DANIEL BOONE IN MISSOURI.
Third Paper.
The last twenty-five years of the life of Daniel Boone
was spent in Missouri, and when he died he was buried there.
Scenes connected with his daily life during this period seem
to possess an abiding interest for the American people. The
Boone farm in the upper part of St. Charles County, and
the old stone mansion that stands upon it, are visited every
year by numerous pilgrims, who come from distant States,
and even from across the sea, to worship at the shrine of the
world's greatest pioneer. Each new arrival drinks freely
from the spring of sweet water that bubbles up from beneath
a great ledge of rock, paints a mental picture of the adjacent
scenery of hill and bluff and rolling valley, and carries away
with him pleasant memories of the place and its surroundings.
Others, less reverent of sentiment, chip off pieces of the stone,
house, or gather mementoes from the spot where the old
cabin stood; while some fondly cherish photographs of a
modern pig-sty, which they are made to believe contains
some of the logs that entered into the first Boone house west
of the Mississippi. The present owner of the place, a thrifty
American of German ancestry, is disposed to let all his visitors
have their own way, and very rarely undeceives any of them
regarding the pig house. And why should he spoil a harmless
sentiment? Every vestige of the old cabin has long since
disappeared, except a few faint traces of the foundations
where it stood.
The spring was the inducement which led Boone to build
his cabin there. Those old pioneers valued a spring more
than they did the land surrounding it; for it not only supplied
them with water so cold as to require no ice, but it was sure
to be a general meeting-place for deer and other game. Many
