Ellis Edward Sylvester
The Life and Times of Col. Daniel Boone, Hunter, Soldier, and Pioneer

INTRODUCTION

DANIEL BOONE was the ideal of the American pioneer – brave, cool, self-reliant, a dead shot with his rifle, a consummate master of woodcraft, with sturdy frame, hopeful at all times, and never discouraged by disasters which caused many a weaker spirit to faint by the way. All that the pen of romance depicts in the life of one whose lot is cast in the Western forests, marked the career of Boone. In the lonely solitudes he encountered the wild animal and the fiercer wild man; and he stood on the bastions at Boonesborough through the flaming sun or the solemn hours of night, exchanging shots with the treacherous Shawanoe, when every bullet fired was meant to extinguish a human life; he was captured by Indians three times, his companions were shot down at his side, his daughter was carried away by savages and quickly rescued by himself and a few intrepid comrades, his oldest boy was shot dead before he set foot in Kentucky, and another was killed while bravely fighting at Blue Licks; the border town named after him was assaulted and besieged by overwhelming bodies of British and Indians, his brother was slain and he himself underwent all manner of hardship and suffering.

Yet through it all, he preserved his honest simplicity, his unswerving integrity, his prudence and self-possession, and his unfaltering faith in himself, in the future of his country, and in God.

He lived through this crucial period to see all his dreams realized, and Kentucky one of the brightest stars in the grand constellation of the Union.

Such a life cannot be studied too closely by American youth; and in the following pages, we have endeavored to give an accurate description of its opening, its eventful progress and its peaceful close, when, in the fullness of time and in a ripe old age, he was finally laid to rest, honored and revered by the great nation whose possessions stretch from ocean to ocean, and whose "land is the fairest that ever sun shone on!"

LIFE AND TIMES OF COLONEL DANIEL BOONE

CHAPTER I

Birth of Daniel Boone – Fondness for Hunting – An Alarming Absence – A Pedagogue of the Olden Time – Sudden Termination of Young Boone's School Education – Removal to North Carolina – Boone's Marriage – His Children

Daniel Boone was born in Exeter township, Bucks county, Pennsylvania, on the 11th of February, 1735, so that he was just three years the junior of Washington.

Daniel had six brothers and four sisters, he being the fourth child of Squire Boone, whose father landed at Philadelphia from England, October 10, 1717, bringing with him two daughters and nine sons. The township of Exeter, as it is now known in Pennsylvania, was named by the elder Boone after the city in England near which he was born.

There is good authority for believing that the Boone family, when living in the mother country, were attached to the Established Church; but, when they had resided some time amid the peaceful surroundings and gentle influences of the friends and followers of George Fox, they inclined to their religious belief, though it will hardly be claimed that Daniel Boone continued orthodox throughout his adventurous life.

In those days, the educational advantages given youth were very meagre, and frequently none at all. The old-time pedagogue was a man stern and repelling to children, knowing little of the true means of imparting knowledge. About the only branch he handled with any skill was that which came from the nearest tree; and, had he possessed the ability to teach, he lacked, in the generality of cases, the education necessary.

A century and a half ago, Exeter township abounded with game, and the town itself was a pioneer settlement of the most primitive order, consisting of log-houses almost entirely surrounded by forests, in whose depths roamed bears, panthers, deer, and the smaller game so attractive to sportsmen.

It was these which were to educate young Boone more than were the crude means and the tippling teacher in whose charge he was placed. Nothing delighted the lad more than to wander for hours through the woods, gun in hand, stealing among the cool shadows, behind the mossy rocks and along the purling streams, with the soft tread of the Indian, while the keen eyes of the young hunter searched tree-top and bush for the first signs of game, and his ear was ever strained to catch the cautious footstep of the wild beast as it crept faintly over the leaves.

Thus in the grand school of Nature was the great pioneer trained. While yet a small boy, he became noted for his unerring aim with the rifle, and the skill with which he read the "signs" among the trees, that were as closed volumes to others.

The privilege of wandering with gun and dog was all the happiness he asked, and as an inevitable consequence of this mode of life, he grew sturdy, strong, active, and capable of immense exertion without fatigue. It is in just such nurseries as this that the great explorers and pioneers of the world are educated.

