Daniel Boone: The Pioneer of Kentucky
Still he was continually busy, engaged in innumerable acts of kindness
for his neighbors and his friends. He could repair rifles, make and
carve powder horns of great beauty, and could fashion moccasins and
snowshoes of the most approved patterns. His love for the solitude of
the wilderness, and for the excitement of the hunter's life, continued
unabated to the last. He loved to cut tender slices of venison, and to
toast them upon the end of his ramrod over the glaring coals of his
cabin fire, finding in that repast a treat more delicious than any
gourmand ever yet experienced in the viands of the most costly
restaurants of the Palais Royal, or the Boulevard.
Upon one occasion he could not resist the impulse of again going
hunting, though in the eighty-second year of his age. Exacting from his
friends the promise that should he die, his remains should be brought
back and buried by the side of those of his wife, he took a boy with him
and went to the mouth of the Kansas River, where he remained two weeks.
Returning from this, his last expedition, he visited his youngest son,
Major Nathan Boone, who had reared a comfortable stone house in that
remote region, to which emigrants were now rapidly moving. Here he died
after an illness of but three days, on the 26th day of September, 1820.
He was then eighty-six years of age.
Soon after the death of his wife, Colonel Boone made his own coffin,
which he kept under his bed awaiting the day of his burial. In this
coffin he was buried by the side of his wife. Missouri, though very
different from the Missouri of the present day, was no longer an
unpeopled wilderness. The Indians had retired; thousands of emigrants
had flocked to its fertile plains, and many thriving settlements had
sprung up along the banks of its magnificent streams. The great respect
with which Colonel Boone was regarded by his fellow-citizens, was
manifest in the large numbers who were assembled at his burial. The
Legislature of Missouri, which chanced then to be in session, adjourned
for one day, in respect for his memory, and passed a resolve that all
the members should wear a badge of mourning for twenty days. This was
the first Legislature of the new State.
Colonel Boone was the father of nine children, five sons and four
daughters. His two eldest sons were killed by the Indians. His third
son, Daniel Morgan Boone, had preceded his father in his emigration to
the Upper Louisiana, as it was then called, and had taken up his
residence in the Femme Osage settlement. He became a man of influence
and comparative wealth, and attained the advanced age of fourscore.
Jesse, the fourth son, also emigrated to Upper Louisiana about the year
1806, where he died a few years after. The youngest son, Nathan, whose
privilege it was to close his father's eyes in death, had found a home
beyond the Mississippi; he became a man of considerable note, and
received the commission of Captain in the United States Dragoons. The
daughters, three of whom married, lived and died in Kentucky.
In the meantime Kentucky, which Boone had found a pathless wilderness,
the hunting ground of Indians who were scarcely less wild and savage
than the beasts they pursued in the chase, was rapidly becoming one of
the most populous, wealthy and prosperous States in the Union. Upon the
eastern bank of the Kentucky River, the beautiful city of Frankfort had
risen surrounded by remarkably romantic and splendid scenery. It had
become the capital of the State, and was situated about sixty miles from
the entrance of the Kentucky into the Ohio River. Many of the houses
were tastefully built of brick or of marble, and the place was noted for
its polished, intelligent, and hospitable society.
It was but a few miles above Frankfort upon this same river that Colonel
Boone had reared the log fort of Boonesborough, when scarcely a white
man could be found west of the Alleghanies. In the year 1845, the
citizens of Frankfort, having, in accordance with the refinements of
modern tastes, prepared a beautiful rural cemetery in the suburbs of
their town, resolved to consecrate it by the interment of the remains of
Daniel Boone and his wife. The Legislature, appreciating the immense
obligations of the State to the illustrious pioneer, co-operated with
the citizens of Frankfort in this movement. For twenty-five years the
remains of Col. Boone and his wife had been mouldering in the grave upon
the banks of the Missouri.
"There seemed," said one of the writers of that day, "to be a peculiar
propriety in this testimonial of the veneration borne by the
Commonwealth for the memory of its illustrious dead. And it was fitting
that the soil of Kentucky should afford the final resting place for his
remains, whose blood in life had been so often shed to protect it from
the fury of savage hostility. It was the beautiful and touching
manifestation of filial affection shown by children to the memory of a
beloved parent; and it was right that the generation which was reaping
the fruits of his toils and dangers should desire to have in their midst
and decorate with the tokens of their love, the sepulchre of this
Primeval Patriarch whose stout heart watched by the cradle of this now
powerful Commonwealth."
The honored remains of Daniel Boone and his wife were brought from
Missouri to Frankfort, and the re-interment took place on the 13th of
September, 1845. The funeral ceremonies were very imposing. Colonel
Richard M. Johnson, who had been Vice-President of the United States,
and others of the most distinguished citizens of Kentucky, officiated as
pall-bearers. The two coffins were garlanded with flowers, and an
immense procession followed them to their final resting place. The Hon.
John J. Crittenden, who was regarded as the most eloquent man in the
State, pronounced the funeral oration. And there beneath an appropriate
monument, the body of Daniel Boone now lies, awaiting the summons of
the resurrection trumpet.
"Life's labor done, securely laid
In this his last retreat,
Unheeded o'er his silent dust,
The storms of earth shall beat."
_THE END._
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:
Minor corrections have been made to ensure uniform usage of hyphenation
and abbreviations, and to standardize spelling in the text.