I am Mr. Beat
One of the most well-known folk heroes of the United States is Daniel Boone.
He became a legend in the early days of the country after tales of his adventures as a pioneer and explorer got out there.
However, long after his death, the tales got a little out of hand.
Today, Boone is one of the most misunderstood figures in American history.
This is mostly due to how he was portrayed later in books in the 19th century, and in numerous comic strips, radio shows, and films in the 20th century.
Then of course, (Daniel Boone theme song)
there was this TV show about him that was popular in the 1960s.
The actor in that show, Fess Parker, basically acted like the same way he did in a previous role, playing Davy Crockett.
Needless to say, the show was not historically accurate AT ALL.
In fact, Daniel Boone never wore a coonskin cap like Parker did in that show. That's a myth
that he ever wore a coon skin cap so
so why am I wearing a coon skin cap?
Goodness. Get this out of here. Whose idea was this?
Anyway, while the mythology surrounding Boone’s life is often remembered, the truth is often forgotten.
Since this is a history channel, let’s just dig right into the real history of Daniel Boone, shall we?
Daniel Boone was born on November 2, 1734 in what became Berks County, Pennsylvania, today an hour’s drive from Philadelphia.
His parents, Squire and Sarah Boone, were Quakers who escaped persecution for their religious beliefs back in England.
Daniel was a middle child, sixth of eleven children.
The family lived just down the road from future President Abraham Lincoln’s ancestors.
In fact, Abraham Lincoln’s great-grandfather, also named Abraham Lincoln, married Daniel’s cousin Ann.
As a kid, Daniel spent most of his time at the edge of the frontier, often taking his family’s cattle out to graze.
He loved wandering in the woods with those cows.
He regularly interacted with the nearby Lenape Indians, who the Quakers as a whole had a good relationship with.
Daniel actually learned how to hunt from the Lenape, in addition to other local settlers.
He got his first rifle at the age of 12, and by 13 he was regularly providing meat for family meals.
One time a panther leapt right at him and he calmly cocked his rifled and shot him through the heart.
Yeah, that probably didn’t really happen, but the fact that that story got around is evidence Daniel had quite the reputation as a skilled hunter.
Daniel never attended school, but family members did teach him how to read and write.
Later, his go-to books were The Bible and Gulliver’s Travels.
In 1750, Squire Boone moved the family to North Carolina, settling in the Yadkin River valley, near what is now Davie County.
This was again an area at the edge of the frontier.
Daniel joined the local militia to help defend the settlements from various local American Indian tribes.
When North Carolina governor Matthew Rowan called for a militia during the French and Indian War, Boone, now 20 years old, volunteered.
He served under General Edward Braddock as he led forces to attack at Fort Duquesne, a French military post located at present-day Pittsburgh.
George Washington, future President but at the time a young colonial militia leader, was also on that march.
Boone worked as a wagoner, meaning he was one of the dudes who drove the horse-drawn wagons.
On the trip, Boone met and befriended a trader named John Findley.
Findley had lots of experience trading with different groups of American Indians and had traveled quite a bit.
He told Boone about a place called Kentucky, where the deer, buffalo, bear, and turkey were plentiful. Boone was intrigued, to say the least.
Things did not end well for the Braddock expedition. In the Battle of the Monongahela, Braddock was mortally wounded and the British badly defeated.
Boone barely escaped death, escaping by horse back to North Carolina.
Soon after, Boone met Rebecca Bryan. They fell in love and married on August 14, 1756.
A couple years later, Boone was at war again, serving in the militia during the Anglo-Cherokee War.
During this time, his family temporarily moved to Culpeper County, Virginia. After the conflict ended, they moved back to North Carolina.
Over the next several years, Boone made a living as a hunter and trapper in the fur trade.
He’d often be gone for days at a time. Every fall, he’d go on “Long Hunts”, deep into the Appalachian Mountains
that sometimes lasted months. Business trips, you could call them.
Sometimes Boone went with a small group of guys, all called “longhunters,” gathering hundreds of deer skins or beaver or otter pelts in one trip.
Other times, Boone went alone, and no one really knew where he was.
In 1768, Boone’s old friend John Findley caught up with him.
By this time, Rebecca and him had six kids, and Boone was getting increasingly frustrated with North Carolina Governor William Tryon and the British government all together, which seemed to be biased against those settling out west.
Findley had again told Boone about Kentucky, and how he had planned on going back.
He asked Boone to join him. Boone couldn’t resist.
On May 1, 1769, Findley and Boone set out to Kentucky.
They were joined by four others, including Boone’s brother-in-law John Stuart
No, not THAT John Stewart.
Yeah. That one. That one. That one.
