Few figures in American history are more enshrouded by myth and legend than Daniel Boone, the famous pioneer and woodsman. He was a key figure in the expansion of the American colonies and the nascent United States, migrating ever westward throughout his long and adventurous life. It was Boone who blazed a trail through the Cumberland Gap into Kentucky, along which thousands of settlers would follow.

 

This quintessential American was one of seven children born to an English immigrant, and his Welsh-descended wife on the Pennsylvania frontier, west of Philadelphia. His birth on October 22, 1734, was more than four decades before the American Revolution, would provide a grand stage for his exploits. But in those intervening years his restless nature would take him far from his humble birthplace.

After a rupture with his fellow Quakers, Boone’s father moved the family to Virginia and then North Carolina when Daniel was a teenager; by then he had shown superlative facility as a hunter. More unusually, he was a voracious reader who early on developed impressive literary skills compared to his contemporaries.

Boone saw action during the French and Indian War (1754-1763), supporting the British struggle for supremacy in North America, but his primary focus was on hunting and trapping to provide for his growing family. His 1756 marriage to Rebecca Bryan produced ten children. Their loving union survived Boone’s constant absences, lasted more than fifty years, and ended only with Rebecca’s death in 1813. He later observed, “All you need for happiness is a good gun, a good horse, and a good wife.”

The conquest of Kentucky was a long and bloody affair, contested by the Cherokee, Shawnee, and Delaware tribes. One clash ended with the death of Boone’s son, but although chastened by the loss, he refused to be deterred. As he later wrote, “I resigned my domestic happiness for a time, and left my family…to wander through the wilderness of America, in quest of the country of Kentucky.” The journey would take a few years and cost the lives of settlers and Indians. His eventual, hard-won success led to the founding of the Boonesborough settlement in 1775; soon after, he was joined by his family.

The most dramatic incident of Boone’s long and eventful life took place during the American Revolution, when just ten days after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Indians abducted his daughter and two female companions while they were paddling a canoe on the Kentucky River. Boone and others set off in pursuit and rescued the girls.

Boone’s conflicts with Indians would continue; later, he was captured by Shawnees but—despite having been adopted by the tribal chief—he escaped. This brought down the wrath of the Shawnees on little Boonesborough, but the hardy settlers—who numbered only about five dozen—successfully fought off the 400-strong attacking force. Boone was wounded but survived.

The famous backwoodsman would later become a politician, serving in the Virginia General Assembly (Kentucky remained a part of Virginia until 1792). He enjoyed a brief period of prosperity, but the difficulty in establishing title deeds to the land in which he speculated led to severe financial setbacks (similar frustrations would drive a carpenter named Thomas Lincoln to move from Kentucky to Indiana with his wife and children, including his son Abraham).

Boone’s restless nature and need to reestablish his fortune led him to move the family to Missouri, which was then still a part of the Spanish Louisiana territory. Even into old age, he remained an active hunter and trapper, with occasional skirmishes with Indians.

Despite his renown, he remained modest about his exploits. When asked in old age by an admirer to reflect upon his life, he said, “Many heroic actions and chivalrous adventures are related of me which only exist in the regions of fancy. With me the world has taken great liberties, and yet I have been but a common man.” But by then, so many chroniclers had written embellished accounts of his adventures that the common man was obscured by the legend.

Daniel Boone died as he lived, hunting on the frontier near his son’s Missouri home. In 1820, he passed away, peacefully—at the age of 85—while he was out the woods that he loved. The vast arc of Boone’s life ended in folkloric-like fame; two years after his death, the poet Lord Byron, immortalized him in his masterpiece, Don Juan:

Of the great names which in our faces stare,
The General Boon, back-woodsman of Kentucky,
Was happiest amongst mortals anywhere;
For killing nothing but a bear or buck, he
Enjoyed the lonely vigorous, harmless days
Of his old age in wilds of deepest maze.

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Michael F. Bishop, a writer and historian, is the former executive director of the International Churchill Society and the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission.