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Authors: Conn Iggulden
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home, Boone repaired and made his own clothes from what was available to him. Sewn moccasins replaced his English leather boots, buckskin leggings replaced threadbare breeches, and a fringed hide top replaced his torn woolen shirts. Although only the head of Chester Hardingâs full-length portrait of Boone survives, an engraving of the original painting shows Boone in these distinctive hunting clothes. He didnât wear a coonskin cap; he wore a beaver hat, as did Davy Crockett later.
Copyright © 2009 by Matt Haley
Booneâs father died in 1765, and Daniel traveled south to investigate the new colony of Florida as a future home. Florida was rejected, so Daniel and Rebecca moved farther up the remote Yadkin Valley. Historical interpretations of him always seeking a life far fromvillages and towns annoyed him. Years later he said: âNothing embitters my old age as much as the circulation of absurd stories that I retire as civilization advances.â In his saddlebags he usually packed his Bible and Gulliverâs Travels, and at night he often read to other frontiersmen by the light of the campfire.
Boone and his brother Squire explored farther west into the Appalachians, into the borders of the Kentucke country (Kentucky and West Virginia). The land then was abundant with wild game, but preserving the meat was the key to survival. Daniel fortunately had a knack for finding salt pans and brine creeks wherever he huntedâit was said he could smell salt from thirty milesâso that in the winter of 1767 the brothers camped at Salt Springs. Around the fire they talked about the Kentucke country west of the mountains, where the Iroquois and Shawnee hunted.
By the 1768 treaty of Fort Stanwix, the Iroquois allowed British settlers to hunt in Kentucke. Very soon the trader John Findley visited Booneâs home. He was arranging a hunting and trading expedition across the Appalachians and asked Boone to join. On May 1, 1769, a five-man expedition left for the Appalachians, intending to explore and hunt for two years. Passing through the 1,665-foot-high Cumberland Gap and into Kentucke proper, they found wild turkey, deer, buffalo, and green pastures ideal for farming. Yet it was also Shawnee land, and their chiefs had not signed the Fort Stanwix treaty.
Boone and another man were captured by Shawnee in December. Their furs were confiscated and they were ordered to leave. Boone, however, doubled back to remain until 1771, exploring and hunting as far west as the Forks of the Ohio (Louisville). Under a ledge in the Great Smoky Mountains there is still a tiny backwoods hut, only four feet high, in which Boone spent one winter. He was so impressed with the Kentucke country that he returned again in 1772. He was thinking of settlement.
He sold his idea to settlers in the Carolinas, and in September 1773, he led his family and fifty others westward in the first attempt at settlement of Kentucke. The Shawnee, Delaware, and Cherokeemet them in October in the Cumberland Gap. One of Booneâs sons and another settlerâs son were captured and tortured to death. The expedition turned back.
Early the following spring, surveyors who were unaware of the attack entered Kentucke. Boone and a companion traveled some eight hundred miles that summer to warn them of their danger. A brief local war developed during which Boone helped defend settlements in Virginia. He was made a captain in the militia. His fame was spreading with colonists as well as with Native Americans, and developer Richard Henderson hired him to travel to the Cherokee villages to arrange a trade meeting. In 1775 Henderson bought from the Cherokee much of modern Kentucky for ten thousand poundsâ worth of goods. He then hired Boone to blaze a road for settlers.
Boone and thirty woodsmen marked and built a trail through the Cumberland Gap and onward to the Kentucky River, deep into the heart of Kentucke. It is the famous Wilderness Road, nearly
Copyright © 2009 by Matt Haley
Booneâs father died in 1765, and Daniel traveled south to investigate the new colony of Florida as a future home. Florida was rejected, so Daniel and Rebecca moved farther up the remote Yadkin Valley. Historical interpretations of him always seeking a life far fromvillages and towns annoyed him. Years later he said: âNothing embitters my old age as much as the circulation of absurd stories that I retire as civilization advances.â In his saddlebags he usually packed his Bible and Gulliverâs Travels, and at night he often read to other frontiersmen by the light of the campfire.
Boone and his brother Squire explored farther west into the Appalachians, into the borders of the Kentucke country (Kentucky and West Virginia). The land then was abundant with wild game, but preserving the meat was the key to survival. Daniel fortunately had a knack for finding salt pans and brine creeks wherever he huntedâit was said he could smell salt from thirty milesâso that in the winter of 1767 the brothers camped at Salt Springs. Around the fire they talked about the Kentucke country west of the mountains, where the Iroquois and Shawnee hunted.
By the 1768 treaty of Fort Stanwix, the Iroquois allowed British settlers to hunt in Kentucke. Very soon the trader John Findley visited Booneâs home. He was arranging a hunting and trading expedition across the Appalachians and asked Boone to join. On May 1, 1769, a five-man expedition left for the Appalachians, intending to explore and hunt for two years. Passing through the 1,665-foot-high Cumberland Gap and into Kentucke proper, they found wild turkey, deer, buffalo, and green pastures ideal for farming. Yet it was also Shawnee land, and their chiefs had not signed the Fort Stanwix treaty.
Boone and another man were captured by Shawnee in December. Their furs were confiscated and they were ordered to leave. Boone, however, doubled back to remain until 1771, exploring and hunting as far west as the Forks of the Ohio (Louisville). Under a ledge in the Great Smoky Mountains there is still a tiny backwoods hut, only four feet high, in which Boone spent one winter. He was so impressed with the Kentucke country that he returned again in 1772. He was thinking of settlement.
He sold his idea to settlers in the Carolinas, and in September 1773, he led his family and fifty others westward in the first attempt at settlement of Kentucke. The Shawnee, Delaware, and Cherokeemet them in October in the Cumberland Gap. One of Booneâs sons and another settlerâs son were captured and tortured to death. The expedition turned back.
Early the following spring, surveyors who were unaware of the attack entered Kentucke. Boone and a companion traveled some eight hundred miles that summer to warn them of their danger. A brief local war developed during which Boone helped defend settlements in Virginia. He was made a captain in the militia. His fame was spreading with colonists as well as with Native Americans, and developer Richard Henderson hired him to travel to the Cherokee villages to arrange a trade meeting. In 1775 Henderson bought from the Cherokee much of modern Kentucky for ten thousand poundsâ worth of goods. He then hired Boone to blaze a road for settlers.
Boone and thirty woodsmen marked and built a trail through the Cumberland Gap and onward to the Kentucky River, deep into the heart of Kentucke. It is the famous Wilderness Road, nearly
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