person was stiff and without grace, bow-legged, awkward, formal, and almost without flexibility. His face was comely and by many considered handsome.”26
Meriwether loved to “ramble,” as Jefferson put it. Into the mountains, or t
o visit Jane and other relatives, or down to Georgia, a trip he made at least once on his own. Later in his life he met his mother’s half-joking complaints about his roving propensities with the laughing response that he had inherited this disposition from her.27
Albemarle County records show that Meriwether’s guardian was meticulous. His accounts include the purchase of “1 pr Knee Buckls,” “10 Vest buttons,” “2 hanks Silk,” “1 Pin Kniff.” There are numerous entries for “poct Money.” One arresting entry is for “1 quart Whiskey for Negroe Wench.” Another covers “1 Quart Rum & 1 lb Sugar.”28
Meriwether transferred in 1790 to Reverend James Waddell, who was a great contrast to the ill-tempered Everitt. Meriwether called Waddell “a very polite scholar.” He wrote his mother in August, “I expect to continue [here] for eighteen months or two years. Every civility is here paid to me and leaves me without any reason to regret the loss of a home of nearer connection. As soon as I complete my education, you shall certainly see me.”29
In October 1791, he wrote his mother to report that he had received a letter from Uncle Thomas Gilmer (Peachy’s father) “which gives moste agreeable information of your welfare and my brothers assiduity and attention at School.” He said he had just returned from a visit with his sister, Jane, who had shown him a letter their mother had written that summer. From it he learned that Captain Marks had died, leaving his mother once again a widow, with Reuben plus the two younger children to care for. Mrs. Marks wanted Meriwether to come to Georgia to organize a move back to Virginia for her and her dependents.
“I will with a great deal of cheerfullness do it,” Meriwether wrote his mother, “but it will be out of my power soon[er] than eighteen Months or two years.” He promised her she would always have a home at Locust Hill and “you may relie on my fidelity to render your situation as comfortable as it is in my power.”30
In April 1792, Meriwether wrote his mother that he had learned from her letters to Jane that she was anxious to return to Virginia that spring. “This together with my sisters impatience to see you has induced me to quit school and prepare for setting out immediately.” He had employed an artisan at Monticello to make a carriage for the trip; it would be ready by May 1. Meriwether needed to purchase horses and collect some money. “If I can not collect a sufficiency from the lands that are now due I shall dispose of my tobacco for cash in order to be detained as little time as possible. I shall set out about the 15th of May.”31
He did as promised, and by fall he had gone to Georgia, organized the move of his mother and her children and the slaves, animals, and equipment, and brought the whole back to Virginia, where he set up at Locust Hill and began his life as a planter and head of household.
•
Thus ended Meriwether Lewis’s scholarly career. What had he learned? Not enough Latin to use the language in his extensive later writings, nor any other foreign language. Not enough orthography ever to be comfortable or proficient with the spelling of English words—but, then, he lived in an age of freedom of spelling, a time when even so well read and learned a man as Jefferson had trouble maintaining consistency in his spelling. He did develop a strong, sprightly, and flowing writing style.
What he read can only be inferred from references in his writings, which indicate he read a little ancient history, some Milton and Shakespeare, and a smattering of recent British history. He was an avid reader of journals of exploration, especially those about the adventures of Captain James Cook.
He got his figures down pretty well, along with a solid base in botany and natural history. He picked up all he could about geography. He had achieved the educational level of the well-rounded Virginian, who was somewhat familiar with the classics, reasonably current with philosophy. Only in the field of plantation affairs was he expected to be a specialist, and to that end Lewis now set out.
He may have done so with some regret, for he valued education highly. All his life he kept after Reuben and his half-brother, John Marks, and half-sister, Mary Marks, to make every effort and meet every expense to further their educations. The last paragraph of his March 31, 1805, letter to his mother, written from Fort Mandan, far up the Missouri River, reads: “I must request of you before I conclude this letter, to send John Markes to the College at Williamsburgh, as soon as it shall be thought that his education has been sufficiently advanced to fit him for that ceminary; for you may rest assured that as you reguard his future prosperity you had better make any sacrefice of his property than suffer his education to be neglected or remain incomple[te].”32
Perhaps as an eighteen-year-old he wished to continue his education, to attend the “ceminary” at William and Mary, but it could not be. He was responsible for his mother, his brother, John and Mary Marks, the slaves at Locust Hill, his inheritance. Instead of book learning at William and Mary, he was destined to learn from the school of the plantation. At age eighteen, he was the head of a small community of about two dozen slaves and nearly two thousand acres of land. His lessons from now on would be in management, in soils, crops, distillery, carpentry, blacksmithing, shoemaking, weaving, coopering, timbering, in killing, dressing, and skinning cattle and sheep, preserving vegetables and meats, repairing plows, harrows, saws, and rifles, caring for horses and dogs, treating the sick, and the myriad of other tasks that went into running a plantation.
