Editing Natchez Trace (section)

==Death of Meriwether Lewis==
[[File:Meriwether Lewis National Monument and Gravesite.jpg|thumb|right|upright|Meriwether Lewis National Monument and Grave, April 2014]]
{{Main|Meriwether Lewis}}

[[Meriwether Lewis]], of the [[Lewis and Clark Expedition]] fame, died while traveling on the Trace. Then serving as appointed governor of the [[Louisiana Territory]], he was on his way to Washington, D.C., from his base in St. Louis, Missouri. Lewis stopped at [[Grinder's Stand]] (near current-day [[Hohenwald, Tennessee]]) for overnight shelter in October 1809. He was distraught over many issues, possibly affected by his use of [[opium]]. He was believed by many to have committed [[suicide]] there with a gun.{{citation needed|date=March 2021}}

Some uncertainty persists as to whether it was suicide.<ref name=Devoss/>  His mother believed he had been murdered, and rumors circulated about possible killers. [[Thomas Jefferson]] and Lewis's former partner, [[William Clark (explorer)|William Clark]], accepted the report of suicide. Lewis was buried near the inn along the Trace.<ref name=Brown>[http://stories.washingtonhistory.org/LC-columbia/teaching/pdfs/What-really-happened-to-MeriwetherLewis.pdf Dee Brown, "What Really Happened to Meriwether Lewis?"], ''Columbia Magazine'', Winter 1988, Vol. 1, No. 4, accessed Oct 17, 2010</ref> In 1848, a Tennessee state commission erected a monument at the site.

On the bicentennial of Lewis's death (2009), the first national public memorial service honoring his life was held; it was also the last event of the Lewis and Clark Expedition Bicentennial.