AMERICAN MURDER Part Six

  

I would call him a prime example of the past being prologue. Timothy Pickering (above) was a hot headed right-wing nut the President had been forced to include in his cabinet to appease the ultra-conservatives who threatened to tear his administration apart. In this case the President was George Washington and the appeasement was part of the Federalists “New England” strategy. 

When the Federal capital moved from New York to Philadelphia in 1791 (above), Pickering was tapped to run the Post Office. During Washington's second term, from January to December 1795, Pickering was appointed the Secretary of War. 

Then he became Secretary of State, a post he held into the next administration,  until May of 1800 when President John Adams fired him because Pickering was in favor of declaring war against France.

He  was the namesake of  Fort Pickering.  And it was appropriate that “his” fort, standing on the bluffs (above) above the Mississippi River, was half military establishment and half private enterprise, which sold and distributed goods to the Chickasaw Indian nation. They called this hybrid a “factor”.  Captain Meriwether Lewis had commanded this post for awhile back in the 1790's, and now as Governor for Northern Louisiana Territory, Lewis was back. But this was a far from triumphal return. He had to be carried into the post on a stretcher.

The fort stood back from the Mississippi River, atop the fourth of the Chickasaw bluffs, in the midst of what is today Memphis, Tennessee. It was not a prime landing spot, but at least it had fewer mosquitoes than New Madrid,  and once there Lewis began to improve quickly.  The day after his arrival, on Saturday 16 September 1809, Lewis wrote to President James Madison that “I arrived here yesterday...very much exhausted from the heat...but having taken medicine, feel much better this morning.”

The medicine he had been taking was a combination of opium and alcohol, known as laudanum. It was highly addictive and the Governor was probably on the roller coaster of highs and lows. Probably on one of his highs when he wrote to President Madison that he was not continuing down the Mississippi as planned, but rather would be coming overland via the Natchez Trace. 

Then Lewis mentioned his real reason for all this effort. “I bring with me”, he wrote, “duplicates of my vouchers for public expenditures... which when fully explained...will receive both sanction and approbation and sanction.” As a final needling point, Lewis included in his letter those territorial laws he had translated into French, and the rejection letter refusing to pay him $12 for his effort , which had inspired this horrendous journey.

Lt. Gilbert Russel, the commander of Fort Pickering, had ordered the post medic to prevent Governor Lewis from drinking anymore laudanum. Under this regimen, wrote Lt. Russel, “...all symptoms of derangement disappeared and he was completely in his senses...”. Within a week the Governor was ready and eager to continue his journey. But Lt. Russel thought he ought to accompany him. 

Russel's accounts had also been questioned by the bureaucrats in the War Department, and Russel was awaiting permission from his boss, Major General Wilkerson, Governor of Lower Louisiana Territory, to also return to Washington so he also could have it out with those annoying bean counters.  In fact, I suspect, that it was Russel who convinced Governor Lewis to change his travel plans and proceed overland. It would be far more effective for both of these men to make their appeals together, and safer for Governor Lewis if he had someone to watch his laudanum consumption during the trip back.

However, almost two weeks went by, and still there was no release from General Wilkerson. Lewis was anxious to get moving and. Lewis likely also suspected Russel's connections with Wilkinson. But just when it seemed as if Russel would have to send the Governor off into the wilderness alone, a seeming savior arrived at Fort Pickering; James Neelly; agent to the Chickasaw Indians, and an ex-army major.

Neelly was supposed to be a delivering a white prisoner to be shipped down to New Orleans for trial. He had brought the man from his post at the Chickasaw Nation, some 100 miles south-south east of Fort Pickering. And by what seemed at the time to be a happy coincidence, Neelly now had urgent business in Franklin, Tennessee, just 20 miles south west of Nashville - Governor Lewis' intermediate destination. Perhaps Neelly could accompany Lewis and watch over him. But there was a catch, of course.

Neely was not good material for a guardian angel. He was an alcoholic and the worst kind of gambler, which is say an inveterate one. He gambled on cards, horse races and he was also, of course a land speculator.  And like most gamblers, he usually lost. His gambling had put him in debt to just about everybody he knew, even his boss, Major General James Wilkerson. Just the month before he had asked the penny pinching Secretary of War, William Eustis, for a loan. Good luck with that. But if James thought he might put “the touch” on Governor Lewis, he was quickly dissuaded.  Lewis was also a land speculator, and thus, also broke.

On Wednesday, 27 September 1809,  Lt. Russel signed the paperwork loaning Lewis two of the fort's horses and a saddle, and gave him a personal check for $100. In return Governor Meriwether Lewis signed an IOU for $379.58. This trip, undertaken to settle his financial problems, was putting Lewis deeper in debt.

Before dawn, two days later, Governor Lewis and James Neelly, along with their servants, an Indian interpreter and a few Chickasaws, left the fort by horseback. Three days later, on 3 October,  they reached Big Town. It was not much smaller than St. Louis, with 1,000 residents living in 300 log cabins, interspaced with fields of corn, rice, tobacco and cotton.  

The fields were worked by African American slaves, something the Chickasaws had in common with the European Americans, along with their Christian religion. But these conversions would not protect the "savages" from the soulless greed of President Andrew Jackson who in a generation would steal their land and force march these Christians onto the deadly "Trail of Tears".

In Big Town Lewis and Neeley picked up the Natchez Trace, the “Devils Backbone” well worn rail which wound north-eastward through the dark and ominous forest to Meriwether Lewis' final destination.

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AMERICAN MURDER Part Three

I am amazed that to the 7 million people living in the United States in 1810, the old adage "The one thing they are not making more of is land", was not true.  Ignoring for the moment that it was actually being stolen from the native peoples, the vast surplus of a commodity rare in Europe was the dominant economic reality in Meriwether Lewis' world. And yet, curiously, land prices remained extremely  high.

The reason was Alexander Hamilton's great compromise. He exchanged establishing the Federal Capital between Virginia and Maryland, two states which had little debt,  for allowing the Federal Government to take over all the other states' debts. This put the American economy on a solid financial footing.  But the downside was Hamilton meant to pay off the debts by selling unclaimed land as quickly as possible, 

Because of that decision, as Donald Holtgrieve explained in 1975,  "...over one-half of the land disposed of by the federal government in the history of this country went through the hands of professional land dealers before it was occupied.”

What this meant for early America was noted by Krout and Fox in their seminal 1944 book, “The Completion of Independence”. “The price of farmland, except near cities, averaged between ten and fifteen dollars per acre..." The values of actual sales were in direct contrast with the official price, set in 1795 at a mere $2 an acre. But those official bargains were only available in parcels of 320 acre lots."

And as was, again, noted in “The Completion...” “The common Carey Plow (above) was made entirely of wood, save for an iron collar to cut the sod...With such an implement an acre was a good days work." In other words, any farm over forty acres was simply of no use to a family depending upon farming for its livelihood.

The only ones who could afford to buy in the Federal auctions were wealthy speculators and corporations of speculators, who re-surveyed and subdivided the land, and then re-sold it to smaller speculators, who re-surveyed and re-sold it to, eventually, actual farmers. And at each resale the price went up.

The Yeoman farmer might be celebrated in myth, but in reality they were at the bottom of a profit pyramid, paying as much as 40% interest on the loans to buy their farms. "Farmers were thus forced to grow (not food for their own tables, but ) cash crops like tobacco or cotton, to pay their debts.” And even if, “...a farmer who found a desired piece of land,  became a squatter by clearing and planting it with the hope of one day purchasing the acres he had improved... when the cleared lands went up for auction, a speculator could out-bid the squatter....”  And usually did.

George Washington was a speculator, as was Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Andrew Jackson and Meriwether Lewis. And none of these leaders were above hiring thugs to drive squatters off “their” land.  It was the speculators who drove Abraham Lincoln's father off his farm in Kentucky, and again off his farm in Indiana and eventually drove him to Illinois, where Abraham gave up farming entirely. 