One morning, Daniel shouldered his rifle, and whistling to his dog, the two plunged into the woods for one of their usual hunts. The sun was just rising in a clear sky, the air was crisp and invigorating, and the prospect was all that the heart of the young hunter could wish. Those of his relatives who saw him depart thought nothing of it, for the sight was a very common one with him and his brothers, and young as they were, they learned among the rudiments of their training the great fundamental truth to trust in God and themselves.

As the shades of night closed over settlement and forest, the boy Daniel was expected home, though the family had no special misgiving when the hours passed without bringing him, it being supposed that he had penetrated so far into the wilds that he preferred to encamp for the night rather than take the long tramp home.

But, when the second day had passed, and he failed to appear, the parents were in great distress, for it seemed certain that some fatal accident must have overtaken their child. The mature and experienced hunter is always in peril from wild beasts or the wilder human beings who prowl and skulk through the wilderness, and many a man who has braved the dangers of a score of years, has fallen a victim to the treacherous biped or quadruped, who has sought his life with greater cunning than he has done his own work.

It was impossible therefore for them to feel anything but the most painful anxiety for their boy, and, unable to remain idle longer, they called upon their neighbors, and a search-party was organized.

The trail made by the lad was too faint to be followed successfully, and the parties scattered and hunted for traces as best they could.

Hours passed by, every man doing his utmost to discover the fate of the boy, who they hoped was still living somewhere in the depths of the wilderness, though it would seem scarcely possible that, if alive, he was not in a suffering or helpless condition.

But the shouts and reports of their guns remained unanswered, and they pushed forward, hoping against hope. The bonds of sympathy are nowhere stronger than in such frontier settlements, where a common feeling of brotherhood exists, and the men who were searching for the lost Daniel, were hardly less anxious concerning him than were the parents themselves.

Suddenly someone descried a faint, thin column of smoke rising from a nondescript sort of structure, and hurrying toward it, they saw one of the most primitive of cabins, made of limbs and brush and sods of grass piled together. Stealing around to the rude entrance, they peeped in, and saw Daniel himself, looking like an old hunter who had settled down for the season. On the earth-floor of his structure were strewn the skins of the game he had shot, while he was cooking the choicest pieces before the smoking fire. He was only three miles from home, but it might as well have been a hundred, for all the additional comfort it afforded his friends and parents.

The lad looked up with an expression of surprise, wondering what all the excitement was about; and when he found they were hunting for him, it was hard to understand the necessity for doing any such thing.

It was not the first time he had been alone in the woods, and he thought he was as well able to take care of himself as were any of the older pioneers who came to look for him. However, as he was a dutiful son, and had no wish to cause his parents any unnecessary alarm, he gathered up his game and peltries, and went back home with the hunters.

Nothing can be more pleasant to the American boy than just such a life as that followed by Daniel Boone – wandering for hours through the wilderness, on the look-out for game, building the cheery camp-fire deep in some glen or gorge, quaffing the clear icy water from some stream, or lying flat on the back and looking up through the tree-tops at the patches of blue sky, across which the snowy ships of vapor are continually sailing.

But any parent who would allow a child to follow the bewitching pleasures of such a life, would commit a sinful neglect of duty, and would take the surest means of bringing regret, sorrow, and trouble to the boy himself, when he should come to manhood.

The parents of young Boone, though they were poor, and had the charge of a large family, did their utmost to give their children the rudiments of a common school education, with the poor advantages that were at their command.

It is said that about the first thing Daniel's teacher did, after summoning his boys and girls together in the morning, was to send them out again for a recess – one of the most popular proceedings a teacher can take, though it cannot be considered a very great help in their studies.

While the pupils were enjoying themselves to their fullest bent, the master took a stroll into the woods, from which he was always sure to return much more crabbed than when he went, and with his breath smelling very strongly of something stronger than water.

At times he became so mellowed, that he was indulgence itself, and at other times he beat the boys unmercifully. The patrons of the school seemed to think their duty ended with the sending of their children to the school-house, without inquiring what took place after they got there.

