Daniel Boone: The Pioneer of Kentucky

by John S. C. Abbott

"Now I am ready and willing to die. I am relieved from a burden which has long oppressed me. I have paid all my debts, and no one will say when I am gone, 'Boone was a dishonest man.' I am perfectly willing to die."

In the year 1803, the territory west of the Mississippi came into the possession of the United States. The whole region, embracing what is now Missouri, was then called the territory of Louisiana. Soon after this a commission was appointed, consisting of three able and impartial men, to investigate the validity of the claims to land granted by the action of the Spanish Government. Again poor Boone was caught in the meshes of the law. It was found that he had not occupied the land which had been granted him, that he had not gone to New Orleans to perfect his title, and that his claim was utterly worthless.

"Poor Boone! Seventy-four years old, and the second grasp you have made upon the West has been powerless. You have risked life, and lost the life next dearest your own for the West. In all its fearful forms, death has looked you in the face, and you have moved on to conquer the soil which you did but conquer, that it might be denied to you. You have been the architect of the prosperity of others, but your own crumbles each time as you are about to occupy it. When he lost his farm in Boonesborough, he did not linger around in complainings, but went quietly away, returning only to fulfil the obligations he had incurred. And now this last decision came, even at old age, to leave Daniel Boone, the Pioneer of the West, unable to give a title deed to a solitary acre."[G]

The fur trade was at this time very lucrative. Many who were engaged in it accumulated large fortunes. It was in this traffic that John Jacob Astor laid the foundations of his immense wealth. A guide of Major Long stated that he purchased of an Indian one hundred and twenty beaver skins for two blankets, two gallons of rum, and a pocket mirror. The skins he took to Montreal, where he sold them for over four hundred dollars.

In the employment of the fur companies the trappers are of two kinds, called the "hired hand," and the "free trapper." The former is employed by the month, receiving regular wages, and bringing in all the furs which he can obtain. Be they more or less, he receives his stipulated monthly wages. The free trapper is supplied by the company with traps and certain other conveniences with which he plunges into the forest on his own hook, engaging however to sell to the company, at a stipulated price, whatever furs he may secure.

The outfit of the trapper as he penetrated the vast and trackless region of gloomy forests, treeless prairies, and solitary rivers, spreading everywhere around him, generally consisted of two or three horses, one for the saddle and the others for packs containing his equipment of traps, ammunition, blankets, cooking utensils, etc., in preparation for passing lonely months in the far away solitudes. He would endeavor to find, if possible, a region which neither the white man nor the Indian had ever visited.

The dress of the hunter consisted of a strong shirt of well-dressed and pliant buckskin, ornamented with long fringes. The vanity of dress, if it may be so called, followed him into regions where no eye but his own could see its beauties. His pantaloons were also made of buckskin decorated with variously-colored porcupine quills and with long fringes down the outside of the leg. Moccasins, often quite gorgeously embroidered, fitted closely to his feet. A very flexible hat or cap covered his head, generally of felt, obtained from some Indian trader. There was suspended over his left shoulder, so as to hang beneath his right arm, a powder horn and bullet pouch. In the latter he carried balls, flints, steel, and various odds and ends. A long heavy rifle he bore upon his shoulder.

A belt of buckskin buckled tightly around the waist, held a large butcher knife in a sheath of stout buffalo hide, and also a buckskin case containing a whet-stone. A small hatchet or tomahawk was also attached to this belt. Thus rigged and in a new dress the hunter of good proportions presented a very picturesque aspect. With no little pride he exhibited himself at the trading posts, where not only the squaws and the children, but veteran hunters and Indian braves contemplated his person with admiration.