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 illustrious 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 illustrious 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, pronounced 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.
FOOTNOTES
[A]Bang's History of Methodism.