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Murder Mystery on the Frontier- The Death of Meriwether Lewis
In 1809, there was no bigger national heroes than Lewis and Clark. They had just spent years traveling across the newly acquired Louisiana Purchase and their exploits had lit the imagination of the country. Meriwether Lewis was a trusted associate of President Jefferson and had been hand picked for both the expedition and to be the governor of the Upper Louisiana Territory. It must have seemed as though Lewis had his life set. However, things were not rosy in the home he shared with one of St. Louis’ most august families, the Chouteaus. He was bored with his desk job and began drinking heavily. Lewis was also deeply in debt,…
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Daniel Boone
Daniel Boone is most famous for his exploration and settlement of what is now Kentucky, which was then part of Virginia but on the other side of the mountains from the settled areas. He is known as one of the first American folk heroes, but was also an American pioneer, explorer, a woodsman, and a frontiersman. His exploits made him the stuff of legends. The Boone family were “Quakers”, they belonged to the Religious Society of Friends, and following persecution in England for their dissenting beliefs, Daniel’s father, Squire Boone emigrated from the small town of Bradninch, Devon (near Exeter, England) to Pennsylvania in 1713, to join William Penn’s colony…
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The State of Franklin
Following the American Revolutionary War there were 13 states that had been officially admitted to the Union. The 14th state to try their hand at joining the Union was a state originally called Frankland but later changed to Franklin. In April of 1784, North Carolina ceded an eastern part of their state between the Mississippi River and the Appalachian Mountains in what is today a part of Tennessee. When the war was over Congress was penniless and many states owed money to the government for war debts. As North Carolina could not afford to pay their debt in currency, the government agreed to the 29 million acres offered as payment…
