CHAPTER V. Distinguishing Features of the Road. It is worth while to frequently recall some of the prominent facts which distinguish this from all other highways. First, its conception in the minds of Washington, Gallatin, Jefferson, Giles, and their compeers, as a great National road, arose as early in our National history as the admission of Ohio into the Union in 1802. The bill establishing it became a law when Thomas Jefferson approved it in 1806, and was extended by subsequent Acts of Congress to the Mississippi at St. Louis. Mr. Jefferson suggested that it be extended from Wheeling, via Chillicothe, to Cincinnati-"the edge of the Indian Country, and thence via Vincennes to the Mississippi at St. Louis. This was a natural suggestion, as he doubtless recalled the fact that he and Patrick Henry, and George Mason and George Wythe had financed George Rogers Clark in his wonderful expedition to Kaskaskia and Vincennes which saved the great Northwest Territory to the United States; and the deed ceding it from Virginia to the General Government had been executed by Jefferson while Governor of that State. The Commissioners appointed by this act to locate the road departed slightly from the Isothermal line, and located it via Columbus and Indianapolis, Terre Haute and Vandalia, to St. Louis. In 1824, Benton, of Missouri, brought forward a bill to survey and extend the Cumberland (National Highway), beginning at Fort Osage, in Jackson County, Missouri, and extending southwestwardly through the Indian country, and ending at Santa Fe, a foreign capital of a foreign State. Benton, in the dilemma produced by this last fact, bethought him of the resourceful Jefferson, and Christmas day, 1824, found him at Monticello, when Jefferson ironed out all difficulties, and the Act establishing the Santa Fe Trail became a law. This, however, left a hiatus in this great scheme-the Missouri link, unprovided for. President Adams, however, in 1827, ordered that the National, or "Cumberland Road", be surveyed from Vandalia, Ill., to Jefferson City, Mo. This, too, was a bill brought forward by Benton. The Missouri link becomes of equal historic interest because it was established by Daniel Boone and surveyed by his sons, Nathan and Daniel, in 1815, and ended at Boonslick, near Old Franklin, where the Santa Fe Trail practically began when Captain Becknall started for Santa Fe, in 1822. BOONSLICK ROAD Boone, still smarting over the loss of a vast landed estate in Kentucky because of a defective title, justly claimed a sentimental, proprietary interest in "The Cumberland Gap to Boonsborro Road by the Kentucky River." When the Legislature decided to improve this road, Boone's application for the contract was refused, and this added unkindness confirmed his inclination to leave the State and come to Missouri. Upon his arrival, one of his first public activities was to establish the road, long known as the Boonslick Road and now the Missouri Link in the National Old Trails Road. This was a quarter of a century before the Government surveyed the same line as herein copied. In 1913, a Convention was held in Mt. Vernon, a little mountain town in Kentucky, on the line of "The Wilderness Road, and changed the name to "Boone Way." Afterward, it was extended across the corner of Virginia and Tennessee to the Yadkin Valley, and through "Boone Park," near the early home of Boone, in North Carolina, and extended north via Winchester, Paris, etc., to Maysville, Kentucky, and thence to the old Indian town of Chillicothe, Ohio, where Boone was twice carried in captivity; and a further extension is contemplated to a connection with the National Old Trails Road at Columbus, Ohio, or St. Louis, and thence to Kansas City via the Boonslick Road. Henry Clay, always the friend of the National Old Road, carried a bill through Congress to establish the north division of the Wilderness Road from Maysville to Lexington as a National Highway, intending to extend it later via Chillicothe to a connection with the National road at Wheeling, Virginia, and south via the Wilderness Road and Cumberland Gap to New Orleans; and milestones were standing fifty years ago south of Maysville, on which were cut the words, "To Florence, Alabama," doubtless inspired by Clay. Clay, great as he was, like many now living, sometimes began a great project in the middle, instead of at either end. This furnished Jackson an opportunity, always gladly accepted, when Clay was interested, and he vetoed the bill for the following reasons: "It was no connection with any established system of improvement; it is exclusively within the limits of a State, starting at a point on the Ohio River, and running out sixty miles to an interior town, and even as far as the State is interested, conferring partial instead of general advantages." But the road was built by private enterprise, and is still a splendid highway. A tablet, one of the few made out of the gunmetal of the Battle Ship "Maine," and presented to the National Old Trails Road in commemoration of his honored name by the Boone Trail Highway Association of North Carolina, is now in "Boone Tavern," Columbia, Mo. In 1810, long years after he came to Missouri, he trapped beavers in the Blue River where it runs through Kansas City and Swope Park, pronounced by him the best