" He died near Louisville on February 13, 1818.
Kentucky was admitted to the Union in 1792. But even before
Kentucky became a State her affairs, particularly as to land,
were arranged, let us say, on a practical business basis. Then it
was discovered that Daniel Boone had no legal claim to any foot
of ground in Kentucky. Daniel owned nothing but the clothes he
wore; and for those--as well as for much powder, lead, food, and
such trifles--he was heavily in debt.
So, in 1788, Daniel Boone put the list of his debts in his
wallet, gathered his wife and his younger sons about him, and,
shouldering his hunter's rifle, once more turned towards the
wilds. The country of the Great Kanawha in West Virginia was
still a wilderness, and a hunter and trapper might, in some
years, earn enough to pay his debts. For others, now, the paths
he had hewn and made safe; for Boone once more the wilderness
road.
Chapter VIII. Tennessee
Indian law, tradition, and even superstition had shaped the
conditions which the pioneers faced when they crossed the
mountains. This savage inheritance had decreed that Kentucky
should be a dark and bloody ground, fostering no life but that of
four-footed beasts, its fertile sod never to stir with the green
push of the corn. And so the white men who went into Kentucky to
build and to plant went as warriors go, and for every cabin they
erected they battled as warriors to hold a fort.
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