Daniel Boone: Explorer, hunter, frontiersman, Indian fighter, patriot...politician? by Ron Bryant, used here with the gracious permission of the Kentucky Gazette.
Daniel Boone-the name evokes images of explorer, hunter, rugged frontiersman, Indian fighter, patriot and politician. Politician? Yes, politician. Boone actually served a brief stint in the political arena. We forget Boone's political phase be" cause it does not fit the image of the simple yet brave man who opened up the Kentucky frontier for settlement. As one of Kentucky's and the nation's great heroes, Boone is definitely ensconced as a part of America's mythic culture. He remains a symbol of all that fascinates us about the westward movement. Nevertheless, Boone also represents the countless men and women of America who always searched for greener pastures just over the next hill.
How did Boone the frontiersman become Boone the politician? The better question is, how did Boone the man become Boone the legend? Both questions are answered by the course of events that placed him in history.
Born in Bucks County, Penn., Daniel Boone (1734-1820) came
from solid Quaker stock.
His parents, Squire and Sarah Morgan Boone, represented the hardy spirit of the frontier. Squire came to Pennsylvania from Exeter, England in 1713. A weaver by trade, he married Sarah Morgan in 1720. The couple had 11 children.
As a child, Daniel experienced the typical life of a colonial boy -- much outdoor work, balanced with hunting and fishing. At age 12 or 13, his father gave him his first gun. He delighted in wandering the woods surrounding his home, learning to become an excellent marksman. He absented himself from home for days at a time, hunting game that he proudly brought home to his family.
Limited in formal education, Boone learned to read and write with the help of his sister-in-law, Sarah Day Boone. Even his father failed to see any harm in Daniel's lack of education. When told that his son should learn how to spell, Squire Boone replied, "Let the girls do the spelling and Dan will do the shooting."
In the 1750s, the family moved from Pennsylvania to the Yadkin River valley of North Carolina. The forests of the Boone's new home teemed with wild game. Daniel hunted and trapped game for the fur trade and helped transport provisions to the town of Salisbury. With the outbreak of the French and Indian War (1754-1763), Boone and his friend, John Finley, joined as wagon drivers for Gen. Edward Braddock's expedition against Fort Duquesne. In April 1755, Braddock and his men met with disaster when an enemy force attacked and routed them. Braddock died from wounds received in the ambush. A young Virginia militia officer by the name of George Washington had his coat riddled with bullets, but survived, unscathed. Boone and the other drivers jumped onto one of his team of horses, cut the traces and escaped.
After his brush with death with the Braddock expedition, Boone settled down in the Yadkin Valley, and in 1756 married Rebecca Bryan. For a decade, the wanderlust that dominated his life seemed somewhat quelled. Although he continued to hunt in the vast wilderness around him, Boone farmed and raised a family. In 1760, he joined a campaign against the Cherokee, and, in 1765, he traveled to Florida to explore the region.
The lure of Kentucky
In the mid-1760s, Boone and his hunting companions entered the fabulous land west of the Allegany Mountains. The legendary paradise of Kentucky became a lure to Boone and many others that could not be ignored. The seemingly endless forests, abundant game and rich soil combined to make it nearly impossible for the adventuresome Boone not to run the risks involved with exploring a hostile new territory.
Along with John Finley, Boone and other hunters decided to become part of a major hunting expedition into Kentucky. Soon the word spread about the great natural wealth of the western lands. After a number of hunting trips into the interior of Kentucky, Boone signed on with Richard Henderson and company to help establish what Henderson hoped to be the 14th colony. The proposed Transylvania Colony did not materialize due to difficulty with land titles from the Cherokee Indians.
Throughout the 1760s, and well into the 1770s, Boone's love affair with Kentucky intensified. In 1775, he led a party of settlers into Kentucky and established the settlement of Boonesborough. Always a retiring man who shunned the Close confines of villages and towns, Boone found himself in a position of leadership that eventually propelled him into the very situations that he loathed. As a natural-born leader, he commanded his fellow pioneers in defending their Kentucky possessions against Indian depredations. With strength in battle that belied his pacifistic Quaker background, Boone proved invaluable to the safety of the frontier.
