What Ever Happened to Meriwether Lewis?

 On April 30, 1803 Robert Livingston, with a little help from James Monroe, signed what was

The French copy of the Louisiana Purchase 

possibly the greatest land deal in history. For a mere 15 million dollars, much of which was not in the form of cash payments but in forgiveness of French debts to American, the United States acquired more than 820,000 thousand acres of land, the Louisiana purchase.  By the end of the year the 

The Louisiana Territory 

Senate and Jefferson had approved the treaty and the House of Representatives had agreed to release the funds to pay for the land. 

Jefferson knew that he had to send a mission to explore the land Livingston had recently acquired to assert American possession of the land and to see what they had purchased. He hoped that his expedition would find a water way to the Pacific Ocean that would allow America easy trade with Asia. 

To lead the mission he chose his personal secretary Meriwether Lewis, who chose William Clark to co-lead the expedition with him, thus guaranteeing the expedition would not be know by its official name The Corps of Discovery Expedition but as the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Lewis had been Jefferson's choice to lead the expedition event before the purchase was complete. While he worked at the White House, Jefferson had Lewis trained by botanists, physicians and other scientists.

Meriwether Lewis

Between September May of 1804 and September 1806 the expedition traveled more than 8,000 miles through the territory and beyond to the Pacific Coast collecting hundreds of plant and animal specimens and making contact with at least 50 different of indigenous people. 

In 1807 Meriwether Lewis was appointed the governor of the Upper Louisiana Territory as a reward for the successful expedition. He arrived in St. Louis, the de facto capital of the territory in 1808.

The following year, new president James Madison began denying payment on vouchers that the Jefferson administration had approved. Lewis suddenly found himself on the hook for not only money he paid out during his time as governor but money he paid out during the expedition.

Facing ruinous debt Lewis decided to go to Washington D.C. in

William Clark 

September 1809 to defend his claims for money from the federal government. Initially he had decided to travel down the Mississippi by boat and then sail to Washington D.C. but changed his mind and decided to travel overland. Among the possessions he carried with him were the journals of the Lewis and Clark expedition which he had been tasked with publishing but three years after the expedition had returned he had failed to do so.

During his trip overland Lewis decided to take the Natchez Trace which ran from Mississippi to Tennessee. On October 10, 1809 Lewis stopped at Grinder's Stand a tavern on the Trace. He had a meal prepared by Mrs. Grinder and then retired to a private cabin for the night. 

In the late hours of October 10 or the early hours of October 11 two gunshots broke the night time silence. Meriwether Lewis was found with gunshot wounds to the chest and head. He lived for several hours but died around sunrise on October 11. He was 35 years old. He was buried about 200 yards from Grinder's Stand. 

At the time it was assumed that Lewis had committed suicide. He was certainly depressed as he faced financial ruin and his failure to publish the journals of his expedition. Both Thomas Jefferson and William Clark believed he had committed suicide.

Lewis's mother however believed her son had been murdered. Her speculation has lead a small number of historians to look at the case with a critical eye. Their are several facts that are lost to time. When were the shots fired? When was Lewis found? How did he manage to shoot himself twice? Did he have two guns or had he managed to reload after shooting himself once? 

Despite these questions it is most likely that Meriwether Lewis committed suicide when left alone with his thoughts of depression, ruination and failure. A sad end for a hero of the early American republic.

If you are struggling with suicidal thoughts, help is available. The National Suicide Prevention Hotline can be reached at 1-800-273-8255

 

Meriwether Lewis's grave is now a national monument

The Livingston Sugar House Prison

 In 1754 the Livingston's of Livingston Manor had a sugar house constructed in New York City to refine sugar cane shipped from their plantations in the Caribbean. The building was stone and stood six stories tall although the floors were very low. It stood on Crown Street, now Liberty Street.

The Livingston Sugar House on the left

    When the British seized New York City in 1776 the building was seized, because it belonged to the patriot Livingston family. It was turned into a makeshift prison to hold captured Americans.

