The War of 1812-15 brought Indian troubles to this new frontier, and some of the farm property of the younger Boones was destroyed in one of the savage forays. The old man fretted at his inability to assist in the militia organization, of which his sons Daniel Morgan and Nathan were conspicuous leaders; and the state of the border did not permit of peaceful hunting. In the midst of the war he deeply mourned the death of his wife (1813)--a woman of meek, generous, heroic nature, who had journeyed over the mountains with him from North Carolina, and upon his subsequent pilgrimages, sharing all his hardships and perils, a proper helpmeet in storm and calm.
Penniless, and a widower, he now went to live with his sons, chiefly with Nathan, then forty-three years of age. After being first a hunter and explorer, and then an industrious and successful farmer, Nathan had won distinction in the war just closed and entered the regular army, where he reached the rank of lieutenant-colonel and had a wide and thrilling experience in Indian fighting. Daniel Morgan is thought to have been the first settler in Kansas (1827); A. G. Boone, a grandson, was one of the early settlers of Colorado, and prominently connected with Western Indian treaties and Rocky Mountain exploration; and another grandson of the great Kentuckian was Kit Carson, the famous scout for Frémont's transcontinental expedition.
[Illustration: NATHAN BOONE'S HOUSE IN ST. CHARLES COUNTY, MISSOURI. Herein Daniel Boone died.]
It was not long before the Yankee _régime_ confirmed Boone's fears. The tide of immigration crossed the river, and rolling westward again passed the door of the great Kentuckian, driving off the game and monopolizing the hunting-grounds. Laws, courts, politics, speculation, and improvements were being talked about, to the bewilderment of the French and the unconcealed disgust of the former syndic. Despite his great age, he talked strongly of moving still farther West, hoping to get beyond the reach of settlement; but his sons and neighbors persuaded him against it, and he was obliged to accommodate himself as best he might to the new conditions. In summer he would work on the now substantial and prosperous farms of his children, chopping trees for the winter's wood. But at the advent of autumn the spirit of restlessness seized him, when he would take his canoe, with some relative or his Indian servant, and disappear up the Missouri and its branches for weeks together. In 1816, we hear of him as being at Fort Osage, on his way to the Platte, "in the dress of the roughest, poorest hunter." Two years later, he writes to his son Daniel M.: "I intend by next autumn to take two or three whites and a party of Osage Indians to visit the salt mountains, lakes, and ponds and see these natural curiosities. They are about five or six hundred miles west of here"--presumably the rock salt in Indian Territory; it is not known whether this trip was taken. He was greatly interested in Rocky Mountain exploration, then much talked of, and eagerly sought information regarding California; and was the cause of several young men migrating thither. A tale of new lands ever found in him a delighted listener.