Daniel Boone - Man Of The Frontier - Part 1

It's very easy in a modern world to forget more than we ever knew about our own country's history. When we speak of the pioneers in the history of North America, it's important to remember those men (and women) who left the older settlements and struck out into the forest, across rivers and mountains, plains, and deserts -- to make new homes in the wilderness.

They were brave hardy souls, filled with great courage. Sometimes on a hunting expedition they wandered into a more than usually fertile or beautiful spot, of which they made haste to tell their friends. Others, like Cooper's Pathfinder, grew to love the quiet and loneliness of the woods. The sound of the wind in the trees and the song of the river were more to them than the voices of men. They fled at the approach of civilization.

Some of them were individuals to whom any kind of settled life was hateful. Others set out in search of gold, like the miners of California or of Alaska. Where they went, others followed. We owe it to the pioneers that the vast prairies of the West, over which the buffalo once roamed, became a granary for millions, and the busy hum of cities is heard where once the howl of the wolf broke the silence -- at least that's how many feel.

Many of the picturesque band of early pioneers are nameless to us now. Others' names will be handed down through history. Perhaps, one of the best known of all is Daniel Boone.

Throughout Daniel Boone's long life, the frontier was his home. From his early childhood to his old age his days were full of adventure. It is strange to us now to think of the Schuylkill Valley as being on the frontier, but when he was born there in 1734, not fifty years before the Declaration of Independence -- it was just on the edge of civilization.

He was born in a log cabin and until late in his life he did not live in a less primitive dwelling. Some years before his story begins a Devonshire weaver came to settle in the Quaker colony of Pennsylvania, bringing with him his wife and large family of boys and girls. Squire Boone, one of these boys, married Sarah Morgan, a Welsh girl, a Quaker like the Boones. Daniel Boone was one of their sons. both father and mother taught their children self-reliance, self-control, great patience and loyalty.

Squire Boone, the father of Daniel had been brought up to the weaver's craft like his father before him, but he did not make his entire living by it. He raised cattle on his land and, in addition to this, he operated a blacksmith's forge. The children helped their parents, as soon as they were big enough.

There were few schools in the country those days and not until the boy was fourteen did he get a chance to learn to read and write. Then, his brother's marriage gave the boy a sister-in-law who gladly taught him all she knew -- reading, writing, and a little arithmetic. However, though he was able to gain some knowledge from books, he learned many things from nature. He knew well the trees and plants in the forest, and was familiar with the haunts and habits of the wild things that made the woods their home.

About five or six miles away from the clearing, Daniel's father owned some good pasture land to which the cows were sent to graze every summer. There the boy's mother took him every year from the time that he was ten years old, and there they stayed until the cold weather forced them to go home again. He had to keep the cattle from straying away through the day, and in the evening to drive them back to the log enclosure around the cabin, where he helped his mother to fasten them up for the night, safe from wild beasts and thieving Indians.

For themselves, they had no fear of the local Indians, who were generally friendly to the Pennsylvanians. From his infancy Daniel was familiar with the silent natives who came to trade their furs for the cloth and blankets that his father wove, or stood to watch the sparks that flew from the anvil in his blacksmith shop. Or perhaps two or three natives would sometimes come on a cold winter's night to ask for shelter from a storm, and wrapping themselves in their deer skins would lie down to sleep on the cabin floor.

Daniel soon learned to glide through the forest as silently as they did. It was in those early days that he gained the knowledge of their ways which helped him out of many a difficulty in later years.

In spite of hard work he had time for play, and during his summer days in the woods, he laid the foundation for his fame as a hunter. At first his only weapon was a sapling torn up by the roots and trimmed down until it was just such a weapon as the staff which David used to kill the lion and the bear.

His father was very proud of Daniel's skill in bringing down game by flinging this light club. When the boy was twelve years old he was given a rifle of his own. With this, he soon became an unerring marksman and a provider of game.

When he was about sixteen, the family left Pennsylvania and traveled down through the Shenandoah Valley into North Carolina.

It was a long journey for a large family to make, with their horses, cattle, implements and household goods. However, they traveled slowly and Daniel had plenty of time to go on long hunts and explore the country through which they passed. At length, they reached their destination and settled down at Blue Lick in the Yadkin Valley.

For those of you that don't know, Blue Lick is thus named, because these "licks," are quite interesting places. In many parts of our country there are salt springs. From time immemorial these springs were haunted by wild animals which came to lick the salt left by the water as it flowed away. They kept the ground around the spring licked bare, and so the place was called a "lick."

For the next three years, Daniel lived at home, helping his father and brothers in the blacksmith shop in the winter, and in the summer going off on long hunting trips. However, when he was twenty-one war broke out with the French and Indians. The war, which is called the French and Indian War (or the Seven Years' War), was a struggle between the French and British for the possession of the country west of the mountains.

