When Daniel Boone died peacefully in bed in his son Nathan's elegantstone Missouri farmhouse on September 26, 1820, the surge of emigrantsalong the Oregon Trail was still a generation away. But Boone alreadyexemplified the pioneer at his best. He was neither the physical5 giant (five feet nine) nor the innocent child of nature that legendhas made of him. He was an intelligent, soft spoken family man whocherished the same wife for 57 years. He befriended Indians, preferredcompany to solitude, and when he told his wife it was time to movebecause a newcomer had settled some 70 miles away, he was joking.10Pennsylvania-born, Boone was one of 11 children in a family of Quakerswho migrated to North Carolina. There Boone was recruited at age40 to undertake a scheme designed to open up Kentucky to settlersand establish it as a 14th colony. He arranged a deal by which the15 Cherokees sold 20 million acres for $20,000 worth of goods to Boone'semployers, the Transylvania Company. It was all fair and square-theIndians had an attorney, an interpreter, and the sound advice oftheir squaws. The deal completed, Boone led a party from Tennesseethrough the Cumberland Gap, hacked out the Wilderness Road, and set20 up a town- Boonesboro-and a government. Elected a legislator, heintroduced on the first session's first day a bill to protect gameagainst wanton slaughter and a second bill to "improve the breedof horses." He got 2,000 acres for his work, but after the Revolution-inwhich Boone won considerable fame as a militia commander-the scheme25 of the Transylvania Company was declared illegal and Boone lost hisland. Undaunted, he staked out more claims-and lost them becausehe impatiently neglected to register his deeds. Ever hopeful, heaccepted an invitation from Spanish-held Missouri to come and settlethere and bring others with him. The Spanish gave him 8,500 acres30 and made him a judge. But the Louisiana Purchase, which embracedMissouri, again left him-but not his children-landless. Old and broke,Boone cheerfully continued hunting and trapping long after his handsshook. Shortly before he died, he was talking knowledgeably withyoung men about the joys to be experienced in settling California.1.
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