One day Daniel asked the teacher for permission to go out-doors, and receiving it, he passed into the clear air just at the moment that a brown squirrel was running along the branch of a fallen tree.

Instantly the athletic lad darted in pursuit, and, when the nimble little animal whisked out of sight among a dense clump of vine and bushes, the boy shoved his hand in, in the hope of catching it. Instead of doing so, he touched something cold and smooth, and bringing it forth, found it was a whiskey bottle with a goodly quantity of the fiery fluid within.

"That's what the teacher comes out here for," thought Daniel, as his eyes sparkled, "and that's why he is so cross when he comes back."

He restored the bottle to its place, and returned to the school-room, saying nothing to any one until after dismissal, when he told his discovery to some of the larger boys, who, like all school-children, were ever ripe for mischief.

When such a group fall into a discussion, it may be set down as among the certainties that something serious to some one is sure to be the result.

The next morning the boys put a good charge of tartar emetic in the whiskey bottle, and shaking it up, restored it to its former place of concealment. Then, full of eager expectation, they hurried into school, where they were more studious than ever – a suspicious sign which ought to have attracted the notice of the teacher, though it seems not to have done so.

The Irish instructor took his walk as usual, and when he came back and resumed labor, it may be imagined that the boys were on the tip-toe of expectation.

They had not long to wait. The teacher grew pale, and gave signs of some revolution going on internally. But he did not yield to the feeling. As might have been expected, however, it increased his fretfulness, and whether he suspected the truth or not, he punished the boys most cruelly, as though seeking to work off his illness by exercising himself with the rod upon the backs of the lads, whose only consolation was in observing that the medicine taken unconsciously by the irate teacher was accomplishing its mission.

Matters became worse and worse, and the whippings of the teacher were so indiscriminate and brutal, that a rebellion was excited. The crisis was reached when he assailed Daniel, who struggled desperately, encouraged by the uproar and shouts of the others, until he finally got the upper hand of the master, and gave him an unquestionable trouncing.

After such a proceeding it was not to be expected that any sort of discipline could be maintained, and the rest of the pupils rushed out-doors and scattered to their homes.

The news of the outbreak quickly spread through the neighborhood, and Daniel was taken to task by his father for his insubordination, though the parent now saw that the teacher possessed not the first qualification for his position. And the instructor himself must have felt somewhat the same way, for he made no objections when he was notified of his dismissal, and the school education of Daniel Boone ended.

It was a misfortune to him, as it is to any one, to be deprived of the privilege of storing his mind with the knowledge that is to be acquired from books, and yet, in another sense, it was an advantage to the sturdy boy, who gained the better opportunity for training himself for the great work which lay before him.

In the woods of Exeter he hunted more than ever, educating the eye, ear, and all the senses to that wonderful quickness which seems incredible when simply told of a person. He became a dead shot with his rifle, and laid the foundations of rugged health, strength and endurance, which were to prove so invaluable to him in after years, when he should cross the Ohio, and venture into the perilous depths of the Dark and Bloody Ground.

Boone grew into a natural athlete, with all his faculties educated to the highest point of excellence. He assisted his father as best he could, but he was a Nimrod by nature, instinct and education, and while yet a boy, he became known for miles around the settlement as a most skilled, daring, and successful hunter.

When he had reached young manhood, his father removed to North Carolina, settling near Holman's Ford, on the Yadkin river, some eight miles from Wilkesboro'. Here, as usual, the boy assisted his parents, who were gifted with a large family, as was generally the case with the pioneers, so that there was rarely anything like affluence attained by those who helped to build up our country.

While the Boones lived on the banks of the Yadkin, Daniel formed the acquaintance of Rebecca Bryan, whom he married, according to the best authority attainable, in the year 1755, when he was about twenty years of age.

There is a legend which has been told many a time to the effect that Boone, while hunting, mistook the bright eyes of a young lady for those of a deer, and that he came within a hair's-breadth of sending a ball between them with his unerring rifle, before he discovered his mistake. But the legend, like that of Jessie Brown at Lucknow and many others in which we delight, has no foundation in fact, and so far as known there was no special romance connected with the marriage of Boone to the excellent lady who became his partner for life.

