The First White Man of the West Part 11

CHAPTER XVI.

Progress of improvement in Missouri--Old age of Boone--Death of his wife--He goes to reside with his son--His death--His personal appearance and character.

Soon after the purchase of Missouri from the French by our government, the American system of government began to be introduced there. American laws, American courts, and the whole American system of politics and jurisprudence spread over the country, changing, by degrees, the features of civil society; infusing life and vigor into the body politic, and introducing that restless spirit of speculation and improvement which characterise the people of the United States. The tide of emigration once more swept by the dwelling of Daniel Boone, driving off the game and monopolizing the rich hunting grounds. His office of commandant was merged and lost in the new order of things. He saw that it was in vain to contend with fate; that go where he would, American enterprize seemed doomed to follow him, and to thwart all his schemes of backwoods retirement. He found himself once more surrounded by the rapid march of improvement, and he accommodated himself, as well as he might, to a state of things which he could not prevent. He had the satisfaction of seeing his children well settled around him, and he spent his time in hunting and exploring the new country.

Meantime, old age began to creep upon him by degrees, and he had the mortification to find himself surpa.s.sed in his own favorite pursuit. The _sharp shooters_, and younger hunters could scour the forests with fleeter pace, and bring down the bears and buffaloes with surer aim, than his time-worn frame, and impaired vision would allow. Even the French, with their fleets of periogues, ascended the Missouri to points where his stiffened sinews did not permit him to follow. These volatile and babbling hunters, with their little, and to him despicable shot guns, could bring down a turkey, where the rifle bullet, now directed by his dimmed eye, could not reach. It was in vain that the sights were made more conspicuous by shreds of white paper. No vigor of will can repair the irresistible influence of age. And however the heart and juvenile remembrances of Boone might follow these brisk and talkative hunters to the Rocky mountains and the Western sea, the sad consciousness that years were stronger than the subduer of bears and Indians, came over his mind like a cloud.

Other sorrows came also with age. In March, 1813, he had the misfortune to lose his wife. She had been to him a faithful companion--partic.i.p.ating the same heroic and generous nature with himself. She had followed him from North Carolina into the far wilderness, without a road or even a trace to guide their way--surrounded at every step by wild beasts and savages, and was one of the first white women in the state of Kentucky.

She had united her fate to his, and in all his hards.h.i.+ps, perils, and trials, had stood by him, a meek, yet courageous and affectionate friend. She was now taken from him in his old age, and he felt for a time, that he was alone in the world, and that the princ.i.p.al tie to his own existence was sundered.

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 subst.i.tutes 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 companions.h.i.+p 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 wors.h.i.+pped, 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 G.o.d 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, n.o.ble, 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 Was.h.i.+ngton, the painting of him ordered by the General a.s.sembly of Missouri, and the engravings of him in general, have--his family being judges--very little resemblance. They want the high port and n.o.ble 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 pa.s.ses 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:

And what is stranger, left behind a name, For which men vainly decimate the throng; Not only famous, but of that good fame, Without which glory's but a tavern song; Simple, serene, the antipodes of shame, Which hate or envy e'er could tinge with wrong; An active hermit; even in age the child Of nature, or the Man of Ross run wild.

'Tis true, he shrank from men even of his nation, When they built up unto his darling trees; He mov'd some hundred miles off, for a station, Where there were fewer houses and more ease.

The inconvenience of civilization Is, that you neither can be pleased, nor please.

But where he met the individual man, He showed himself as kind as mortal can.

He was not all alone; around him grew A sylvan tribe of children of the chase, Whose young unwaken'd world was always new; Nor sword, nor sorrow, yet had left a trace On her unwrinkled brow, nor could you A frown on nature's, or on human face.

The free-born forest found, and kept them free, And fresh as is a torrent or a tree.

And tall, and strong, and swift of foot were they, Beyond the dwarfing city's pale abortions; Because their thoughts had never been the prey Of care or gain; the green woods were their portions No sinking spirits told them they grew gray, No fas.h.i.+on made them apes of her distortions.

Simple they were; not savage; and their rifles, Though very true, were not yet used for trifles.

Motion was in their days; rest in their slumbers; And cheerfulness, the handmaid of their toil; Nor yet too many, nor too few their numbers; Corruption could not make their hearts her soil The l.u.s.t, which stings; the splendor which enc.u.mbers, With the free foresters divide no spoil.

Serene, not sullen, were the solitudes Of this unsighing people of the woods

THE END.