We don’t know what he looked like either, ok?
A land speculator named Richard Henderson provided the supplies for their trip.
It was quite a trip. Boone and the others built the first known trail from North Carolina into eastern Tennessee.
They went through the Cumberland Gap and up the Cumberland River into Kentucky.
They spent the next two years exploring the wilderness and hunting.
Not once, but twice did the Shawnee capture Boone.
The first time they captured him, they took his skins but set him free, warning him to never come back.
The second time Boone escaped.
In 1770, Stuart went missing, and they later found out that this time he was killed by American Indians.
Wait...huh? Spain?
Some Cherokees caught up to Boone and the others one more time on their way home in 1771, and stole all the skins they had, warning them to not come back.
Well, they did. Two years later, Boone brought his whole family, which now included eight kids, as well as a group of about 50 immigrants, through the Cumberland Gap to establish a permanent settlement in Kentucky.
They left on July 5, 1773. Keep in mind that not only the Cherokee and Shawnee warned them not to do this, but also the British Government, which had not opened western Kentucky to settlement.
In October, a group of Lenapes, Shawnees, and Cherokees attacked.
They captured, tortured, and brutally killed six men, including Boone’s oldest son, James.
This freaked out the immigrants and everybody headed back to North Carolina.
Soon Lord Dunmore’s War broke out, in which the colony of Virginia fought the Shawnee and Mingo tribes for control over what is now West Virginia and Kentucky.
During that conflict, Boone made a name for himself in the militia defending settlements along the Clinch River.
He was even promoted to Captain. Virginia ended up winning, opening up settlement out west.
And now, Richard Henderson, that land speculator dude I mentioned earlier, wanted to start a new colony out there called Transylvania.
He bought some land from the Cherokee and once again hired Boone to create a reliable trail that led out there.
In 1775, Boone led the efforts to create what became known as the Wilderness Road, which cut through the Cumberland Gap into central Kentucky.
He was a trailblazer. ha ha ha get it?
Daniel Boone: Just cool it, Mr. Beat.
Boone founded a settlement eventually called Boonesborough. Great name. Great name.
He then came back to North Carolina to bring his family and other settlers there on September 8, 1775.
By this time, the American War of Independence was going on, and they couldn’t escape it in Kentucky.
In fact, American Indians who were mad about losing Kentucky saw the war as a chance to drive out American colonists to get their land back.
By the spring of 1776, this scared away all but less than 200 colonists in Kentucky.
Boone and his family were among those who stayed. Boonesborough was under constant threat, and Boone and others fortified the settlement to protect against American Indian raids.
However, on July 5, 1776- that’s right, the day after the United States declared independence and became a country- Boone’s daughter Jemima, as well as two other girls, were captured by a small group of Shawnee and Cherokee men while canoeing.
But Boone was all like "I will look for you. I will find you. And I will kill you" and led a group of men to catch up to them two days later. They were able to rescue the girls.
The next year, Boone was shot in the ankle after another Shawnee attack on Boonesborough.
While Boone recovered, the Shawnees persisted with their attacks, eventually destroying all of Boonesborough cattle and crops.
With the supply of food running low, the settlers of Boonesborough needed salt to preserve the little meat they had left, so in January 1778, Boone led an expedition of 30 men to get some salt.
However, the Shawnee, led by the warrior Blackfish, captured them.
Boone was able to convince Blackfish not to capture Boonesborough.
However, he now became a prisoner of the Shawnee. Later on, though, a Shawnee family, impressed with his scouting and hunting skills, adopted him and gave him a bit more freedom.
Boone lived among the Shawnee for about four months when he escaped and returned to Boonesborough, successfully helping defend it against further attacks.
Meanwhile, Boone’s family had just assumed he was dead, and had moved back to North Carolina.
Boy were they surprised when he showed up to take them back to Kentucky.
In addition to his family, Boone brought a bunch of other settlers, supposedly also including the ancestors of Abraham Lincoln, with him.
He started a new settlement called Boone’s Station.
Boone collected a bunch of money for settlers to buy land warrants, but it was stolen, and it took him years to pay back.
Did you know Boone was also a politician? Heck yeah he was.
In 1781, voters elected him to represent them in the Virginia legislature.
Throughout all this, the War of Independence raged on, and Boone decided to fight on the side of the Americans.
He fought with General George Rogers Clark when he invaded Ohio in 1780.
Soon after that, the Shawnee captured Daniel’s brother, Ned,and chopped off his head and displayed it as a trophy, thinking it was Daniel.
Daniel also lost his son, Israel, in the Battle of Blue Licks on August 19, 1782.
