The Moods of Meriwether
Over Christmas I was in Clarksville, IN visiting my brother. I borrowed a bike and rode a recreational trail from the Falls of Ohio to New Albany, along the Ohio River. I stopped to read some historical markers—about Lewis and Clark. I struggled to make the association and then it hit me: Clarksville. George Rodgers Clark was a Revolutionary War “hero” and initiated many of the Midwestern Indian removals. His brother William lived with him in Indiana along the Falls in 1803 when he was invited by Meriwether Lewis to join him as co-leader of the Corps of Discovery. Both brothers along with the slave York planned the route at least to the Missouri and St. Louis from the cabin originally at that point. In the fall of 1804 Lewis came down the Ohio and met Clark at the Falls of Ohio with several other men Clark had recruited for the journey. They continued on up the Ohio to the Mississippi to their winter camp in southern Illinois. Anyway, that joggled my memory to re-...