Chapter 1 Youth 1774 - 1792 Summary and Analysis

Meriwether Lewis's ancestry, birth, and early life are considered. Lewis is born August 1774 in Virginia to William Lewis and Lucy Lewis nye Meriwether, cousins. Lewis is born on the eve of the American Revolutionary War and his ancestry includes numerous military accomplishments in both lines. Lewis has an older sister, Jane, and a younger brother, Reuben. William Lewis dies of pneumonia in 1779; thereafter Nicholas Lewis, William's older brother, becomes family guardian pending Lewis' attainment of legal age. Lucy Lewis remarries in 1980 to John Marks, and has two additional children—John Hastings and Mary Garland. One significant family friend is Thomas Jefferson, future president of the United States of America and a nearby plantation owner.

As a young boy, Meriwether spends a considerable amount of time out of doors, including accompanying a frontier pioneer group to a...