At eighteen years, he was on his own. He had traveled extensively across the southern part of the United States. He had shown himself to be a self-reliant, self-contained, self-confident teen-ager, and was a young man who took great pride in his “persevereance and steadiness of purpose,” as Peachy Gilmer had put it. His health was excellent, his physical powers were outstanding, he was sensitive and caring about his mother and his family. He was started.
CHAPTER TWO
Planter
1792–1794
Foaled, not born, Virginia planters were said to be. They would go five miles to catch a horse in order to ride one mile afterward.
As one scholar put it, “In a country without large settlements and where plantation seats were far apart, riding was not a matter of occasional diversion but daily necessity, and good horsemanship was taken for granted among the gentry.”1 They had to be experts in the judging, feeding, breeding, and care of horses.
From the time he was able to sit astride a horse, Meriwether Lewis was a fine, fearless rider. He became an excellent judge of horses and an expert in their care. Jefferson, believing that the taming of the horse had resulted in the degeneracy of the human body, urged the young to walk for exercise. Lewis took his advice and became a great hiker, with feet as tough as his butt. As a boy and young man, he went barefoot, in the Virginia manner. Jefferson’s grandson claimed not to have worn shoes until he was ten. According to Jefferson, the young Lewis hunted barefoot in the snow.2
Like riding and hiking, dancing was taken for granted. Indeed, dancing was little short of a social necessity. “Virginians are of genuine blood,” said one traveler. “They will dance or die.” Like Jefferson, Lewis learned to dance the minuet, reels, and country dances at Reverend Maury’s school. One diarist wrote in the year of Lewis’s birth, “Any young gentleman, travelling through the Colony . . . is presumed to be acquainted with dancing, boxing, playing the fiddle, and small sword, and cards.”3 There is no evidence that Lewis learned to fiddle, but he knew the rest of the list.
By no means were all Virginia planters or their sons paragons of virtue. If there was high-minded and learned political talk around the table, and much idealism and protestation of devotion to the common good, there also were temptations often too strong for healthy, wealthy young men to resist.
Jefferson’s father died when he was a boy. Decades later, in a letter to his grandson, Jefferson wrote in a famous passage:
When I recollect that at 14 years of age the whole care and direction of myself was thrown on my self entirely, without a relative or friend qualified to advise or guide me, and recollect the various sorts of bad compan
y with which I associated from time to time, I am astonished I did not turn off with some of them, and become as worthless to society as they were. . . .
From the circumstances of my position I was often thrown into the society of horseracers, cardplayers, Foxhunters, scientific and professional men, and of dignified men; and many a time I asked myself, in the enthusiastic moment of the death of a fox, the victory of a favorite horse, the issue of a question eloquently argued at the bar or in the great Council of the nation, well, which of these kinds of reputation should I prefer? That of a horse jockey? A foxhunter? An Orator? Or the honest advocate of my country’s rights?4
Quite possibly Jefferson talked to Lewis in the same Polonius-like style in which he wrote his grandson. Certainly Lewis had thoughts similar to those expressed by Jefferson. On his thirty-first birthday, Lewis wrote, in a famous passage, “This day I completed my thirty first year. . . . I reflected that I had as yet done but little, very little indeed, to further the hapiness of the human race, or to advance the information of the succeeding generation. I viewed with regret the many hours I have spent in indolence, and now soarly feel the want of that information which those hours would have given me had they been judiciously expended.” He resolved: “In future, to live for mankind, as I have heretofore lived for myself.”5
Such high-blown, idealized language—and the sentiments it reflected, along with that heartfelt resolve to do better—was characteristic of the Virginia gentry. It was almost a convention, a part of the social standard, like good manners.
A Virginia gentleman was expected to be hospitable and generous, courteous in his relations with his peers, chivalrous toward women, and kind to his inferiors. There was a high standard of politeness; Jefferson once remarked that politeness was artificial good humor, a valuable preservative of peace and tranquillity. Wenching and other debauchery, heavy drinking, and similar personal vices were common enough, but as long as they did not interfere with relations between members of the gentry they were condoned. The unpardonable sins were lying and meanness of spirit.6