The children born of this marriage were James, Israel, Jesse, Daniel, Nathan, Susan, Jemima, Lavinia, and Rebecca.

CHAPTER II

Social Disturbances in North Carolina – Eve of the American Revolution – Boone's Excursions to the West – Inscription on a Tree – Employed by Henderson and Company – The "Regulators" of North Carolina – Dispersed by Governor Tryon – John Finley – Resolution to go West

The early part of Daniel Boone's married life was uneventful, and the years glided by without bringing any incident, event or experience to him worthy the pen of the historian. He toiled faithfully to support his growing family, and spent a goodly portion of his time in the woods, with his rifle and dog, sometimes camping on the bank of the lonely Yadkin, or floating down its smooth waters in the stillness of the delightful afternoon, or through the solemn quiet of the night, when nothing but the stars were to be seen twinkling overhead.

But Daniel Boone was living in stirring times, and there were signs in the political heavens of tremendous changes approaching. There was war between England and France; there was strife along the frontier, where the Indian fought fiercely against the advancing army of civilization, and the spirit of resistance to the tyranny of the mother country was growing rapidly among the sturdy colonists. North Carolina began, through her representatives in legislature, those measures of opposition to the authority of Great Britain, which forecast the active part the Old Pine Tree State was to take in the revolutionary struggle for liberty and independence.

During the few years that followed there was constant quarreling between the royal governor and the legislators, and it assumed such proportions that the State was kept in continual ferment. This unrest and disturbance were anything but pleasing to Boone, who saw the country settling rapidly around him, and who began to look toward the West with the longing which comes over the bird when it gazes yearningly out from the bars of its cage at the green fields, cool woods, and enchanting landscapes in which its companions are singing and reveling with delight.

Boone took long hunting excursions toward the West, though nothing is known with exact certainty as to the date when he began them. The Cherokee war which had caused much trouble along the Carolina frontier was ended, and he and others must have turned their thoughts many a time to the boundless forests which stretched for hundreds and thousands of miles towards the setting sun, in which roamed countless multitudes of wild animals and still wilder beings, who were ready to dispute every foot of advance made by the white settlers.

Such a vast field could not but possess an irresistible attraction to a consummate hunter like Boone, and the glimpses which the North Carolina woods gave of the possibilities awaiting him, and the growth of empire in the West, were sure to produce the result that came when he had been married some fifteen or more years and was in the prime of life.

Previous to this date, the well known abundance of game in Tennessee led many hunters to make incursions into the territory. They sometimes formed large companies, uniting for the prospect of gain and greater protection against the ever-present danger from Indians.

It is mentioned by good authority, that among the parties thus venturing over the Carolina border into the wilderness, was one at the head of which was "Daniel Boone from the Yadkin, in North Carolina, who traveled with them as low as the place where Abingdon now stands, and there left them."

Some years ago the following description could be deciphered upon an old beech-tree standing between Jonesboro and Blountsville:

D. BOON

CILLED A. BAR ON

IN THE TREE

YEAR 1760.

This inscription is generally considered as proof that Boone made hunting excursions to that region at that early date, though the evidence can hardly be accepted as positive on the point.

It was scarcely a year after the date named, however, that Boone, who was still living on the Yadkin, entered the same section of the country, having been sent thither by Henderson & Company for the purposes of exploration. He was accompanied by Samuel Callaway, a relative, and the ancestor of many of the Callaways of Tennessee, Kentucky, and Missouri. The latter was at the side of Boone when, approaching a spur of the Cumberland mountains, upon whose slopes they saw multitudes of bisons grazing, the great pioneer paused, and surveying the scene for a moment, exclaimed, with kindling eyes:

"I am richer than He who owned the cattle on a thousand hills, for I own the wild beasts of a thousand valleys."

The sight was indeed one which might have stirred the heart of a hunter who could grasp the possibilities of the future of those favored regions.

Daniel Boone may be considered as having undergone a preliminary training from his earliest boyhood for the work which has identified his name indissolubly with the history of Kentucky. He was what may be called a born pioneer, but there were causes at work in North Carolina which led to his departure for the Kentucky wilderness, of which the general reader is apt to lose sight in studying his character.

