About this time, too, the British war with its influence upon the savage auxiliaries of Britain, extended even to the remote forests of Missouri, which rendered the wandering life of a hunter extremely dangerous. He was no longer able to make one of the rangers who pursued the Indians. But he sent numerous substitutes in his children and neighbors.
After the death of his wife, he went to reside with his son Major Nathan Boone, and continued to make his home there until his death. After the peace he occupied himself in hunting, trapping, and exploring the country—being absent sometimes two or three months at a time—solacing his aged ear with the music of his young days—the howl of the nocturnal wolf—and the war song of the prowling savages, heard far away from the companionship of man.
When the writer lived in St. Charles, in 1816, Colonel Boone, with the return of peace, had resumed his Kentucky habits. He resided, as has been observed, with his son on the Missouri—surrounded by the plantations of his children and connections—occasionally farming, and still felling the trees for his winter fire into his door yard; and every autumn, retiring to the remote and moon-illumined cities of the beavers, for the trapping of which, age had taken away none of his capabilities. He could still, by the aid of paper on his rifle sights, bring down an occasional turkey; at the salt licks, he still waylaid the deer; and he found and cut down bee-trees as readily as in his morning days. Never was old age more green, or gray hairs more graceful. His high, calm, bold forehead seemed converted by years, into iron. Decay came to him without infirmity, palsy, or pain—and surrounded and cherished by kind friends, he died as he had lived, composed and tranquil. This event took place in the year 1818, and in the eighty-fourth year of his age.
Frequent enquiries, and opposite statements have been made, in regard to the religious tenets of the Kentucky hunter. It is due to truth to state, that Boone, little addicted to books, knew but little of the bible, the best of all. He worshipped, as he often said, the Great Spirit—for the woods were his books and his temple; and the creed of the red men naturally became his. But such were the truth, simplicity, and kindness of his character, there can be but little doubt, had the gospel of the Son of God been proposed to him, in its sublime truth and reasonableness, that he would have added to all his other virtues, the higher name of Christian.
He was five feet ten inches in height, of a very erect, clean limbed, and athletic form—admirably fitted in structure, muscle, temperament, and habit, for the endurance of the labors, changes, and sufferings he underwent. He had what phrenologists would have considered a model head—with a forehead peculiarly high, noble, and bold—thin and compressed lips—a mild, clear, blue eye—a large and prominent chin, and a general expression of countenance in which fearlessness and courage sat enthroned, and which told the beholder at a glance, what he had been, and was formed to be.
We have only to add, that the bust of Boone, in Washington, the painting of him ordered by the General Assembly of Missouri, and the engravings of him in general, have—his family being judges—very little resemblance. They want the high port and noble daring of his countenance.
Though ungratefully requited by his country, he has left a name identified with the history of Kentucky, and with the founders and benefactors of our great republic. In all future time, and in every portion of the globe; in history, in sculpture, in song, in eloquence—the name of Daniel Boone will be recorded as the patriarch of Backwoods Pioneers.
His name has already been celebrated by more than one poet. He is the hero of a poem called the "MOUNTAIN MUSE," by our amiable countryman, Bryan. He is supposed to be the original from which the inimitable characters of LEATHER STOCKING, HAWKEYE, and the TRAPPER of the PRAIRIES, in Cooper's novels, were drawn; and we will close these memoirs, with the splendid tribute to the patriarch of backwoodsmen, by the prince of modern poets, Lord Byron.
Of all men, saving Sylla, the man-slayer,
Who passes for in life and death most lucky,
Of the great names which in our faces stare,
The General Boone, backwoodsman of Kentucky,
Was happiest among mortals any where,
For killing nothing, but a bear or buck; he
Enjoy'd the lonely, vigorous, harmless days
Of his old age, in wilds of deepest maze.
Crime came not near him; she is not the child
Of solitude; health shrank not from him, for
Her home is in the rarely trodden wild,
Which, if men seek her not, and death be more
Their choice than life, forgive them, as beguil'd
By habit to what their own hearts abhor—
In cities cag'd. The present case in point I
Cite is, Boone liv'd hunting up to ninety: