Dr. Hugh Berryman, forensic anthropologist and research professor of anthropology at MTSU, could play a key role in determining whether one of America’s foremost explorers committed suicide or was murdered.
In a recent Washington, D.C., news conference, on the 206th anniversary of the launch of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark’s historic expedition to reach the Pacific shore, Berryman joined Lewis’ collateral descendants as they again implored the National Park Service to allow them to exhume Lewis’ remains.
Berryman, the principal investigator for the scientific team working with the descendants, said the exhumation could be completed in one day and the forensic examination would be finished in a week. The procedure would be conducted at MTSU.
“If preservation permits, it’s almost as though you’re conducting an interview with Meriwether Lewis,” Berryman said. “The answers we hope to glean will provide better insight into his life, his general health conditions, and, specifically, what happened the morning of Oct. 11, 1809. Exhumation is essential in order to make these determinations.”
Berryman cautioned that the preservation of buried bone is highly variable. He said that the fact that the Lewis remains have been underneath a monument and an additional layer of soil for decades may have preserved them.
“If we are allowed to proceed with an exhumation, we may discover that we cannot conclude anything because of the poor condition of the bones,” Berryman says. “We hope this will not be the case (and) the bones will be in good enough shape that we can determine whether the gunshot ?trauma’ is consistent with suicide or homicide.”
For years, a dispute has lingered about how Lewis died. He was the governor of the Louisiana Territory when he died of multiple gunshot wounds at the age of 35 at Grinder’s Stand, an inn along the Natchez Trace, while on his way to Washington, D.C. A monument about eight miles southeast of Hohenwald, Tenn., marks his grave along the Natchez Trace Parkway, which is administered by the National Park Service. Berryman said the monument would have to be dismantled and later reassembled.
The Washington-based law firm of Crowell & Moring LLP has performed pro bono work for the Lewis descendants since 1996.
“We welcome public input about a public figure buried on public land. A free and open society demands such dialogue, and the family invites it,” said Kirsten Nathanson, a partner in the firm.
Howell Lewis Bowen, a great-great-great-great-nephew of Lewis from Charlottesville, Va., says he wants to give Lewis a Christian burial, something he was denied at the time of his death, following the forensic examination.
“Close to 200 of Uncle Meriwether’s descendants have said they want the National Park Service to remove 13 years’ worth of bureaucratic hurdles and allow the exhumation,” said Bowen. “It doesn’t matter whether he committed suicide or was murdered. We only want to find the truth.”
Bowen added the exhumation and examination would not cost the nation’s taxpayers any money. The descendants are trying to raise the estimated cost of $250,000 from private sources.
On Oct. 7, 2009, the 200th anniversary of his death, a bronze bust of Lewis will be dedicated to the Natchez Trace Parkway in conjunction with plans of a visitors’ center.
For more information, contact Berryman at (615) 494-7896 or berryman@mtsu.edu or visit solvethemystery.org.
