The Man of Legend

Famed as a hunter, wilderness explorer, Indian fighter, surveyor, negotiator, strategist, state legislator, magistrate and land speculator, folk tradition has attributed countless mythical feats to Daniel Boone.
The facts are remarkable enough...

Born November 2, 1734 to Quaker parents on a frontier farm near present day Reading, Pennsylvania, Daniel learned to read and write legibly, but never mastered grammar nor spelling.  In the woods, however, he was a master.  Indians taught Boone the art of spotting and tracking game and how to live in the wilderness. 

Boone stood 5'9", but he had an unusual strength, agility and presence of mind.  Although not the first white man in Kentucky, he was the foremost explorer.  In 1769 he explored most of central and eastern Kentucky.  In 1775 he negotiated a huge tract of land from the Cherokee along with a North Carolina land speculator, Judge Richard Henderson. 

With a company of 30 ax men, Boone cleared the Wilderness Road through the Cumberland Gap to the Kentucky River and founded Boonesborough at the end of the road.

In 1776, the Indians captured Boone's daughter, Jemima, and two of her companions while they were boating on the Kentucky River.  Boone and a small party followed a trail of broken twigs and cloth the girls had left behind (taught no doubt by Boone), and rescued all safely. 

Boone wrote of his trip to Kentucky in 1769:
"In the midst of dangers and inconveniences, it was impossible to be melancholy.  Nothing could afford such pleasure in my mind as the beauties of nature I found here...a second paradise."

Next time...the Legend Part 2
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Today in Pioneer History: On September 21, 1779,  the Louisiana governor and Spanish military officer Bernardo de Galvez, with the aide of American troops and militia volunteers, captures the British post and garrison at Baton Rouge, located in what was then British-controlled West Florida.