The French built forts in the territory which was claimed by Virginia, and under they leadership the hostile Indians became very daring.

In 1756, General Braddock with a small army was sent from England to drive back the intruding Frenchmen and teach their Indian allies a lesson. The expedition fell into an ambush, and although Braddock and his men bought bravely, they were defeated and the General himself was killed. Daniel Boone was with the army.

Daniel was married shortly after this to Rebecca Bryan, the daughter of a near neighbor, and settled down to a life of hunting, trapping, blacksmithing, and farming. However, though he lived for many years in the little log house that he built for his family, his days were not peaceful.

Once the Indian wars had begun, they did not cease until after Canada was taken from the French in 1763, and at one time there was so much danger that Daniel thought it best to take his wife and little ones to Virginia for a while.

However, he soon came back, and we know that he was present at some of the battles, and once he went away down into Tennessee -- it is thought on a scouting expedition. A century ago, a tree stood on the banks of Boone Creek, In Tennessee, on which was cut an inscription reading:

"D. Boon cilled a BAR on this tree year 1760"

After peace came, he devoted more and more time to hunting. Very soon he began to think of changing his abode, for there were now many families in the valley. It is said that he liked his nearest neighbors to be so far away that he could not see their chimney smoke as it curled in the breeze.

In 1765 he set out on horseback with seven other men to find their way to Florida. They had a difficult journey thought he swamps and once nearly died of hunger, for the hunting was very poor. So he gave up on the idea of moving to Florida.

On his return he turned his thoughts westward to the land beyond the mountains -- Kentucky -- the "dark and bloody ground" of the Indians, of which he had heard many wonderful tales. He made an attempt to find it in 1767, and with one companion actually spent the winter there without knowing he had reached it.

In 1769, he set out on the expedition that made him one of the founders of the state. This time he and his companions climbed up over the Blue Ridge Mountains, the Stone and Iron Mountains, through Moccasin Gap of Clinch Mountain, through Powell's Valley, up a hunter's trail through Cumberland Gap -- until they struck the "Warrior's Path," beaten by the feet of generations of Indian war parties, and so down into the forests of Kentucky.

Daniel did not leave Kentucky for two years. Twice he was left alone for months, without even a dog as a companion. He wandered all over the country, exploring it in every direction, noting its beauties, its well-watered plains and valleys, and storing up in his active mind knowledge that was of great value to the settlers who followed him into this fertile region.

His brother Squire, who had been his companion during the year, came back in December, and they spent another winter int he woods. However, this time they fell in with another party of hunters, who met them in a curious way. One evening while making camp they heard what in that place was was a most extraordinary noise.

Motioning his companions to be silent, the leader crept cautiously forward and presently came on Daniel Boone, laying flat on his back and happily singing at the top of his voice while he waited for his brother.

Boone was delighted with the Kentucky country, and in 1773 persuaded a number of families to join in attempting to make a settlement there. However, one night when they were on the way, his eldest son and some companions were surprised and killed by Indians. Overcome with sorrow and fright, they little party decided not to go on.

A new war now broke out with the Indians, who had been greatly angered by the treatment they received from the white men. Boone did good service in this war, which is known in history as Lord Dunmore's War, and received great praise for his work. During the war he was sent to warm some of the scattered parties of their danger, and traveled through woods which were alive with Indians.

The Indians were soon subdued and when peace came, the settlement of Kentucky was seriously begun. The new effort was made on a much larger scale than before to colonize the region by the Transylvania Company, with Colonel Richard Henderson at its head and Daniel Boone as one of the leaders.

Early in 1775 the first part of settlers reached Big Lick on the Kentucky, by the path which has since been marked out by the Daughters of the Revolution.

They began to build a fort, and Boone turned surveyor, laid out the site of a town -- now called Boonesborough, and planned the fort. Outside this fort there was a great elm tree, and under its shade, the first assembly ever held in Kentucky to make laws to govern the little community.

Despite drawbacks, the little colony grew steadily. Boone and a number of the other settlers brought their wives and families, and prosperity seemed in sight. However, the American Revolution broke out, and the Indians continued to raid the weak settlements. The first warning that the Boonesborough settlers had of their peril was in the kidnapping of Boone's daughter, Jemina and her two friends, Betsey and Fanny Callaway. The three girls were paddling on the Kentucky River one Sunday afternoon when their canoe was carried by the current to the opposite bank. They were capture by five Indians who had been watching the fort from the bushes.

Colonel Richard Callaway, the father of Betsey and Fanny, followed in hot pursuit with a party of mounted men. Boone, leading a party on foot, followed the trail and guided by the scraps of clothing and bruised twigs which the brave girls contrived to leave in the path, caught up with them and rescued the girls.