Boone's reason for again moving west
During the Revolutionary War other brave men came as pioneers into Kentucky, and built forts, and defended their settlements against the Indians. As the settlements grew thicker, game grew scarcer. Boone resolved once more to move farther west. When asked why, he replied: "Too much crowded. I want more elbow room."
Moves to Missouri
At the age of sixty, while Washington was still president, and after he had seen Kentucky become a state, Daniel Boone and his faithful wife made the long journey to the region beyond the Mississippi, into what is now Missouri. There he lived and hunted. He saw this region pass from Spain to France, and from France to the United States (1803). He was still a hunter at eighty-two, and saw Missouri preparing to enter the Union as the twenty-fourth state.
Died in 1820
He died in 1820 at the age of eighty-six. Years afterward, remembering the noble deeds of the great pioneer, Kentucky brought his body to the capital city and buried it with great honors.
The Louisiana country and the French
108. Life in the Mississippi Valley. When Boone led his brave men into Kentucky, white men had been living for years in the Mississippi Valley, farther west. These were the French of Louisiana, as they called their country. Their chief settlement was St. Louis.
These people came at first to dig lead from the old Indian mines of southern Missouri and to trade for furs. They were a quiet people who knew little and cared less about the rest of the world. They did not work hard, and they loved good times. A traveler who visited them says they were "the happiest people on the globe."