As another source writing about this unromantic American frontier points out, “As a consequence of monopolistic tactics and official fraud, northern Alabama lands were overwhelmingly engrossed by absentee speculators and wealthy settler elites.”  The leveling process of the American frontier was largely a myth, created by the wealthy in a natural effort to romanticize their own past. On the frontier, as in the Eastern cities, money talked. America did not have to be settled in this fashion. But it was.

The image was that everyone seemed to be getting rich in land speculation. But the reality was that a majority of speculators lost money. And the farther you were down the food chain from the original government auction, the less chance you had to see a profit. Like the stock market bubbles of later generations, those drawn into the land market bubbles had to quickly sell at profit or they went broke. That drove the prices up, which made the almost unlimited American lands, painfully expensive. As it was in 2000, so it was in 1800; the only guarantee of a profit was to be a banker, or to have one as a partner.

It was this reality which faced Governor Meriwether Lewis as he first stepped onto the docks of St. Louis.

Lewis did two things immediately which almost assured he would be a failure as a Governor. First he announced that should he be out of the territory for any reason, then his old comrade William Clark (whom Jefferson had named the Indian Agent for the upper Louisiana Territory) would serve as acting Governor. This made sense to Governor Lewis because he was new to the territory and he knew and could trust Clark. 

But it was also a disaster, because Frederick Bates was the Lieutenant Governor, and had been the acting Governor for almost a year while Lewis had slowly made his way west.  Bates was, officially,  the man who was legally required to be the acting Governor should Lewis be out of the territory. And it was Bates who had already filled the government offices before Lewis arrived, making the power structure loyal to the junior officer.  So naming Clark as acting Governor was an insult Lewis was not required to deliver and probably had not intended upon making.  But from that moment forward Fredrick Bates was Lewis' sworn enemy. He would prove to be an effective opponent - for Frederick Bates was a very good at being an unpleasant man.

As Bates wrote to his brother, “My habits are pacific. Yet I have had acrimonious differences with almost every person with whom (I) have been associated in public business…But before God I cannot acknowledge that I have been blamable in one instance.” And he never would admit it.

A few weeks later, Bates (above) related how he was getting along with Lewis. “Sometime after this there was a ball in St. Louis, I attended early, and was seated in conversation with some gentlemen when the Governor entered. He drew his chair close to mine – there was a pause in the conversation – I availed myself of it – arose and walked to the opposite side of the room...He knew my resolution not to speak to him except on business, and he ought not to have thrust himself in my way.”

And these two men now found themselves in charge of dispensing millions of acres of land to the hundreds of speculators who had flocked to St. Louis to avail themselves of the bounty. And there were natural resources to be exploited, lead and tin mines just discovered beneath the rolling Louisiana territory (below). With that much profit to be made, such a pair of offended egos did not portend a profitable future for any one not skilled at bureaucratic infighting. such as Meriwether Lewis.

                                      - 30 -  

AMERICAN MURDER Part Six

 

I would call him a prime example of the past being prologue. Timothy Pickering (above) was a hot headed right-wing nut the President had been forced to include in his cabinet to appease the ultra-conservatives who threatened to tear his administration apart. In this case the President was George Washington and the appeasement was part of the Federalists “New England” strategy. 

When the Federal capital moved from New York to Philadelphia in 1791 (above), Pickering was tapped to run the Post Office. During Washington's second term, from January to December 1795, Pickering was appointed the Secretary of War. 

Then he became Secretary of State, a post he held into the next administration,  until May of 1800 when President John Adams fired him because Pickering was in favor of declaring war against France.

This was the namesake of  Fort Pickering.  And it was appropriate that “his” fort, standing on the bluffs (above) above the Mississippi River, was half military establishment and half private enterprise, which sold and distributed goods to the Chickasaw Indian nation. They called this hybrid a “factor”.  Captain Meriwether Lewis had commanded this post for awhile back in the 1790's, and now as Governor for Northern Louisiana Territory, Lewis was back. But this was a far from triumphal return. He had to be carried into the post on a stretcher.

The fort stood back from the Mississippi River, atop the fourth of the Chickasaw bluffs, in the midst of what is today Memphis, Tennessee. It was not a prime landing spot, but at least it had fewer mosquitoes than New Madrid,  and once there Lewis began to improve quickly.  The day after his arrival, on Saturday 16 September 1809, Lewis wrote to President James Madison that “I arrived here yesterday...very much exhausted from the heat...but having taken medicine, feel much better this morning.”

