Arkansas Cemeteries - Meriwether Lewis Randolph Gravesite, Clark County, Arkansas

Arkansas Cemeteries

MERIWETHER LEWIS RANDOLPH GRAVESITE

Clark County, Arkansas

Submitted June 7, 2006, by Don & Shirley Cagle

Meriwether Lewis Randolph was born in 1810 at Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's home in Albermarle County, Va. He was named by his grandfather, Thomas Jefferson, for Meriwether Lewis, President Jefferson's private secretary and an explorer of the Louisiana Territory. Meriwether's parents were Thomas Mann and Martha Jefferson Randolph. Thomas Mann Randolph was a Colonel during the War of 1812 and was governor of Virginia.

On March 7, 1835, Meriwether was appointed Secretary of the Territory of Arkansas. On March 9, 1835 Meriwether married Elizabeth Martin at her home in Tennessee. They had one son whose name was Lewis Jackson Randolph.

Randolph purchased more than 6000 acres of land in South Clark County between Terre Noire Creek and the Little Missouri River and this was the Randolph homesite.

Arkansas was granted admission as a state on July 4, 1836. Randolph served as Secretary of the Territory until September 13, 1836.

Randolph moved his wife and son to their home in Clark County in November and became a farmer. He also purchased 4000 more acres including Whetstone Mt. and a salt lick in south Clark County.

In September 1837, Meriwether went to Camden to get his winter supplies, a trip that took two weeks. It rained on his way home, and when he reached home he had a fever. Randolph was ill with malignant malaria and died on September 24, 1837, four months before his 28th birthday. He is buried on a small mound near the log house he had built on his land. Elizabeth returned to Tennessee after Meriwether's death.

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