The approach of the American Revolution in the former State, as in many others, was marked by social disturbances frequently amounting to anarchy. There were many Scotch traders, who had accumulated considerable wealth without having gone through the labor and perils which the natives underwent in providing for their families.

These foreigners adopted an expensive and showy style of living, altogether out of keeping with the severe simplicity that marked that of the colonists.

Nothing was more natural than that this assumption of superiority in the way of social position should roil and excite resentment among those less favored by fortune.

They were not alone in this offensive course: the officers and agents of the Royal Government were equally ostentatious in display and manner of living, and the exasperating snobbishness spread to the magistrates, lawyers, clerks of court, and tax gatherers, who demanded exorbitant fees for their services. The clergymen of the Established Church became oppressive in their exactions, and, as we have stated, society itself was threatened with revolution before the rattle of musketry at Bunker Hill "was heard around the world."

Petitions were sent to the Legislature for relief by the suffering citizens, who were in much the same distressing situation in which Ireland has been many a time since. These prayers were treated with indifference or open contempt, for there are none more reckless and blind than those who are traveling close to the edge of the political volcano rumbling at their feet.

There is a limit beyond which it is always dangerous to tempt the endurance of a people, who now began meeting together, and formed themselves into associations for correcting the evils around them. It was these people who received the name of "Regulators," and who helped to increase the disturbances in that particular section of the country. They deliberately decided "to pay only such taxes as were agreeable to law, and applied to the purpose therein named, and to pay no officer more than his legal fees."

The history of the State records many acts of violence which were inevitable from this condition of affairs. The final collision between the "Regulators" and a strong force of the royal governor Tryon at Alamanance, in which the rebels were badly defeated, occurred in May, 1771, but the disturbances continued with more or less violence until the breaking out of the Revolution, when the mills of God ground so "exceeding fine," that the grievances were removed forever.

It was in such a community as this that Daniel Boone lived, and he and his family were sufferers. What more natural than that he should cast his eyes longingly toward the West, where, though there might be wild beasts and wild men, he and his loved ones could be free from the exasperating annoyances which were all around them?

The perils from Indians were much less alarming to them than were those of the tax-gatherer. Indeed, in all probability, it lent an additional attractiveness to the vast expanse of virgin wilderness, with its splashing streams, its rich soil, its abundance of game and all that is so enchanting to the real sportsman, who finds an additional charm in the knowledge that the pleasure upon which he proposes to enter is spiced with personal danger.

One day a visitor dropped in upon Boone. He was John Finley, who led a party of hunters to the region adjoining the Louisa River in Kentucky in the winter of 1767, where they spent the season in hunting and trapping. The hunter called upon Boone to tell him about that land in which he knew his friend was so much interested.

We can imagine the young man, with his rifle suspended on the deer-prongs over the fire, with his wife busy about her household duties and his children at play, sitting in his cabin and listening to the glowing narrative of one who knew whereof he was speaking.

Finley told him of the innumerable game, the deer and bison, the myriads of wild turkeys, and everything so highly prized by the sportsman; he pictured the vast stretches of forest in which the hunter could wander for hours and days without striking a clearing; of the numerous streams, some large, some small, and all lovely to the eye, and it needed no very far-seeing vision to forecast the magnificent future which lay before this highly favored region.

It must have been a winsome picture drawn by Finley – aided as it was by the repelling coloring of the scene of his actual surroundings – made so hateful by the oppressive agents of the foreign government which claimed the colonies as her own.

When Finley was through, and he had answered all of his friend's questions, and told him of his many hunting adventures in Kentucky, Boone announced that he would go with him when he should make his next visit. He had already been drawn strongly toward the region, and he wished to see with his own eyes the favored land, before removing his family thither.

The acquisition of such a person was so desirable, that he was sure to be appreciated by those who knew him best, and whether appointed to that position or not, his own matchless resources and natural powers were certain to fix upon him as the leader of the adventurous characters who had decided to explore the dangerous wilderness of Kentucky.