# National Intelligencer (Washington), 13 November 1809, p. 3: the Intelligencer's first notice of Lewis's death

CITATION: The National Intelligencer and Washington Advertiser (Washington City, D.C.; Samuel Harrison Smith), Monday 13 November 1809, p. 3, col. 2 (untitled news paragraph, following items on the Maryland House of Delegates and the New Jersey legislature and preceding "COMMERCIALLY IMPORTANT"). Library of Congress, Chronicling America, LCCN sn83045242, batch dlc_forest_ver01, page image 1809111301/0003. This is the Intelligencer's first notice; its fuller notice of 27 Nov. 1809 (extract of a Nashville letter of 18 Oct.) is saved separately as sources/1809-11-27_national_intelligencer.md.
URLs fetched:
  page (JSON/OCR):   https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn83045242/1809-11-13/ed-1/?sp=3&fo=json
  OCR (ALTO XML):    https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/sgp/sgpbatches/batch_dlc_forest_ver01/data/sn83045242/print/1809111301/0003.xml
  page image (IIIF): https://tile.loc.gov/image-services/iiif/service:sgp:sgpbatches:batch_dlc_forest_ver01:data:sn83045242:print:1809111301:0003/info.json (4954 x 7605 px); crop read: .../0003/1007,118,1000,697/full/0/default.jpg
DATE FETCHED: 2026-09-14
TRANSCRIPTION: FACSIMILE-READ (the paragraph was read from the page image; the OCR — which garbled "suicide" as "sui" and "giving" as "giv" — was used only to supply the last one or two letters at the right margin of the crop: "reach", "Lewis,", "sui-cide", "giv-ing", "to", "the", "Grinder,", "Tennessee.", "worth", "unfortu-nate"). Original spelling kept. Pages 2 and 3 of this issue were searched for other mentions of Lewis (none found by OCR); pp. 1 and 4 were not captured.

----- VERBATIM TEXT (National Intelligencer, 13 Nov. 1809, p. 3) -----

So many concurring accounts reach us of the death of Meriwether Lewis, Esq. Governor of Louisiana, by suicide, that we can no longer refuse giving credit to it. His death appears to have taken place on the night of the 10th ult. at the house of Mr. Grinder, near the Indian line in Tennessee. Every one acquainted with his worth will feel a deep regret at this unfortunate event.

----- NOTE -----
The phrase "near the Indian line" is the Nashville Clarion's (20 Oct. 1809; see sources/1809-10-31_kentucky_gazette_reprint_of_clarion_20oct1809.md), which suggests the Intelligencer's "concurring accounts" were the western newspaper reprints. The Intelligencer's 15 Nov. 1809 issue (pp. 2-3) was also captured and contains no further mention of Lewis.