To the Roots – Lewis & Clark Podcast

Lewis arrives in the new Federal District to find Jefferson’s already left. However, the two eventually settle into this first year – and receive a visit from an old friend. / 38° 53′ 52″ N, 77° 2′ 10″ W / sources and transcript of this episode at our website / follow us everywhere: linktree / @gototheroots: instagram | bluesky | youtube | tiktok / support the podcast: patreon | ko-fi | subscribe...

After William left the military, he tended to his family — namely, his older brother, George Rogers’, dire financial straits. In addition to addressing lawsuits from Humphrey Marshall, Captain William Shannon and Laurent Bazadone, William travels to St. Louis for the first time (as well as tease his 1798 trip to New Orleans, which will feature heavily in a future Mile Marker). / 37° 58.752′ N, 90°...

This episode follows Meriwether Lewis from William’s retirement after the council at Greenville to his receiving an invitation from President Jefferson to be his personal secretary. There’s a sketch of Lewis’s rather extensive travels, along with my trying to pin down more details on Lewis’s involvement near the end of 1797 at Chickasaw Bluffs. / 42° 19.647′ N, 83° 2.875′ W. / sources and transcri...

/ 40° 6′ 18″ N, 84° 37′ 56″ W / sources and transcript of this episode at our website / follow us everywhere: linktree / @gototheroots: instagram | bluesky | youtube | tiktok / support the podcast: patreon | ko-fi | subscribe to the substack / intro/outro by aldous ichnite — “You'll Have a Plan Before You Try to Get Your Horse on the Trailer” and “Our Entire Bodies Have Always Been the Most Powerf...

As James O’Fallon noted to Jonathan Clark: “Yr. Brother, William is gone out, as a cadet, with Genl. Scott, on the Expedition. He is a youth of solid & promising parts, and as brave as Caesar.” This entry follows William from 1791 to the Battle of Fallen Timbers and the march back to Fort Greenville. / 41° 5′ 0″ N, 85° 7′ 32″ W / sources and transcript of this episode at our website / follow us ev...

“his talent for observation, which had led him to an accurate knoledge of the plants & animals of his own country, would have distinguished him as a farmer,” Jefferson eulogized after Meriwether’s death, “but at the age of twenty, yielding to the ardor of youth, & a passion for more dazzling pursuits, he engaged as a volunteer in the body of militia which were called out by Genl Washington on occa...

Lewis wrote, “The general idea is that the army is the school of debauchery but believe me it has ever proven the school of experience and prudence to your affectionate son.” But setbacks in the west, Congressional hearings would be be heard and organizations would be reorganized. Conventions would be convened and proclamations proclaimed. In the interim, between the pivotal year of 1794, Clark jo...

While it would be easy (and materially correct) to say William (and his siblings) didn’t have the “formal” education of Jonathan or George Rogers, i.e. there was no Donald Robertson in an outpost like Louisville where teachers like him and learning materials — the philosophies, the classical histories, the scientific textbooks, the essays, as well good paper and pencils — were quite limited, the C...

Around the same time as the Lewises joined the Virginia planer-elite to Georgia, the Clark’s joined the Virginia planter elites in Kentucky. Unlike Georgia, which was one of the thirteen colonies (though sparsely populated by white Europeans), Kentucky fell beyond the old Proclamation of 1763, the boundary line devised after British victory in the French and Indian War. It’s story will be told as...

“The day is ours!” shouted Captain Charles Fordyce, moments before his charge, moments before he and twelve privates were slain by Patriot gunfire at Great Bridge, Virginia. Months before, Virginia’s governor, Lord Dunmore had sailed out of Williamsburg to Norfolk, after which he pleaded for troops to quell the rebellion brewing throughout the state. The years of 1776 to 1783 would be seismic for...

On the childhoods of William Clark and Meriwether Lewis. Though both in Virginia and close in age, the impact of the war with Britain hit each boy differently. Clark’s brothers fought and William absorbed their triumphs and tragedies. Lewis’s father served and his hometown was host to an open air prison for captured British commanders. While war may never change, both young men certainly did. / 38...

On the Clark’s and the Rogers’s. The major difference, to me, from yesterday’s episode, is the cloudiness of the entire line of Rogers and Clarks. We talked a lot about sons and daughters, brothers and sisters of the Lewises and Meriwether’s, but, I hope I’ve been able to show this, the genealogy is quite cursed. / 37° 41′ 56″ N, 76° 44′ 30″ W / sources and transcript of this episode at our websit...