    Levi Hanford, who was captured in 1777 said the prison initially held 40 to 50 prisoners but was soon crammed with 400 to 500 prisoners. One estimate puts the number of men stuffed into Livingston Sugar House at 800.

    Conditions in this prison and prisons like it throughout the city were atrocious. Food consisted of salt pork and ship's biscuits, hard unchewable bread that would have to be soaked in water before it could be eaten. Rations were usually at least partially rotted and full of insects and worms. The close quarters of the building combined with the terrible rations led to the spread of disease like scurvy and fevers that killed men at astonishing rates. Of the 2,600 men captured at the Battle of Fort Washington in 1776, 1,900 died in captivity. Somewhere between 17,500 and 18,000 men died in captivity in New York City throughout the war. Hanford reported that up to 15 men died every day in the Sugar House Prison. Although there never seemed to be an end of American prisoners to replace the dead. For example the men captured at Fort Montgomery and Fort Constitution were sent to the Livingston Sugar House and the VanCortlandt Sugar House.

    The bodies were picked up every morning at 8:00 AM.There are some reports that the bodies were thrown into a trench at Trinity Church, where a monument to them now stands although their is some dispute whether or not the church accepted the bodies.

Memorial to Unknown Soldiers at Trinity Church

  

    After the war the Livingston Sugar House was again used to refine sugar by the Livingston family. It was torn down sometime between 1840 and 1846.

    At the end of the 19th Century it was decided to memorialize the prisoners who died at the Sugar House Prison. Two barred windows were saved from the recently demolished Rhinelander Sugar House, which ironically was not used as a prison during the Revolution because it was run by a loyalist named Cuyler. One window was mounted on New York City Police Headquarters at One Police Plaza
in Manhattan and the other was reconstructed in VanCortlandt Park in the Bronx.

The memorial window at One Police Plaza

The memorial window at VanCortlandt Park

From Enemy to Neighbor: British and German Soldiers who stayed in America

 

Many British and German soldiers stayed in America when the Revolutionary War was over. Some deserted from their regiments to take up a life in America or, in the case of officers, resigned their commissions to stay in the new United States. The prospect of land or relationships with women were too strong a pull for some of the men to return to their homelands.

On October 17, 1777 General John Burgoyne surrendered nearly 6,000 men to American

Burgoyne surrendering at Saratoga

general Horatio Gates after the Battles of Saratoga. The Convention Army, as it became known, was marched from Saratoga to Kinderhook, NY and then east toward Boston and later to Pennsylvania.

At some point in that journey a British soldier named Richard Dickinson slipped away from the army. By 1783 he had married and had a child. They were living as tenants on Henry Beekman Livingston’s land. All seemed to be going well for Dickinson until he was in a tavern one night and a stranger bought him too many drinks. When Dickinson came out of his drunken stupor, he found himself enlisted in Captain Conner’s company of Marinus 
Willets Regiment of State Levies and on his way to the frontier.

            His family appealed to Henry Beekman Livingston to obtain his discharge. Livingston wrote to Willet and Governor George Clinton to no avail so he finally wrote to George Washington to see if he could obtain Dickinson’s release.[i]

Not that George Clinton

            In his response Washington informed Livingston that he believed the entire levy was to be 

Marinus Willet 

discharged soon. He also issued orders to Col. Willet to release Dickinson if he found that the recruiting officer had done anything shady in enlisting him. It is unclear when Dickinson was discharged.[ii]

            Frederick Augustus de Zeng was a Hessian cavalry officer who was born in Dresden in 1756. He joined the army of Hesse-Cassel in 1774. In 

1780 he was sent to America in one of the regiments rented to the British. When the war ended in 1783 de Zeng resigned his commission. He had fallen in love with Mary Lawrence of Queens.