After the war finally ended, Boone helped establish a port on the Ohio River which is today Maysville, Kentucky.
On Boone’s 50th birthday, historian John Filson released a book called The Discovery, Settlement and Present State of Kentucke, in which he chronicled his adventures.
The book turned Boone into a national and even international celebrity.
Throughout the rest of the 1780s, Boone continued his involvement in the militia and in politics in the Virginia legislature.
He also worked as a surveyor, a land speculator, traded horses, and even kept a tavern.
And he finally built up some wealth, buying up to tens of thousands of acres of land. He even owned seven slaves.
Ultimately, though, he was not smart with his investments, and ended up with a lot of debt.
He resettled with his family in Point Pleasant in modern-day West Virginia in 1788 and started a trading post.
However, in 1795 the trading post failed and Boone and the family headed back to Kentucky.
By 1798, Boone had lost all of his land due to both disputed land claims and debt.
He was back where he started. Hunting and trapping.
He wanted a fresh start, and Spain offered him a home.
Wait...huh? Spain?
Yep, Spanish Louisiana, that is. In 1799, Boone and his family, as well as several other families, headed out to Upper Louisiana, in what is today eastern Missouri to start a new life.
Keep in mind that by this time Boone was an old man, in his mid-60s.
The Spanish welcomed Boone with military honors, waiving the normal requirements for settling there and giving him 850 acres of great farmland just west of St. Louis.
They even made him a military leader and judge in charge of a district.
Louisiana would come under French control and then American control shortly after that.
Since Boone only had a verbal agreement with Spain, he lost his land claims in 1804, but still was able to live in the area with family members who had secured land.
Eventually, President James Madison signed a law giving Boone his 850 acres.
However, as soon as that happened he had to sell the property to pay off folks back in Kentucky who’d heard the news and demanded he pay his old debts.
After the War of 1812 broke out, Boone tried to volunteer to fight but they didn’t take him.
He was 77 years old by that time, after all.
In 1813, Rebecca, who had been by his side for nearly 60 years, died.
Boone remained active, however, in his final years still hunting and trapping whenever he could.
Supposedly, he made one trip in those final years all the way west to the Rocky Mountains, but that’s probably not true.
Also supposedly, he made one final trip back to Kentucky during those final years, but that’s probably not true either.
Boone died at his son Nathan’s stone house, near Defiance on September 26, 1820 of acute indigestion, the year before Missouri became a state. He was 85.
After he died, his legendary status only grew.
Timothy Flint’s Biographical Memoir of Daniel Boone, the First Settler of Kentucky, released in 1833, was one of the best-selling biographies of the 19th century, and for nearly every decade after that, it seems like there was a new book about him, each stretching the truth more and more.
His adventures, whether real or not, pretty much formed the basis of the stereotypical hero of the American West, symbolizing the soul of manifest destiny and the American spirit, for better or for worse.
Today he remains one of the most well-known figures in American history.
Boone’s grandson, Alphonso Boone, went on to become a pioneer himself.
He was an early settler of the Willamette River Valley in Oregon, getting there in 1846 and establishing Boones Ferry, an important link in Oregon for more than 100 years.
Three generations of Daniel Boone’s descendants have also played baseball professionally.
Ray Boone, his son Bob, and grandchildren Bret and Aaron all played Major League Baseball.
The singer Pat Boone is also a descendant.
So take away all the mythology, and Daniel Boone was still the world’s most interesting man. Well, one of them, at least.
But hey, you’re an interesting person, too. I want to hear from you. What are YOUR thoughts about Daniel Boone?
Before I go I want to give a shout out to
not one but two books I used while
researching for this video.
The first one is one of the most definitive books about Daniel Boone.
It's by John Mack Faragher.
I think that's how you pronounce his name.
And the book is called Daniel Boone: The Life and Legend of an American Pioneer
And it does a good job sorting through all the mythology
surrounding Boone and just gets right to the facts.
I put an affiliate link in the description of this video.
If you are interested in buying it
It helps me, and it helps you hopefully get a good deal on the book.
And another great book that not only has information about Boone but information about all of Westward Expansion American history
Is this one, The American Heritage History of the Great West
This is an amazing book. Holy crap.
It's a gem. This is probably one of my top 10 favorite history books of all time.
I strongly recommend it.
It was fun digging this thing out again.
and I also have a link for that.
And finally, this video was suggested by my terrific Patreon supporter, Jojo’s Dogtail.
That’s a pseudonym by the way.
Jojo's Dogtail donates at least $20 or more a month.
and that is why I took his suggestion.
And I made this video.
So if you want your suggestions made, that's the best way to do it.
Thank you Jojo's Dogtail, and thank YOU for watching.