These next two episodes are my attempt, off-the-cuff at times, to synthesize the genealogy that many, many others have done. Looking into the work that’s been done — and is being done — has inspired me in my own journey. That being said, I’m going to come down here on the side of the sleuths. There are prominent volumes of genealogy that, while not discarded, will be deemphasized for research that...

Donald Jackson asks, “If the Spanish, French, and British knew of the plan, and if Congress had provided the money, and if the expedition were truly constitutional as described by Jefferson, then why all the secrecy?” In August of 1801, Jefferson hosted botanist Benjamin Smith Barton. He’d been collecting plants — “botanizing” — through the Shenandoah Valley, through Warm Springs, Lexington, Staut...

Jefferson’s tone in his First Inaugural was the repudiation of the years prior, setting the footing of American governance at the people’s feet instead of its supposed superiors. It began with civil liberties: “Let us, then, fellow-citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary t...

On “the most stable cabinet in US history”: Madison, Gallatin, Dearborn, Lincoln and Smith (and Jefferson’s secretary… and I guess Aaron Burr is somewhere around here as well…) / 38° 53′ 51″ N, 77° 2′ 12″ W / sources and transcript of this episode at our website / follow us everywhere: linktree / @gototheroots: instagram | bluesky | youtube | tiktok / support the podcast: patreon | ko-fi | subscri...

“[H]uman degeneracy and misery” felt on trial as the “baneful effects of the spirit of party” and the “Principles of ‘98” took center stage for the first time: the Election of 1800! In broad strokes, the legacy of the Revolution was in play, “between the advocates of republican, and those of kingly government.” Between a renunciation of foreign despotism and the Federalist wish to “let us no longe...

Reading the founding fathers of this era, this tension is expressed in the epithets of “monarchist” and “democrat.” Every move, by every person involved, seemingly took us in one of those two directions – if there was another pathway, it proved to be obscured for some time. Adams to Rush: “My Country appears to me, I assure you in great danger of fatal Divisions, and especially because I Scarcely...

Jefferson was an optimist when it came to the people: he wrote James Madison “our governments will remain virtuous as long as they are chiefly agricultural; and this will be as long as there shall be vacant lands in any part of America.” Of course, “vacant lands” are doing the heavy lifting here. Before we can discuss the lands , we must talk about who resides on them. Instead of any meaningful co...

the failures of execution, of imagination, of inflexibility All the European powers acted as if they had more time, that the musical chairs they’d played for centuries with one another (typically at the rest of the world’s expense) would continue indefinitely. We look at the “dangerous Enemies” and “valuable friends” to Jefferson: England, France, Russia and Spain. / 38° 0′ 43″ N, 78° 28′ 0″ W / s...

“the most elegant thing of the kind I have ever seen” “How would you like to lead such a party?” Jefferson had this question for George Rogers Clark, John Ledyard, and André Michaux — sandwiched between John Armstrong, Moses Marshall, and Philip Nolan. / 38° 58′ 44″ N, 76° 29′ 28″ W / sources and transcript of this episode at our website / follow us everywhere: linktree / @gototheroots: instagram...

Jefferson’s geographic upbringing — on Emily Millicent Sowerby, western lands, good and bad faith, “symmetrical geography” and height-of-land, the Ouragan, travel narratives and a love of books. / 38° 53′ 19″ N, 77° 0′ 17″ W / sources and transcript of this episode at our website / follow us everywhere: linktree / @gototheroots: instagram | bluesky | youtube | tiktok / support the podcast: patreon...

Did you know Thomas Jefferson is a contradictory character? While he’s not a main character in our story, it’s best we get on the same page. We start our dive with an overview before we dive into what led Lewis and Clark west. Welcome to our third Mile Marker. / 38° 0′ 37.1″ N, 78° 27′ 8.4″ W / sources and transcript of this episode at our website / @gototheroots: instagram | bluesky | linktree /...

The end of Mile Marker 2, as well as our story of Lapérouse and Ledyard. / 11° 39′ 0″ S, 166° 54′ 0″ E / sources and transcript of this episode at our website / @gototheroots: instagram | bluesky | linktree / support the podcast: patreon | ko-fi | subscribe to the substack / intro/outro music by  aldous ichnite  — “You'll Have a Plan Before You Try to Get Your Horse on the Trailer” and “Our Entire...

“The rest of the world lies uninterdicted.” But for how long? / 33° 59′ 59″ S, 151° 13′ 59″ E / sources and transcript of this episode at our website / @gototheroots: instagram | bluesky | linktree / support the podcast: patreon | ko-fi | subscribe to the substack / intro/outro music by  aldous ichnite  — “You'll Have a Plan Before You Try to Get Your Horse on the Trailer” and “Our Entire Bodies H...