Daniel Boone (1734-1820), was a famous American pioneer and frontiersman who
blazed the Wilderness Trail and founded Boonesborough, Kentucky (also known as
Boonesboro). He was born in Birdsboro, Pennsylvania and in 1756 married Rebecca
Bryan, a neighbor in the Yadkin Valley of North Carolina, and fathered 10
children. Boone fought the Indians and British during the American Revolutionary
War, served in the Virginia Legislature (Virginia encompassed Kentucky at that
time) and explored much of the Kentucky and Tennessee regions of the American
colonies.
In 1769 Boone blazed the first known trail from North Carolina to Tennessee.
Boone spent the next two years hunting and exploring in Kentucky, where he was
captured twice by Indians and escaped both times. In 1773, Boone attempted to
settle in Kentucky but an Indian attack resulted in the death of his oldest son
James. Two years later he succeeded in founding Boonesborough (near Lexington,
Kentucky), the first settlement of Transylvania. Continued fighting with the
Shawnee and the British resulted in the loss of his second oldest son Israel
during one of the last battles of the American Revolutionary War, the Battle of
Blue Licks.
Boone lost most of his land claims in Kentucky due to faulty titles. Taxes and
creditors forced him out of Kentucky and in 1788 Boone settled at Point Pleasant
on the Ohio River in what is now West Virginia. His son Daniel Morgan Boone met
with the Spanish lieutenant governor Don Z.Trudeau in 1798 and was invited to
settle the Boone family in Missouri. Two years later Boone was appointed
"syndic" (judge and jury) and commandant of the Femme Osage region. Rebecca died
in 1813 and Daniel Boone died at his home in Defiance, Missouri on September 26,
1820.
The publication of The Adventures of Colonel Daniel Boon in 1784 by John Filson
immortalized Boone the frontiersman as an American legend and a true folk hero
and also covers Boone's adventures in Boonesborough.
The name Daniel Boone was used by a UK pop singer during the early 1970s,
recording on Penny Farthing Records and achieving a worldwide hit with "Hi, Hi,
Hi,
Beautiful Sunday."
Daniel Boone starring Fess Parker was also a popular television series
broadcast from September 24, 1964, to May 7, 1970. The Daniel Boone
episodes are often confused with the Davy Crockett productions which were
produced earlier by Disney. Part of the confusion arises from the
similarity of the Boone and Crockett characters and that both were played by
Fess Parker. More information can be found in our section on
Boone and Crockett .
