More than any other man, Daniel Boone was responsible for the exploration and settlement of Kentucky. His grandfather came from England to America in 1717. His father was a weaver and blacksmith, and he raised livestock in the country near Reading, Pennsylvania. Daniel was born there on November 2, 1734.
If Daniel Boone was destined to become a man of the wild, an explorer of unmapped spaces, his boyhood was the perfect preparation. He came to know the friendly Indians in the forests, and early he was marking the habits of wild things and bringing them down with a crude whittled spear. When he was twelve his father gave him a rifle, and his career as a huntsman began.
When he was fifteen, the family moved to the Yadkin Valley in North Carolina, a trek that took over a year. At nineteen or twenty he left his family home with a military expedition in the French and Indian War. There he met John Finley, a hunter who had seen some of the western wilds, who told him stories that set him dreaming. But Boone was not quite ready to pursue the explorer's life. Back home on his father's farm he began courting a neighbor's daughter, Rebecca Bryan, and soon they were married.
In 1767 Boone traveled into the edge of Kentucky and camped for the winter at Salt Spring near Prestonsburg. But the least explored parts were still farther west, beyond the Cumberlands, and John Finley persuaded him to go on a great adventure.
On May 1, 1769, Boone, Finley, and four other men, started out. They passed Cumberland Gap and on the 7th of June, they set up camp at Station Camp creek. It was nearly two years before Boone returned home, and during that time he explored Kentucky as far west as the Falls of the Ohio, where Louisville is now. There was another visit to Kentucky in 1773, and in 1774 he built a cabin at Harrodsburg. On this trip, Boone followed the Kentucky River to its mouth.
Colonel Richard Henderson of the Transylvania Company hired Boone as his agent, and in March, 1775, Boone came again to the "Great Meadow" with a party of thirty settlers. They began to clear the Wilderness Road and by April they were establishing their settlement at Boonesborough.
Boone left the Bluegrass in 1788 and moved into what is now West Virginia.
This time it was to explore, map out, and find the main headwaters of Arkansas and Red rivers that ran through the region. But that wasn’t all that Pike had to do. Zebulon also had to complete the journey to establish a friendly and strong relationship with the Native Americans and also to evaluate and report back on natural resources that the expanding colonies could use to their advantage.
Because of his restlessness in England, Smith became actively involved with plans to colonize Virginia, which had been granted a charter from King James I. After setting sail, this famous expedition finally reached Virginia in April, after enduring a lengthy voyage of over four months in three tiny ships. John Smith was one of the seven chosen to govern and start the colony. He took a...
to Alaska and was in the frontier. Unfortunately he was unable to survive, dieing of starvation.
ultimately defends the wild in all of its forms. He opens the novel with a narrative story about a
The book starts out with a chapter called “Over the Mountains”, which in my opinion for this chapter the author wanted the reader to understand what it was like to live on the other side of the Appalachian Mountains. This is where he brings out one of the main characters in this book, which is Henry Brackenridge. Mr. Brackenridge is a cultivated man in Pittsburgh. He was wealthy and he was there to ratify the Constitution. He was a Realist. He was a college friend of James Madison at College of New Jersey. He was also in George Washington’s post as a chaplain for the Revolutionary War. He believed that Indians needed to be assimilated into the American culture. “… ever to be converted into civilized ways, their legal rights were to be protected” (Hogeland 19). He will become one of the leaders of the Whiskey Rebellion.
Born in Home, Pennsylvania in 1927, Abbey worked as a forest ranger and fire look-out for the National Forest Service after graduating from the University of New Mexico. An author of numerous essays and novels, he died in 1989 leaving behind a legacy of popular environmental literature. His credibility as a forest ranger, fire look- out, and graduate of the University of New Mexico lend credibility to his knowledge of America’s wilderness and deserts. Readers develop the sense that Abbey has invested both time and emotion in the vast deserts of America.
Into the Wild, written by John Krakauer tells of a young man named Chris McCandless who 1deserted his college degree and all his worldly possessions in favor of a primitive transient life in the wilderness. Krakauer first told the story of Chris in an article in Outside Magazine, but went on to write a thorough book, which encompasses his life in the hopes to explain what caused him to venture off alone into the wild. McCandless’ story soon became a national phenomenon, and had many people questioning why a “young man from a well-to-do East Coast family [would] hitchhike to Alaska” (Krakauer i). Chris comes from an affluent household and has parents that strived to create a desirable life for him and his sister. As Chris grows up, he becomes more and more disturbed by society’s ideals and the control they have on everyday life. He made a point of spiting his parents and the lifestyle they lived. This sense of unhappiness continues to build until after Chris has graduated college and decided to leave everything behind for the Alaskan wilderness. Knowing very little about how to survive in the wild, Chris ventures off on his adventure in a state of naïveté. It is obvious that he possessed monumental potential that was wasted on romanticized ideals and a lack of wisdom. Christopher McCandless is a unique and talented young man, but his selfish and ultimately complacent attitude towards life and his successes led to his demise.
