Colonel Boone having lost all his property, sent in a memorial, by the advice of his friends, to the Legislature of Kentucky, and also another to Congress. Kentucky was now a wealthy and populous State, and was not at all indisposed to recognise the invaluable services she had received from Colonel Boone. In allusion to these services Governor Moorehead said:
"It is not a.s.suming too much to declare, that without Colonel Boone, in all probability the settlements could not have been upheld; and the conquest of Kentucky might have been reserved for the emigrants of the nineteenth century."
What obstacle stood in the way of a liberal grant of land by the Kentucky Legislature we do not know. We simply know that by a unanimous vote of that body, the following preamble and resolution were pa.s.sed:
"The Legislature of Kentucky, taking into view the many eminent services rendered by Colonel Boone, in exploring and settling the western country, from which great advantages have resulted, not only to this State, but to this country in general, and that from circ.u.mstances over which he had no control, he is now reduced to poverty; not having, so far as appears, an acre of land out of the vast territory he has been a great instrument in peopling; believing also that it is as unjust as it is impolitic, that useful enterprise and eminent services should go unrewarded by a Government where merit confers the only distinction; and having sufficient reason to believe that a grant of ten thousand acres of land, which he claims in Upper Louisiana, would have been confirmed by the Spanish Government, had not said territory pa.s.sed by cession into the hands of the General Government; therefore
"Resolved by the General a.s.sembly of the Commonwealth of Kentucky: That our Senators in Congress be requested to make use of their exertions to procure a grant of land in said territory to said Boone, either the ten thousand acres to which he appears to have an equitable claim, from the grounds set forth to this Legislature, by way of confirmation, or to such quant.i.ty in such place as shall be deemed most advisable by way of donation."
While this question was pending before Congress, Colonel Boone met with the heaviest grief he had thus far encountered on his stormy pilgrimage.
In the month of March, 1813, his wife, whom he tenderly loved, died at the age of seventy-six. She had been one of the best of wives and mothers, seeking in all things to conform to the wishes of her husband, and aid him in his plans. She was a devoted wife and a loving mother.
Colonel Boone selected upon the summit of a ridge the place for her burial, and marked out the spot for his own grave by her side.
We have no means of knowing what were the religious views which sustained Mrs. Boone in her dying hour. Her life was pa.s.sed in the discharge of the humble duties of a home in the wilderness, and she had no biographer. But we do know that the religion of Jesus had penetrated many of these remote cabins, and had enn.o.bled the lives of many of these hardy pioneers.
Under the Spanish Government, the Roman Catholic Religion was the established religion of the province, and none other was openly tolerated. Still, the authorities were so anxious to encourage emigration from the United States, that they avoided any rigorous enforcement of the law. Each emigrant was required to be "a good Catholic," _un bon Catholique_. But by connivance of the authorities, only a few general questions were asked, such as:
"Do you believe in Almighty G.o.d? in the Holy Trinity? in the true Apostolic Church? in Jesus Christ our Saviour? in the Holy Evangelists?"
The ceremony was closed by the declaration that the applicant was _un bon Catholique_. Thus many Protestant families entered the Spanish territory, and remained undisturbed in their religious principles.
Protestant clergymen crossed over the Mississippi river and, unmolested, preached the gospel in the log cabins of the settlers. The Catholic priests received their salaries from the Spanish crown, and no taxes for religion were imposed.
The Reverend John Clark, a very zealous Christian minister, made monthly excursions to the Spanish territory. The commandant at St. Louis, Mr.
Trudeau, would take no notice of his presence till the time when he knew that Mr. Clark was about to leave. Then he would send a threatening message ordering him to leave within three days. One of the emigrants, Mr. Murich, of the Baptist persuasion, who knew the commandant very well, pet.i.tioned for permission to hold religious meetings at his house and to have Mr. Clark preach. Mr. Trudeau replied:
"You must not put a bill upon your house, or call it a church. But if any of your friends choose to meet at your house, sing, pray, and talk about religion, you will not be molested provided you continue, as I suppose you are, _un bon Catholique_."
Thus, in reality, there was scarcely any restraint in those remote regions, even under the Spanish regime, imposed upon religious freedom.
Christian songs, the penitential and the triumphant, often ascended, blended with prayers and praises from these lonely and lowly homes in the wilderness. Thus characters were formed for heaven, and life was enn.o.bled, and often far more of true n.o.bility of soul and more real and satisfying enjoyment were found in those log huts, illumined only by the blaze of the pitch pine knot, than Louis XIV. and his courtiers ever experienced amidst the splendors and the luxuries of Versailles and of Marly.
We do not know that Colonel Boone ever made a public profession of his faith in Christ, though somewhere we have seen it stated that he died an honored member of the Methodist Church. It is certain that the religious element predominated in his nature. He was a thoughtful, serious, devout, good man. He walked faithfully in accordance with the light and the privileges which were conferred upon him in his singularly adventurous life.
Colonel Boone was seventy-nine years of age when Congress conferred upon him a grant of eight hundred and fifty acres of land. He had never repined at his lot, had never wasted his breath in unavailing murmurs.
He contentedly took life as it came, and was ever serene and cheerful.
But this grant of land, though it came so late, greatly cheered him. He was no longer dependent upon others. He had property rapidly increasing in value to leave to the children and the grand-children he so tenderly loved. His aged limbs would no longer allow him to expose himself to the vicissitudes of hunting, and he took up his abode with one of his sons, enjoying, perhaps, as serene and happy an old age as ever fell to the lot of mortals. His conversation often gathered charmed listeners around him, for he had a very retentive memory, and his mind was crowded with the incidents of his romantic career. It is said that at this period of his life an irritable expression never escaped his lips. His grand-children vied with each other in affectionate attentions to one whom they ardently loved, and of whose celebrity they were justly proud.
Colonel Galloway, the gentleman whose two daughters were captured, with one of the daughters of Colonel Boone, in a boat by the Indians, which event our readers will recall to mind, visited Colonel Boone in Missouri about this time. He gives a very pleasing description of the gentle and genial old man, as he then found him.
His personal appearance was venerable and attractive, very neatly clad in garments spun, woven, and made in the cabin. His own room consisted of a cabin by itself, and was in perfect order. "His countenance was pleasant, calm, and fair, his forehead high and bold, and the soft silver of his hair in unison with his length of days. He spoke feelingly and with solemnity of being a creature of Providence, ordained by heaven as a pioneer in the wilderness to advance the civilization and the extension of his country. He professed the belief that the Almighty had a.s.signed to him a work to perform, and that he had only followed the pathway of duty in the work he had pursued; that he had discharged his duty to G.o.d and his country by following the direction of Providence."
His stormy day of life had pa.s.sed away into an evening of unusual beauty and serenity.
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 a.s.sembled at his burial. The Legislature of Missouri, which chanced then to be in session, adjourned for one day, in respect for his memory, and pa.s.sed 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 ill.u.s.trious 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 ill.u.s.trious 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, p.r.o.nounced 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._