Daniel Boone: Pioneer Life and Legacy

Daniel Boone was born on November, 2nd, 1734 in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. He was the sixth of eleven kids in the family. His dad Squire was a blacksmith, and a weaver. His mom was a houseworker and worked in their farm. He received his first gun at the age of 12. He loved hunting and working in the farm. When he was just 15 years old he and his family moved to North Carolina.

Later in his life Daniel Boone served in the British army as a wagon driver and a blacksmith during the French and Indian war. He was in the war for about nine years. He came back to North Carolina in 1756. He met a girl named Rebecca Bryan. Later that year he ended up marrying her. They had ten children altogether. He also had another child that Rebecca had with Daniel’s brother. She thought that he had died on his adventure.

Daniel went on his first adventure in 1765 to Florida.

But Rebecca didn’t want to move there so they moved westward instead. They moved to North Carolina instead. Four years later, Daniel Boone was told to travel west with five of his friends. The next two years they went on many adventures together. But they were soon captured by Shawnee Indians. He escaped but the rest of his friends died from the Indians. Daniel had to live in the wilderness for months. In June he was able to see Kentucky for the first time ever. It wasn’t a state at the time so it wasn’t considered Kentucky yet. He explored until he got to the Ohio Falls. Then he explored for two more years in Kentucky until he returned to North Carolina in

1771.

In 1773, Boone returned back to Kentucky with even more settlers. He also brought his family with him. All ten of his children went with him. He wanted to settle in the new land with his family. They tried to make a new settlement with all of the settlers. But again they trespassed into Indian territories. They were attacked again. The only person who died was Daniel’s oldest son, James. After the attack, the settlers and Daniel’s family returned back to North Carolina and back to their homes. Two years later again Daniel tried to reenter Kentucky with more settlers. This time the group of men entered the Cumberland Gap. They were hired by a company to build a ridge in between the gap. They successfully built the gap and they called it the “Wilderness Road”. Boone finally ended up making his own settlement called Boonesborough.

In 1776, The Revolutionary War began. Boone was the captain in the Virginia army. During that time he moved his family completely to Kentucky. Again in Kentucky, the family had to fight the Indians again. They survived but his daughter and two other soldiers was captured by the Shawnee Indians in July 1776. Daniel had to fight the Indians and free the soldiers and her daughter Jamina from them. In 1778 Daniel was captured by the Shawnee Indians again! It took some months just for him to get free. He returned to Boonesborough to warn the settlers to get ready for the attack from the Shawnee Indians. Thankfully the town survived the attack from the Indians. After the attack Boone returned back to North Carolina and lived there for awhile. But again he returned back to Kentucky and started a new colony.
In the esrly 1780s Daniel moved his family into Limestone. Limestone is near the Ohio River. He bought a lot of land because he became a surveyor. After this they moved again to Charleston in 1792. And after this he decided to follow his son Daniel to Missouri. The Spanish Government gave Daniel and Daniel. Daniel Boone (the father) went into hunting and trapping. Daniel had trouble keeping his land so he had to get rid of it. When he was given the land, he received eight hundred fifty acres of land. But in 1803 the United States had purchased Louisana. So the U.S took some of his land but they allowed him to keep some of it.

Ten years later his wife, Rebecca died. They don’t know how she died. Daniel was very upset about this. Boone spent his last years wandering around with his family. He was following them where they went. On Spetember 26, 1820 Daniel Boone died in his sons house in Missouri. They said he died of natural causes.

His death left a huge impact on society. The Kentucky Legislature decide to have him buried in Kentucky because he made so many expeditions into Kentucky. He went through his son, James death. He was captured several times. He escaped all of those times. He saved his daughter and several of his friends there. In 1784 John Filson made a book about him and his life. And Lord Byron made a poem about him. The poem had seven lines about him.