Born August 18, 1774,
Albemarle County, Virginia
Died October 11, 1809,
Central Tennessee
William Clark
Born August 1, 1770,
Caroline County, Virginia
Died September 1, 1838,
St. Louis, Missouri
Meriwether Lewis grew up on a farm near Charlottesville, Virginia, where his family was friends with Thomas Jefferson, whose famous estate, Monticello, is just outside Charlottesville. Lewis received his education from private tutors. At 18, after his father’s death, Lewis managed the family plantation. An officer in the local militia, Lewis was called to active duty in 1794 during the Whiskey Rebellion; he then joined the U.S. Army and served as a captain in the First Infantry under General Anthony Wayne in the wars against the Native Americans in the Northwest Territory. When Jefferson was elected president in 1801 he chose Lewis to be his personal secretary—a position equal to today’s White House chief of staff and which Lewis held for two years.
President Jefferson and Napoléon Bonaparte signed the Louisiana Purchase, a treaty that doubled the land area of the United States: for $15 million France turned over its claims to the western basin of the Mississippi River, called the Louisiana Territory, which had recently been reacquired by France from Spain.
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