Native Sons and Daughters of Greater Kansas City see the Daniel Morgan Boone Cemetery and Park Project to Fruition
Native Sons and Daughters gathered at Daniel Morgan Boone Cemetery and Park to celebrate its dedication. Credit goes to George Hicks (bottom, second from left) for seeing it from dream to reality.
After twelve years of hard work, the Native Sons and Daughters have finally seen the completion of Daniel Morgan Boone Cemetery and Park. On Friday, June 17, 2005, the Board of Parks & Recreation and the Native Sons dedicated the park at East 63rd Street and Euclid Avenue in Kansas City.
This was a special moment for one Native Son in particular. George Hicks, former president, had been working on this project since the beginning in an attempt to make one of Kansas City's historic landmarks a protected venue.
Daniel Morgan Boone Cemetery and Park is the site of the Boone-Hayes Cemetery which is the final resting place of Daniel Morgan Boone, the son of pioneer Daniel Boone and one of the Kansas City area's first settlers.
The park is a unique partnership between the Native Sons, who facilitated the transfer of the property, and the Board of Kansas City Parks & Recreation, which obtained the additional acreage. The total size of the new park is fourteen acres.
Who was Daniel Morgan Boone, 1769-1839?
He is perhaps the most outstanding of Daniel Boone's six sons is buried in Kansas City, along with his wife Sarah, on part of their 80–acre farm on both sides of 63rd. Street., just east of Paseo. Their graves lie on the still developing 15–acre Kansas City Parks and Recreation Boone-Hays Park. But how is Daniel Morgan Boone connected to Missouri?
In 1797, at the age of 27, and still unmarried, he came from Kentucky to hunt along the Missouri River. That area was not part of the United States, but was under the control of the Spanish and known as Upper Louisiana.
Daniel Morgan liked the area so much that he obtained a land grant from the Spanish Lt. Governor Trudeau. That grant surrounds the present town of Matson, Mo.
He arranged for Trudeau to write an invitation to his father, promising land concessions if his father would come to Spanish Louisiana to establish a colony of American frontier families.
His father, Daniel Boone, was already famous and well-known to the Spanish. He would be a valuable addition to their territory.
Moreover, the Spanish wanted to shore up their strength against the English to the north as well as against the hostile Indian tribes.
His father accepted the invitation. In September, 1799, the 36 person extended Boone party of family and friends started out from Kentucky, some traveling overland with the livestock. Others, including the women and children, and Daniel Morgan Boone and other men to handle the boats, going down the Ohio River in log boats they had built themselves, and continuing to the Mississippi, then up to St. Louis.
The Boone family ended up with 11,000 acres of Spanish land grants, stretching some 10 miles along the Missouri River and the Femme Osage Creek.
Daniel Boone himself located his grant near that of his son Daniel Morgan Boone.
After their arrival, Daniel and Rebecca (ages 65 and 60 respectively) stayed with their still unmarried son Daniel Morgan, sharing his self-built double-room log cabin.
But just 4 months after the Boone arrival, Daniel Morgan Boone married young Sara Griffin Lewis, and after a few years, they started a family, eventually having 12 children.
In 1804, Daniel Morgan and his brother Nathan, along with the Morrison brothers, started a salt operation at a salt spring some 15 miles north of present-day Boonville. That salt operation lasted until 1811.
They began one year after the Louisian Purchase, which was also the start of the Lewis and Clark expedition from nearby St. Charles, Missouri.
In 1820, the Missouri Costitutional Convention convened. Nathan Boone was a member. Later that same year, Daniel Morgan's other brother, Jesse Boone, was elected to the first Legislature.
But Jesse died in 1821, whereupon Governor William Clark (Lewis and Clark) appointed Daniel Morgan Boone to fill out Jesse's vacated position.
1820 was also the year that Daniel Boone himself died, leaving behind over 100 children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, plus any number of nephews, nieces and their families.
As an expression of regret, the legislature voted to wear a red arm band for 30 days.
In 1821, Governor William Clark also appointed Daniel Morgan Boone to replace his brother Jesse on a Commission to locate and survey a site fo the Missouri State Capitol.
Then in 1825, Daniel Morgan Boone accepted a position a a US Farm Instructor and Agent to the Kaw Indians. He moved his family to the western extreme of white man's settlements, locating along the Missouri River within the present boundaries of Kansas City.
In 1827, when Jackson County was organized, Daniel Morgan Boone moved his Kaw Agency up the Kansas River to a point 8 miles above the present City of Lawrence, about 5 miles southeast of present Lake Perry.
In 1831, Daniel Morgan Boone bought a large tract of land in the present Kansas City area and built a log house near the present intersection of 63rd. and Holmes. In 1836, he sold part of his land to his nephew, Boone Hays.
On July 13, 1839, he died of cholera in the arms of his nephew, Albert Gallatin Boone. He was 70 years old. Albert Gallatin Boone had a store in Westport, now occupied by Kelly's Tavern.
At the time of his death, his wife, Sarah, was 53 years old and was living with five of her children who were still considered minors. She died in 1850 and is buried at the side of her husband.
He is our connection to the Founding Fathers, almost as if he were a son of George Washington or Thomas Jefferson.
His age was:
64--when Westport was founded (1833)
52--when the Santa Fe Trail started (1821)
52--when Mo. became a State (1821)
58--when Ft. Leavenworth founded (1827)
7---when Declaration of Indep (1776)
30--when George Washington died (1799)
34--when Louisiana Purchase 1803)
57--when Thomas Jefferson died
(His life span is quite similar to that of Andrew Jackson).
We thank the Daughters of the American Revolution and the Native Sons and Daughters for honoring and preserving his grave and that of his wife.