I am posting a link to the transcript of the 1850 report, which I entered into a Microsoft Word document. I copied the text from a print out of the original typed document found in the Meriwether Lewis Memorial Association Papers, 1880-1931. The microfilm is at the Tennessee State Archives, collection #93-001, microfilm # 1374.

Around 1847 there began an effort to erect a proper monument over the grave of poor Meriwether Lewis, who had been buried in a grave at the wayside inn called Griner’s Stand where he met his mysterious death on October 11, 1809. After he was buried, there wasn’t even a fence placed around his grave to keep his remains safe. Lewis’s good friend the ornithologist Alexander Wilson visited the gravesite in May of 1810 and paid Robert Griner to put up a rail fence around it. There matters stood until the monument was erected in 1848.

The monument committee reported to the legislature of Tennessee in this 1850 report. They stated they had dug up the remains of Meriwether Lewis and examined his “upper torso,” establishing conclusively that this was the grave of Governor Lewis. 

Later in the report they state:  “The impression has long prevailed that under the influence of disease and body—of hopes based upon long and valuable services—not merely deferred, but wholly disappointed—Governor Lewis perished by his own hands. It seems to be more probable that he died by the hands of an assassin.”

It was always said in Tennessee that Meriwether Lewis was murdered. It was said that a local coroner’s jury met in 1809 and felt that Robert Griner had participated in his murder, but they were afraid to charge him. This report has been lost.

The report of the 1847 grave exhumation has also been lost, but this official report to the state legislature directly implies that they found enough evidence to believe that he “died at the hands of an assassin.”