BY ERROL CASTENS
Daily Journal Oxford Bureau

NEW ALBANY - Meriwether Lewis, who headed the famed Lewis and Clark Discovery Expedition through the Louisiana Purchase to the Pacific Ocean, spent much of his last trek in Northeast Mississippi.

Next year, hundreds of students and fans of Lewis and Clark will descend on the region to re-enact his final days, exactly 200 years after his fatal journey along the Natchez Trace.

The Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation will hold a "traveling convention" in October 2009 to re-enact Lewis’ journey from Fort Pickering (now Memphis) to the Chickasaw Session and up the Natchez Trace to where he died of gunshot wounds - believed to be self-inflicted - along the Trace in Tennessee.

"We will be here together in 2009," said Bryant Boswell, a Jackson dentist and reenactor who lobbied for the Mississippi-Tennessee location. "I told them, If you’re ever coming to Mississippi, you need to do it in 2009, because it’s the bicentennial of Lewis’ death. Let’s do it on the anniversary date.’"

Experiencing the past
Boswell was Meriwether Lewis’ principal re-enactor in the Bicentennial Discovery Expedition that reprised the original Lewis and Clark trek from the Mississippi River to Astoria, Oregon and back.

In New Albany last week, he presented a first taste of the culmination of the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial that will occur in Northeast Mississippi, Northwest Alabama and Middle Tennessee next year.

Dressed in 1800s finery and carrying scores of articles such as would have been on the expedition, Boswell told about his Lewis and Clark trek for the Union County Historical Society annual luncheon on Thursday, followed by "An Evening with Meriwether Lewis" at the Magnolia Civic Center and student-oriented presentations the next morning for New Albany and Union County school groups.

Boswell said the difficulty and danger of the re-enactment made the concept of the original trek through unknown country astounding.

"We stand in awe of what these men did 200 years ago," he said. "We couldn’t do it today; we would have died."

Preserving history
Boswell said his group’s mission is much like that of his host, the Union County Historical Society.

"The Legacy is education. This is what we’re all about," he said. "The history being taught in this country is absolutely pathetic and, in many cases, dead wrong."

His passion overflowed when he begged his audience to favor learning over being entertained.

"Read, read, read, read, read," he said. "Quit watching the idiot box. Read about your local history, read about your state, read about this phenomenal country you’ve been given. Talk to your grandparents."

Boswell also invited the several heritage groups that were guests of the Union County Historical Society to sponsor a dinner for Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation members in 2009.

He climaxed his initial appearance in New Albany by presenting replicas of the memento Meriwether Lewis gave to the Chickasaw chief days before Lewis’ death. It was the discovery of the Jefferson Peace Medal in Union County that had confirmed Lewis’ presence here in his last days.

"On behalf of Thomas Jefferson and George Bush," Boswell said as he draped each member of the historical society board of directors, "I present you with the Peace Medal."

Contact Daily Journal Oxford Bureau reporter Errol Castens at 281-1069 or errol.castens@djournal.com.