Identifier: danielboone00gull (find matches)
Title: Daniel Boone
Year: 1916 (1910s)
Authors: Gulliver, Lucile, b. 1882
Subjects: Boone, Daniel, 1734-1820 Frontier and pioneer life
Publisher: New York : Macmillan Co.
Contributing Library: University Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Digitizing Sponsor: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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Text Appearing Before Image:
He longed to get away from the settle-
ments and into the wilderness, to wander and hunt
and be free. With a servant or a companion, he
would put off in his canoe and paddle for weeks
along, the Missouri and the many streams flowing
into it. In summer he helped to farm, and during
the winters he repaired rifles and traps and made
powderhorns, tastefully carved, for his grand-
children and friends.
Many visitors from the East came to see him,
some being greatly surprised to find so famous an
Indian fighter so gentle and kindly. Their many
questions called forth thrilling stories from their
white-haired host, which he told gladly but with no
ostentation. He looked upon his experiences and
achievements only as the fulfillment of his duty.
In 1819, the American artist, Chester Harding,
called upon Boone for the purpose of painting his
portrait.¹ The artist found him alone in a cabin, a
part of an old blockhouse, where he was staying
during a hunt. He found him "engaged in cooking
his dinner. He was lying in his bunk, near the

¹ See frontispiece of this volume.
Text Appearing After Image:


THE BOONE MONUMENT AT CUMBERLAND GAP
"It is a simple structure built of stone and has four faces, each bearing a bronze tablet and each symo-
zing one of the four states through which the trail wound." (See page 4.)


TRAVELING TOWARD THE SUNSET 241

fire," said Mr. Harding, "and had a long strip of
venison wound around his ramrod, and was busy
turning it before a brisk blaze, and using salt and
pepper to season his meat. I at once told him the
object of my visit. I found that he hardly knew
what I meant. I explained the matter to him,
and he agreed to sit. He was (nearly) ninety
years old, and rather infirm; his memory of passing
events was much impaired, yet he would amuse me
every day by his anecdotes of his earlier life. I
asked him one day, just after his description of
one of his long hunts, if he never got lost, having
no compass. 'No,' he said, 'I can't say as ever I
was lost, but I was bewildered once for three days.'"
Thus, among his affectionate children, grand-
children, and friends, he lived for three years after
Rebecca Boone's death. Then, with little warning
and no suffering, he fell into his last sleep in his
son Nathan's house, on September 26, 1820, in
the eighty-sixth year of his age. He was buried
beside his wife on the quiet bank of Teugue Creek,
about a mile from the Missouri River.

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