beaver country he had ever seen; and, with funds thus derived, he walked back to Kentucky; and after paying his debts he had just fifty cents left. But this supplied his simple wants on his way back home. This fact, alone, entitles the old hero to immortal fame. I have long believed that in addition to mementoes like this, the State ought to lay out a large park on either side of the historic Loutre River, at beautiful Minneola, in Montgomery County, Missouri, where Flanders Calaway, Boone's son-in-law, lost his life at the hands of the Indians, and where Boone spent so many of the happiest days of his life, at the old Vanbiber Tavern. When approaching the sunset of life this grand old man wrote his sister-in-law as follows: "You can guess of my feelings by your own, as we are so nearly the same age. I need not write you of our situation, as Samuel Bradly or James Grimes can inform you of every circumstance relating to our family. How we live in this world, and what chance we shall have in the next, we know not. For my part, I am as ignorant as a child. All the religion I have is to love and fear God, to believe in Jesus Christ; do all the good to my neighbors that I can, and do as little harm as I can help; and trust to God's mercy for the rest. No modern theologist can write a better thesis on the Christian Religion. The Doctor of Divinity will find it difficult to improve on the "childish ignorance" of this untutored son of the forest— the incomparable "path finder"-the author of the Wilderness Road in Kentucky, and of the Boonslick Road in Missouri; both cut through an unbroken, uninhabited wilderness, each surrounded by dangers and difficulties which would stagger the stoutest heart. Ought we not hold in everlasting memory the great pioneers who so heroically blazed the pathways of civilization, over which the countless thousands who have passed over them, exhausted, tired and footsore though each Pilgrim may have been, have still left a trace that a thousand years cannot efface? BOONSLICK ROAD AND THE SANTA FE TRAIL. Judge J. M. Lowe, Kansas City. Dear Judge: I have had yours of several days ago on my desk ever since I received it, meaning daily to reply, but you know how procrastination steals a busy man's time without my telling. I feel as you do, that some connected history of the promotion of the Old Trails agitation, and who did it, should be recorded for the edification of future generations. I do not know the date of the first agitation of the CrossState Highway idea, but Curtis Hill does and can give probably more detail information than any one else. I did not get into the fight until a meeting of the State Board of Agriculture, the summer of 1907, during Governor Hadley's administration, at which meeting he was present. My idea was to present the claims of New and Old Franklin and Boonville as being important points in the actual route of the Boonslick Road and the Santa Fe Trail. When I proposed it to our people here at New Franklin they were inclined to laugh at me so I went to Jefferson City alone and through the intercession and help of Secretary Wilson and my friend Curtis Hill I was given time before the board to tell my story and present the claims of this section. On that day there was a special train on the River Route of the Missouri Pacific, bringing about 800 excursionists armed with spades, shovels and picks bearing large printed signs pasted on them. They marched up to the Madison House and serenaded the Governor and Board and then our fight started. I saw them pointing me out as the lone man from Boonville and I did feel very lonely, but I nevertheless faced the music and placed our case before the Board and with what result you know. I attended the next meeting at Jefferson City, the only one from Boonville, but I had the able help of Dr. Morris N. McGuire, Dr. Tom Hall, T B Morris and Col. Brockway of Arrow Rock, who, with J. P. Biggs, Watson Diggs and others of that place always rendered valuable help in the good roads cause. After that the principal workers here were C. A. Sombart, W. F. Johnson, W. M. Williams, John S. Elliott, C. E. Leonard, Albert M. Hall, Speed and A. H. Stephens, A. A. Wallace and others; and from New Franklin and Howard County in behalf of the Franklin Route, J. A. Maxwell, W. W. Carpenter, Charley Lee, and Robert Weyland. I should have mentioned C. E. Meierhoffer in the Boonville list. Our principal fight here was to establish the claim of New and Old Franklin, Boonville and Arrow Rock to be recognized as points on the Boonslick Road and the Santa Fe Trail. I made an address at the National Old Trails meeting at Kansas City on that subject at the request of Walter Williams, at the meeting at which you were elected president. If there are any dates or other data which I can give let me know and I will take trouble to look it up. Command me in any way you need. Still fighting and hoping for the Old Trails Road, I am, Yours very truly, SAMUEL W. RAVENEL. COLONEL NATHAN BOONE Colonel Nathan Boone was very much of a man. When the War of 1812 came on, he raised a Volunteer Army of Missourians and distinguished himself so much that when it was over he was promoted to the position of lieutenant-colonel, in the regular army. This he afterwards resigned. He and his father (who was also a |