The medicine he had been taking was a combination of opium and alcohol, known as laudanum. It was highly addictive and the Governor was probably on the roller coaster of highs and lows. Probably on one of his highs he wrote to President Madison that he was not continuing down the Mississippi as planned, but rather would be coming overland via the Natchez Trace. 

Then Lewis mentioned his real reason for all this effort. “I bring with me”, he wrote, “duplicates of my vouchers for public expenditures... which when fully explained...will receive both sanction and approbation and sanction.” As a final needling point, Lewis included in his letter those territorial laws he had translated into French, and the rejection letter refusing to pay him $12 for his effort , which had inspired this horrendous journey.

Lt. Gilbert Russel, the commander of Fort Pickering, had ordered the post medic to prevent Governor Lewis from drinking anymore laudanum. Under this regimen, wrote Lt. Russel, “...all symptoms of derangement disappeared and he was completely in his senses...”. Within a week the Governor was ready and eager to continue his journey. But Lt. Russel thought he ought to accompany him. 

Russel's accounts had also been questioned by the bureaucrats in the War Department, and Russel was awaiting permission from his boss, Major General Wilkerson, Governor of Lower Louisiana Territory, to also return to Washington so he also could have it out with those annoying bean counters.  In fact, I suspect, that it was Russel who convinced Governor Lewis to change his travel plans and proceed overland. It would be far more effective for both of these men to make their appeals together, and safer for Governor Lewis if he had someone to watch his laudanum consumption during the trip back.

However, almost two weeks went by, and still there was no release from General Wilkerson. Lewis was anxious to get moving and. Lewis likely also suspected Russel's connections with Wilkinson. But just when it seemed as if Russel would have to send the Governor off into the wilderness alone, a seeming savior arrived at Fort Pickering; James Neelly; agent to the Chickasaw Indians, and an ex-army major.

Neelly was supposed to be a delivering a white prisoner to be shipped down to New Orleans for trial. He had brought the man from his post at the Chickasaw Nation, some 100 miles south-south east of Fort Pickering. And by what seemed at the time to be a happy coincidence, Neelly now had urgent business in Franklin, Tennessee, just 20 miles south west of Nashville - Governor Lewis' intermediate destination. Perhaps Neelly could accompany Lewis and watch over him. But there was a catch, of course.

Neely was not good material for a guardian angel. He was an alcoholic and the worst kind of gambler, which is say an inveterate one. He gambled on cards, horse races and he was also, of course a land speculator.  And like most gamblers, he usually lost. His gambling had put him in debt to just about everybody he knew, even his boss, Major General James Wilkerson. Just the month before he had asked the penny pinching Secretary of War, William Eustis, for a loan. Good luck with that. But if James thought he might put “the touch” on Governor Lewis, he was quickly dissuaded.  Lewis was also a land speculator, and also broke.

On Wednesday, 27 September 1809,  Lt. Russel signed the paperwork loaning Lewis two of the fort's horses and a saddle, and gave him a personal check for $100. In return Governor Meriwether Lewis signed an IOU for $379.58. This trip, undertaken to settle his financial problems, was putting Lewis deeper in debt.

Before dawn, two days later, Governor Lewis and James Neelly, along with their servants, an Indian interpreter and a few Chickasaws, left the fort by horseback. Three days later, on 3 October,  they reached Big Town. It was not much smaller than St. Louis, with 1,000 residents living in 300 log cabins, interspaced with fields of corn, rice, tobacco and cotton.  

The fields were worked by African American slaves, something the Chickasaws had in common with the European Americans, along with their Christian religion. But these conversions would not protect the "savages" from the soulless greed of President Andrew Jackson who in a generation would steal their land and force march these Christians onto the deadly "Trail of Tears".

In Big Town Lewis and Neeley picked up the Natchez Trace, the “Devils Backbone” well worn rail which 0wound north-eastward through the dark and ominous forest to Meriwether Lewis' final destination.

- 30 -