ARTICLE V.

THE GRAVE OF DANIEL BOONE.

During a late tour to Kentucky, opportunity offered to pay a visit to the final resting place of Colonel DANIEL BOONE, who deservedly claims the title of the PIONEER OF THE WEST.

We spent the Sabbath in Frankfort, which, from its seclusion in the deep valley of the Kentucky-a valley surrounded apparently on every side, in consequence of the windings of the river, by high, precipitous bluffs and cliffs -Henry Clay denominated "nature's penitentiary;" and preached twice in the Baptist chapel. In the afternoon, with two or three friends, we accompanied the pastor on a visit to the State penitentiary, in the chapel of which, Elder W., whose turn it was to officiate, discoursed to a large and very attentive auditory on the gospel method of salvation from sin and misery, here and hereafter. A few of his hearers were deeply affected; and, as we learned from the worthy superintendent, who takes a deep interest in their moral welfare, gave evidence of true, evangelical repentance, and confidence in the Saviour of sinners.

The next morning was cool, pleasant and refreshing; and accompanied by one of the trustees of the cemetery, an old friend, we passed in a shady foot-walk, along and up the side of the cliff on the right bluff of the river, now ascending a series of rough stone steps, then turning the obtuse angle of a jutting cliff, for half a mile, until, by a short turn, and ascending a rude stair-way, we found ourselves on an elevated plateau, and standing beside the grave of Daniel Boone-one of Kentucky's oldest and noblest pioneers.

The undulating table land, tastefully laid off and embellished for a rural cemetery, is some four hundred feet above the town of Frankfort, and the valley of the Kentucky river. As an appropriate consecration of the spot,

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and an expression of patriotic feeling, in which Kentuckians delight to indulge, the remains of Colonel Daniel Boone and his wife Rebecca, were brought from Missouri, where they died, and re-interred on this spot, with suitable solemnities, on the 20th of August, 1845.

The life and character of Daniel Boone have been strangely misrepresented by fictitious narratives; and in no respect more than in conveying the impression that he was a moody, unsocial misanthrope, and retreated to the woods as society followed on his trail. Boone had social feelings and attachments to home, notwithstanding his long periods of absence from his family, and solitary ramblings in the wilderness of Kentucky. It was not without object or motive that he spent two years in roaming and hunting in the wilds of the West. He was the confidential agent of Henderson & Company, sent out to explore the country, preparatory to an extensive purchase from the Cherokees, who claimed the country south of the Kentucky river. This fact was unknown to Marshall, Butler, and other authors on Kentucky history. Judge Hall in his "Sketches of the West," incidentally notices the fact, which he gathered from the "Henderson papers;" and the late Judge Haywood, who was well acquainted with the subject, confirms it. Additional evidence is derived from the fact that Boone, after his return, was employed by the Company, and led the first band of settlers, erected the fort of Boonesborough, and removed his family there, and became a partner in the enterprise.

This circumstance removes a difficulty in the life of the old pioneer, hitherto mysterious. That he possessed many estimable qualities is known to the writer from personal acquaintance, and the testimony of many of his associates. That he had some singular notions touching his final resting place, will appear from the following facts, found in his biography. While on a hunting excursion, after his removal to Upper Louisiana, as Missouri was called,along the waters of the Osage river, with a negro boy for a camp keeper, he was taken sick and lay confined in his camp for several days. The pack-horses were hobbled out on the "range." On a pleasant, delightful day, after a period of stormy weather, Boone felt able to walk out.

* Library of American Biography, by Dr. Sparks, vol. xxiii.

With his staff, (for he was quite feeble,) he took the boy to the summit of a knoll, and marked out the ground in shape and size of a grave, and then with great deliberation, gave the following directions, in the event of his decease. He instructed the boy to wash and lay his body straight, wrapped up in one of the cleanest blankets; to construct a kind of wooden shovel, and with that instrument and the hatchet to dig a grave exactly as he had marked out; to drag his body to the place and deposit it in the grave, which he was directed to fill up, placing posts at the head and foot. Poles were to be placed around and over the surface, as is customary in the rude cemeteries of the frontiers; the trees to be marked, so that the place might readily be found by his friends; the horses were to be caught; the blankets, camp equipage, and peltry gathered up; with some special directions about the old rifle. Various messages were to be remembered and reported to the family. All these directions were given, as the boy afterwards reported, with entire calmness, as if he was giving instructions about ordinary business.

