|
Dromo's Den
|
|
[Up] [Dromo's Den] Daniel Boone Biography BOONE, Daniel (1735–1820). A famous backwoodsman and pioneer. He was born in Bucks Co., Pa. About 1752 his family moved to Holman's Ford, on the Yadkin, in North Carolina, where Daniel Boone became remarkably proficient as a hunter and trapper, and, for a time, attended school. He soon became restive under the restraints of civilized society and, fired by the tales of John Finley, a trapper who had visited the Kentucky River in 1752, entered the wilderness with five companions and spent two years (1769–71) roaming through the unknown forests. His companions were soon captured or killed by the Indians, and he himself, together with a brother who had joined him in January, l770, had many narrow escapes. In 1773 he started for eastern Kentucky with five families besides his own, but was forced to turn back by an Indian attack, and in 1774 served on the frontier during Lord Dunmore's War. In 1775, as agent of a North Carolina, company, he built a fort on the site of the present Boonesboro, Ky., whither, soon afterward, he brought his family. This fort was twice attacked, in 1777, by a large force of Indians, who, however, failed to capture it. Early in 1778 Boone led a party of 30 to the Lower Blue Licks on the Licking River to secure a supply of salt. Here, February 7, he was captured by a band of Indians, who, after taking him to Detroit, finally adopted him and allowed him such freedom that he managed to escape (June 16) and reached the fort at Boonesboro five days later, in time to help defend it (August 8) against an Indian attack. (See BOONESBORO.) He then went to North Carolina, but in 1780 returned and in 1782 took a prominent part in the "Battle of Blue Licks." He lost his Kentucky land through defective titles and moved, about 1790, to the Kanawha River, near Point Pleasant, Va. (now W. Va.), where he lived until 1795, when he again moved, this time to the Femme Osage settlement, in Spanish territory, about 45 miles west of St. Louis. From 1800 to 1804, under a commission from the Spanish authorities, he was commandant of the Femme Osage district. After the purchase of Louisiana by the United States he was again involved in litigation and ultimately lost nearly all his Missouri land. He died Sept. 26, 1820, and was buried in Missouri, but in 1845 his remains, with those of his wife, were reinterred at Frankfort, Ky. Boone has come to be regarded as the typical pioneer. He was bold and venturesome, insensible to fear, remarkably skilled in woodcraft, a fine marksman, and a successful trapper. Personally he was mildmannered, quiet, and unassuming. An account of his life, based on his own relation, was written by Filson in 1784. This so-called Autobiography, which is inaccurate, increased his fame as a hunter and fighter. But his services have in all probability been greatly overestimated. He was neither the first to explore nor the first to settle the Kentucky region. The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. III (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 535. |