Boone had little formal education, but he did learn the skills of a woodsmen early in life. By age 12 his hunting skill and skill with a rifle helped keep his family well provided with wild game. In 1756 Boone married Rebecca Bryan, a pioneer woman with great courage and patience. He spent most of the next ten years hunting and farming to feed his family. In 1769 a trader and old friend, John Findley, visited Boone's cabin. Findley was looking for an overland route to Kentucky and needed a skilled woodsman to guide him. In 1769 Boone, Findley and five men traveled along wilderness trails and through the Cumberland gap in the Appalachian mountains into Kentucky. They found a "hunter's paradise" filled with buffalo, deer, wild turkey and meadows ideal for farming. Boone vowed to return with his family one day.
John, Davy's father, moved to Greene County where Davy was born. While Davy was still in dresses, his father moved the family to Cove Creek in Greene County, Tennessee, where he built a mill in partnership with Thomas Galbreath. When Davy was eight years old, the mill was washed away with his home. After this disaster John Crockett removed his family to Jefferson County where he built and operated a log-cabin tavern on the Knoxville-Abingdon Road. (This cabin has been restored and is now located at Morristown, 30 miles Southwest of Greeneville.) The young Davy no doubt heard tales told by many a westbound traveler - tales which must have sparked his own desire for adventure in the great western territories. In his dealings with his father's customers, Davy must also have learned much about human nature and so refined his natural skills as a leader. While Davy lived there he spent four days at the school of Benjamin Kitchen. He had a fight with a boy at school and left home to escape a "licking" from his dad.
Jedediah Smith was a trailblazer and a brigade leader. He was a partner in two fur-companies. Was the first to transverse the Sierra Nevada and the first to cross the Great Basin Desert. In 1824 helped a destitute party of Hudson’s Bay Company trappers get back to the Flathead house. In 1825 he moved his group from Salt Lake to California. In 1826 he was sent ahead of the west bound pack train to arrange for the rendezvous held that year in Cache Valley and in the spring of 1827 Smith and two of his trappers left the remaining party on the Stanislaus river. He
Abraham Lincoln was born in 1809 on the Kentucky frontier. His parents were Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks Lincoln. He and his parents were all southern born, even though his ancestors were born in Pennsylvania and New England. In 1816, when Lincoln was seven years old, he and his family moved to Indiana. Later on, close to his adulthood, they moved to Illinois. Lincoln’s mother, Nancy, died when he was only nine years old. In 1828-1831 he traveled in a flat boat down the great Mississippi River to New Orleans, Louisiana. When he got to New Orleans, he realized that Illinois was a better place to live in so he went back there. He went to a pioneer village to live at first, then on to Springfield, IL. He volunteered to fight the Indians as a “citizen’s soldier”, but never had to actually fight any Indians. He eventually decided to start studying law. “Later, he made fun of his military experience, removing it as far as possible from a real war experience, speaking of it as consisting of bloody struggles with mosquitoes and charges upon wild onions."
His sudden and surprising resignation occurred June 30, 1835. He then married Zachary Taylor's daughter. He then settled by Vicksburg and became a cotton planter. Here he pursued a life of retirement and study until 1843.
Abraham Lincoln compared to other president in my opinion is the best president and he lived in Illinois for a long time because of being a lawyer he may have been seen of being very tall and grim but he was actually a loving person that was always with his family and making sure that if they were sick he would help them the best he could but sadly almost all his sons died.
To continue moving Westward the settlers had to get rid of the Indians who were inhabiting the land. President Andrew Jackson, led the quest of the driving the Indians out of their homes. He put all of the Indians in reservations which is now modern day Oklahoma. The United States Army led the force of clearing up the West. The land was now clear so the settlers were developing new ways of transporting all of their goods into the market. They built canals and railroad systems to speed up the process. With
Finally, on July 24, 1847 the first pioneers reached the end of the Mormon trail and looked down on the Salt Lake valley. When Brigham Young led them into the valley he declared; “This is the right place”. The saints had been led to a place where they could live in peace and prosperity, with the right to practice their faith in god.