CHAPTER XIV.
Conclusion.
Colonel Boone Appeals to Congress—Complimentary Resolutions of the Legislature of Kentucky.—Death of Mrs. Boone.—Catholic Liberality.—Itinerant Preachers.—Grant by Congress to Colonel Boone.—The Evening of his Days.—Personal Appearance.—Death and Burial.—Transference of the Remains of Mr. and Mrs. Boone to Frankfort, Kentucky.
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 assuming 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 passed:
"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 circumstances 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 passed by cession into the hands of the General Government; therefore
"Resolved by the General Assembly 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 quantity in such place as shall be deemed most advisable by way of donation."