Scouting with Daniel Boone Part 34

Another writer has left the following:

"He (Boone) has left behind him a name strongly written in the annals of Kentucky, and a reputation for calm courage softened by humanity, conducted by prudence, and embellished by a singular modesty of deportment. His person was rough, robust, and indicating strength rather than activity; his manner was cold, grave, and taciturn; his countenance homely but kind; his conversation unadorned, un.o.btrusive, and touching only upon the needful. He never spoke of himself unless particularly questioned."

As the years pa.s.sed he showed more and more the spirit which has been described by one of his admirers in the following words:

"There never beat in man a kindlier or more philanthropic heart.

While he was a stranger to selfish and sordid impressions he was alike above mean actions; and he lived and toiled for others, amid hards.h.i.+ps and sufferings that would have crushed thousands of hearts."

The simple-hearted scout, shrewd in his dealing with the Indians, was honest and straightforward with the men of his own race, and looked for similar treatment from them. One can therefore imagine his surprise and indignation when he was informed that he had no legal right to an acre of the land which he had discovered, and into which he had led many families that already were sharing in the steadily increasing prosperity. The clearing he had made, the acres he had cultivated, he was informed, were not his property now, but belonged to a man _who had signed certain papers_!

Boone intensely loved Kentucky. Its rocks and trees, its rivers, its forests, its very soil, were dear to his heart. In Kentucky he had experienced his deepest sorrows and many of his highest joys. Perplexed as well as disheartened, the great scout departed from the settlement which in a large measure was his own work. He was homeless in a land in which he had helped so many to secure homes for themselves.

Deep as was Boone's sorrow, he was, as we know, a man whose feeling did not find expression in useless words. Quietly he returned to the banks of the Delaware where he had been born, and then went on to Virginia. On the borders of the great Kanawha he dwelt for five years in the woods with his dogs and gun.

Meanwhile his son and a brother had gone out into the remote and almost unknown land beyond the Mississippi River. Their reports and appeals were so strong, that at last, when the great scout was sixty years of age, once more accompanied by his faithful wife, he journeyed away from civilization and went to join his sons in the faraway wilderness.

The name of the great scout was so well-known and his character was so much admired that the Spanish Governor at once made him a present of eighty-five hundred acres of land in what is now the State of Missouri.

Here the great scout in a measure renewed the experiences of his early life. By working steadily and saving the money which he received from his crops and his furs he acquired a considerable sum. He then returned to Kentucky and looked up every man to whom he owed any money through the loss that had come to him by his inability to retain his land in the region he had loved. It was not long, however, before "he went back to Missouri, his heart lighter and also his pocketbook."

When the scout was seventy-five years of age, he still was a great hunter. Friendly with the Indians in the region, he paddled in his light canoe over the creeks and the little streams in the new territory, and it is said that even along the banks of the great Missouri River he set many of his traps for the beaver.

As long as the Spanish and French were in control of the Missouri country, Boone continued to hold his land safely; but when Napoleon sold the vast territory to the United States Boone once more suffered a heavy loss, for his own government refused to recognize his claim to any part of the region. It seemed almost as if the closing days of the great scout were to end in darkness.

Through his friends, Daniel Boone now appealed to the legislature of Kentucky to see that justice was done him. Eager to recognize the services of the man who had done so much for their state, the legislature urged Congress to do justice to the white-haired old scout.

After some delay the pet.i.tion was granted, and a gift of eight hundred and fifty acres of land was voted Daniel Boone.

It was in December, 1813, when Daniel Boone received word of this gift, but his relief and pleasure were lessened by the death of his wife.

Selecting a choice spot that overlooked the river for her grave, the old scout said that when he, too, should die he wished to be buried by her side.

Seven years later, when he was eighty-five years old, this last request of Daniel Boone was granted.

Missouri, however, was not to be the final resting-place of the famous old scout and his wife. A quarter of a century later the legislature of Kentucky requested the children of Boone to permit the people of the state for which he had done so much to bring the bodies of the great scout and his wife to Frankfort, Kentucky.

To-day, on a beautiful site overlooking the banks of the Kentucky River, looking down upon the city of Frankfort, a fitting monument marks the place where all that is mortal of Daniel Boone lies resting.

THE END