            The pair were married and moved to Red Hook, NY probably because de Zeng felt comfortable in the large German community, the descendants of Palatine refugees, in the area. de Zeng was always on the

Frederick Augustus de Zeng

move though. Always looking for a way to gain wealth. He was naturalized in 1789 and by 1792 had moved to Ulster County to land that was owned by Chancellor Robert Livingston. In 1792 he was named major of the Ulster County militia.

            Again, de Zeng was always looking for a new deal. In 1796 he invested in a window making business in Albany. In 1798 during the Quasi -War with France he wrote to Alexander Hamilton to offer his services as a soldier to his “adopted country.” He listed his fifteen years of experience and offered to command or at least train mounted troops for America. He offered to do this without taking any payment, although being a gentleman he could do nothing less. It would be uncouth to ask for money.[iii]

            de Zeng continued to work his way west in the state. Along the way he and Mary had five children. de Zeng became very involved in the evolution of canals in New York including the Chemung Canal. He also owned a bridge over the Susquehanna River.

de Zeng lived until 1838 finally dying in the town of Clyde in Wayne County, New York near the Finger Lakes region, 4,021 miles from his birthplace.

Dickinson and de Zeng are only two examples of the hundreds of enemy combatants who stayed in America after the Revolutionary War. These two men made the best of the opportunity the new country gave them as did many of their peers.

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[i] “To George Washington from Henry Beekman Livingston, 26 May 1783” Founders Online, National Archives https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/99-01-02-11328

[ii] “From George Washington to Henry Beekman Livingston, 29 May 1783” Founders Online, National Archives https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/99-01-02-11344

[iii] “To Alexander Hamilton from Frederick Augustus de Zeng, 28 July 1798” Founders Online, National Archives https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/02-01-01-0005

The Origin of the Headless Horseman

For The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Washington Irving based several characters on real people. Ichabod Crane was based on Kinderhook, NY school teacher Jesse Merwin, with the name possibly

Washington Irving, 1809

coming from a soldier Irving met during the War of 1812. Katrina Van Tassel was most likely based on Serena Livingston with the name coming from a girl Irving knew of the same name. Brom Bones, may not have been based on a real person but may have represented all the descendants of Dutch settlers in the Hudson Valley who resented the encroachment of "Yankees" from New England who were moving into the area in the early 19th-Century. So who then was the Headless Horseman based on?

    Headless horsemen are a common ghost across Europe, from Germany to Scandinavia and England, Ireland and Scotland. But in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, published in 1820, the Headless Horseman is described as the ghost of a Hessian Trooper who had his head carried away in "some nameless battle" of the Revolutionary War. 

Major General William Heath   

     For Irving's specific inspiration we turn to the Memoirs of Major General William Heath by Himself, originally published in 1798. The Battle of White Plains took place on October 28, 1776. General William Howe was pursing George Washington north having driven him from Manhattan. At the village of White Plains Washington turned to fight. After vicious fighting
Washington was forced to retreat further north.

Americans at the Battle of White Plains

    Rather than pursue in force Howe spent the next several days trying to draw Washington into another battle by sending out small parties to skirmish with the Americans. On November 1 Major General Heath recorded the following:

Hessians advance

  

  "The British artillery now made a circuitous
movement, and came toward the American right. Here unknown to them were some 12 pounders; upon the discharge of which they made off with the their field-pieces as fast as the horses could draw them off. A shot from the American cannon at this place took off the head of a Hessian artillery-man. They also left one of the artillery horses dead on the field." 

American Gunners at White Plains

    On November 5, 1776 Howe turned around and headed back to Manhattan to clear the few remaining Continentals off the island. 

    Lets break this down shall we? We've got an unnamed battle in this little skirmish. We've got a decapitated Hessian, who by the way would never be able to find his head as a 12 pound cannon ball most likely reduced it to nothing but mist. We've got a dead horse by the Hessian, perfect for the Headless Horseman to ride for eternity.

    Though we will never know the exact inspiration for the Headless Horseman, the evidence strongly points to the dead Hessian in Major General Heath's memoir.