While his memorial was pending in Congress, the wife of Boone died at the age of seventy-six years. His memorial was strongly supported by the most distinguished members from the West, but no action could be secured upon it until the 24th of December, 1813, when the committee on public lands made a report, in which the justice of Boone's claims was admitted, and Congress was recommended to give him one thousand arpents, or 850 acres of land.
The act for the confirmation of the title passed on the 10th of February, 1814. As every emigrant to Louisiana was entitled by law to precisely that number of acres, it is difficult to justify the treatment which Boone received at the hands of the law-makers of the country.
The pioneer was never given any other recognition of his services; and as he was growing old, his relatives, all of whom were tenderly attached to him, saw that no want of his was not fulfilled so far as it was possible for human kindness to fulfill it. He devoted himself mainly to hunting, and, when at home, carved powder-horns and made trinkets for his descendants, some of whom were to the fourth and fifth generation.
These last he frequently gathered around his knees and told of his many thrilling adventures with the Indians, long years before they were born, while he entertained the older friends on the long, dismal wintry evenings, with his narrative of his experiences on the Dark and Bloody Ground, in the days that tried men's souls.
[CHAPTER XXI.]
Last Days of Colonel Boone—Reinterment of the Remains of Himself and Wife at Frankfort—Conclusion.
The hunting days of Colonel Boone at last came to an end. He had passed his three score and ten, and the iron limbs and hardy frame were compelled to bend before the infirmities of age, to which Hercules himself must succumb in the end.
So long as he was able, he kept up his hunting expeditions in the wood, but on one occasion, he was taken violently ill, and made his preparations for death, his only companion being the negro boy, who had been with him many times before.