DANIEL

See also:

• BOONE
• DANIEL BOONE (1734-1820)

BOONE (1734-1820)  , American pioneer and back-woodsman, of English descent, was born near the present city of Reading, Pennsylvania, on the 2nd of November (N.S.) 1734 . About 1751 his father, Squire Boone, with his family settled in the Yadkin Valley in what is now Davie county, North Carolina, then on the frontier . Daniel worked on his father's farm, and spent much of his time hunting and trapping . In 1755 he served as a wagoner and blacksmith in Braddock's disastrous expedition against the Indians . In 1765 he visited Florida, and in 1767 he first visited the Kentucky region . With several companions, including John Finley, who had been there as early as 1752, he spent two years, 1769-1771, roaming about what is now Kentucky, meeting with numberless adventures, coming in conflict with roving bands of Indians, and collecting bear, beaver and deer skins . He served in Lord Dunmore's War (1774), and in 1775 led to Kentucky the party of settlers who founded Boonesborough, long an important settlement . On the 7th of February 1778 he, and the party he led, were captured by a band of Shawnees . He was adopted into the Shawnee tribe, was taken to Detroit, and on the return from that place escaped, reaching Boonesborough, after a perilous journey of 16o m., within four days, in time to give warning of a formidable attack by his captors . In repelling this attack, which lasted from the 8th to the 17th of September, he bore a conspicuous part . He also took part in the sanguinary " Battle of Blue Licks " in 1782 . For a time he represented the settlers in the Virginia legislature (Kentucky then being a part of Virginia), and he also served as deputy surveyor, sheriff and county lieutenant of Fayette county, one of the three counties into which Kentucky was then divided .

Having lost all his

land through his carelessness in regard to titles, he removed in 1788 to Point Pleasant, Virginia (now W . Va.), whence about 1799 he removed to a place in what is now Missouri, about 45 M. west of St Louis, in territory then owned by Spain . He received a grant of moo arpents (about 845 acres) of land, and was appointed syndic of the district . After the United States gained possession of " Louisiana " in 1803, Boone's title was found to be defective, and he was again dispossessed . He died on the 22nd of September 182o, and in 1845 his remains were removed to Frankfort, Kentucky, where a monument has been erected to his memory . Boone was a typical American pioneer and backwoodsman, a great hunter and trapper, highly skilled in all the arts of woodcraft, familiar with the Indians and their methods of warfare, a famous Indian fighter, restless, resourceful and fearless . His services, however, have been greatly over-estimated, and he was not, as is popularly believed, either the first to explore or the first to settle the Kentucky region . The best biography is that by Reuben G . Thwaites, Daniel Boone (New York, 1902) .