Unenthusiastic politician
With Boone's obvious qualities of leadership and frontier savvy, pioneer Kentuckians looked to him as an ideal representative for their interests. Kentucky needed representation in Virginia's government. In April 1781, Boone headed for Richmond to take his seat as a Virginia legislator representing Kentucky. On May 7, 1781, he attended the opening of the legislature. By this time, however, the British, under the command of Lord Cornwallis, were advancing on Richmond, and the lawmakers moved to the relative safety of Charlottesville. Cornwallis sent cavalry detachments to capture the legislature. Boone and a Young friend from Kentucky tried to escape, but failed. The British held him for a few days and released him on his promise not to take up arms against the Crown. He attended the autumn meeting of the legislature and found himself assigned to a committee on frontier affairs. As a working politician, Boone became disenchanted. He preferred the open spaces of the wilderness to sitting in a meeting hall listening to reports. The great frontiersman absented himself from committee work as much as possible. He stayed away so much that in December 1781 the speaker of the assembly ordered the sergeant at arms to "take in his custody Daniel Boone."
With the close of the American Revolution, Boone returned to his wanderings. Facing difficulties with uncertain land titles and evincing poor business judgment, he lost most of his holdings in Kentucky. Although he had blazed the trail for thousands of settlers to come into Kentucky and claim land, he helplessly watched as one land claim after another proved invalid. By the end of the 18th century, Boone felt Kentucky no longer afforded him a viable living. Like so many pioneers he decided to move west and start anew. The wanderlust still burned strong within the heart of the aging frontiersman.
Eventually, Boone and his family moved to Missouri, then a territory of Spain. He again hunted and trapped, living to its fullest the life of the frontier. Soon, word spread to the Spanish authorities that Boone had the respect of his fellow settlers. Appointed as "Saindic de la Femme Ozage," he served as a type of magistrate. He held court under an elm tree, dispensing justice in petty criminal cases. A strong believer in corporal punishment, Boone often gave convicted criminals a choice of being sent to a higher court to be further prosecuted or being whipped.
When Missouri, as a portion of the Louisiana Purchase, became American territory in 1803, Boone again endured difficulties with his land claims. Although respected as an influential figure, he still suffered a loss of property at the hands of the new government.
The life of Daniel Boone is the stuff from which legends are made. Any phase of his life could be a major study. Boone, the politician, remains his least successful phase. He did not have the desire to apply himself to the arduous paperwork and concentration need to become an effective statesman. Nor did he have the sense of political machination that is requisite in one who must deal with the intrigues of government. Instead, Boone found his happiness in the woods and meadows of the unsettled wilderness. The hunt, the thrill of seeing and exploring new lands gave him the greatest satisfaction of all.
By the end of the War of 1812, men like Boone were fast becoming an anomaly. The frontier began to contract at a rapid pace. As settlements flourished and the population grew, frontiersmen, frontier justice, and frontier government vanished. Lawyers, businessmen, and a more polished set of men took over politics.
By the time of his death in 1820, Boone, the man had been lost in Boone, the legend. Poems, songs, stories and plays portrayed him as the perfect example of the "natural man." In 1784, John Filson, Kentucky's first historian, immortalized Boone as the greatest of frontier heroes. Europeans read Filson's account with amazement and admiration for a man who seemed to them to be the embodiment of Rousseau's philosophy of the natural world and man's role in it.
The political life of Daniel Boone may not have been a great success, but his life as a whole made him an American icon. In the words of Lord Byron's epic poem, Don Juan, "Of the great names which in our faces stare, the General Boon, back-woodsman of Kentucky, Was happiest amongst mortals any where..." Happy indeed, not in dignified legislative halls, but in the realm of nature.