Daniel Boone: The Pioneer of Kentucky

by John S. C. Abbott

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 ennobled, and often far more of true nobility 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 assigned 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 God and his country by following the direction of Providence." His stormy day of life had passed 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 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.