Daniel Boone 1734—1820
Typical Frontiersman Molded by Environment and Ancestry

Daniel Boone was a legend even in his own lifetime and a tough, resourceful man for the times. He was typical of the American frontiersman of Scottish ancestry who blazed trails across the Cumberland mountains into Tennessee and Kentucky. ■ Of all the colonists, none was better suited to the hazards of the frontier than the Scots. They left a rugged climate, constant clan warfare and unrest, and the threat of English invasion. Transplanted to Ulster, the Scots there had to contend with a sullen and hostile native Irish population and religious oppression. ■ With this background, the dour and tenacious Scots were better able than most to take on the job of conquering the American wilderness. They included men like Kit Carson, Sam Houston, Jim Bowie, Davy Crockett, and Boone. ■ In the first full century of colonization, the English settlements were hardly more than 75 miles from the Atlantic. In the 50 years following the mass migration of the Scots that began in 1718, the area of settlement had tripled. ■ Boone was born near Reading, Pennsylvania, November 2, 1734. He was a grandson of George Boone who emigrated to America in 1717. He moved to the Carolinas at an early age and was soon ranging far and wide from Florida to the Yellowstone River. Hunter, trapper, Indian fighter, and protector of settlers, he founded the town of Boonesboro, Kentucky. He organized settlers to protect themselves from Indian marauders. But he couldn't save his son James from torture and murder by the Cherokees. ■ Boone lived to the ripe old age of 86 and died in St. Charles County, Missouri. Some time later, the bodies of Boone and his wife were returned to his beloved Kentucky for burial.