Many years before his death, he selected a romantic spot on a ridge near his residence, that, when the intervening forest was cleared away, would overlook a wide expanse of the Missouri river. Here, in 1813, he deposited the remains of his wife-the companion of his pilgrimage for half a century; and gave special directions to his children and friends in reference to his own interment. He had a coffin prepared for the reception of his body, which was kept in the cabin where he resided and lodged for several years.* And when age had enfeebled his once athletic frame, he would employ a companion to accompany him in his hunting excursions, whom he bound by a written contract to take care of him, and should death overtake him in the wilderness, to bring his body to the family burying-place. Do these facts indicate the feelings of a moody, unsocial misanthropist ?

Colonel Boone had left Kentucky in consequence of the

The story told by Mr. Flint, whose "Life of Daniel Boone," is an entertaining fiction, and perpetuated in the National Portrait Gallery, that he was found dead at a salt lick, in the summer of 1818, originated in an Ohio newspaper, and was contradicted at the time in the Missouri Gazette. The writer told the old pioneer a few months after, what the newspapers said about him, who in good humor remarked, "I have told many a big story, but would not have believed that if I had told it myself."

operation of the land laws of that Commonwealth, enacted when it was a part of Virginia, by which he lost every tract of land he had located, from defective titles. The law that prescribed the mode of entering lands was vague and defective, and its administration by the commissioners was more so. Boone loved simple justice, was honest in all his engagements, and thought that all others, including the government, should act towards him on the same principles of natural equity.

"The old hunter employed counsel, attended courts from term to term, and listened to the quibbles of the lawyers; but on account of imperfect entries and legal flaws, he was ejected from the land he had so resolutely defended in the perilous times of savage invasion. After the vigor of life was spent, he found himself not the legal owner or possessor of a single acre of the vast and rich country he had so fully explored."

No wonder he became disgusted with courts, lawyers and land speculators. It was with those feelings, and not from any antipathy to society, that he abjured Kentucky, and sought a home in the country of Upper Louisiana. Knowing as we did the feelings of the old hunter touching his place of sepulture, it was natural to suppose, could the pioneer have sent forth "a voice from the grave," it would have been in the form of a protest against the action of the Legislature of Kentucky in making provision for his removal to the cemetery near Frankfort. But our visit to the grave removed all objections. It is just such a resting place as corresponded with his feelings while living. The plateau specially provided for Boone and his wife, is near the descent of the bluff, twenty-five yards in diameter, surrounded and shaded with sycamore and other forest trees. In the rear, and forming a semicircle, is a row of rough stones intermixed with dry cedar stumps; the interstices filled with virgin soil, and decorated with native herbage and shrubbery. Surrounding this happy imitation of mountain scenery, where Boone first pitched his camp, on the head waters of the Kentucky, are patches of cane, buffalo grass, the wild pea, and other forest vegetation, growing, apparently, in primitive wildness. On a hori zontal view from the level surface of the plateau, the eye overlooks entirely the highly cultivated vale and the city of Frankfort, some four hundred feet below, and rests on

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the opposite cliffs, and the picturesque scenery of forest and field in the distant perspective. Could Boone awake

from his deep repose, he would see little that would indicate modern improvements. Even the passing steamboat, with its crowd of passengers, far below, would be undis covered. The distant landscape, with its alternate light and shade, would appear natural. Could he have foreseen the delicate and patriotic feeling of Kentucky, his ready assent to be placed where he now lies, would have been given.

Fastened to a sycamore tree at the head of his grave, in a glass case, is a fragment of beech-wood, with the bark remaining, cut from an old tree in the Green river country, with this inscription rudely carved in the outer bark"D. Boone, 1777." On the bark of no forest tree will an incision retain its original form for the same length of time as on that of the beech. Hence it has been customary for hunters and explorers to mark their names and the date on this species of timber. Many a tree has been found in Kentucky with the name of Daniel Boone engraven on its trunk. In Warren County, about three miles from Bowling Green, are the names of a company of hunters, engraven on a single tree, in June, 1775, with several other names on the adjacent trees of the same year.

It was a happy thought in the Legislature of Kentucky, and the citizens of Frankfort, as an appropriate consecration of their rural cemetery, to remove and re-inter the remains of Daniel Boone and his wife. The consent of surviving relatives in Missouri having been obtained, a deputation visited that State in the summer of 1845, and obtained the relics. It was fitting that the soil of Kentucky should be his final resting place. It was like the beautiful and touching manifestation of filial affection shown by children to the memory of a beloved parent; and it was proper that the generation who share in peace and luxury the fruits of his toils, dangers and privations, should decorate with tokens of high regard, the tomb of their primeval patriarch, whose vigorous arm and stout heart protected the Commonwealth in its feeblest infancy. The day of the consecration of the grounds, and the re-interment of the pioneer, will have a place in the chronology of the State. An extempore oration was delivered on the occasion by the Hon. John J. Crittenden. A hymn was given