Cecil B. Hartley
Life of Daniel Boone, the Great Western Hunter and Pioneer
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4064066228200
Table of Contents
LIFE AND TIMES OF COLONEL DANIEL BOONE.
PREFACE
The subject of the following biography, the celebrated Colonel Daniel Boone, is one of the most remarkable men which this country has produced. His character is marked with originality, and his actions were important and influential in one of the most interesting periods of our history—that of the early settlement of Kentucky. Boone is generally acknowledged as the founder of that State. His having explored it alone to a considerable extent; his leading the earliest bands of settlers; his founding Boonesborough, the nucleus of the future State; his having defended this and other stations successfully against the attacks of the Indians; and the prominent part which he took in military affairs at this period of distress and peril, certainly render his claims to the distinguished honor of founding Kentucky very strong.
But Boone, personally, reaped very little benefit from his patriotic and disinterested exertions. The lands which he had first cultivated and defended, were taken from him by the chicanery of the law; other lands granted to him by the Spanish government were lost by his inattention to legal forms; and in his old age he was without an acre of land which he could call his own. A few years before his death a small tract, such as any other settler in Missouri was entitled to, was granted him by Congress. But he has left to his numerous posterity a nobler inheritance—that of an imperishable fame in the annals of his country!
LIFE AND TIMES
OF
COLONEL DANIEL BOONE.
CHAPTER I.
The family of Daniel Boone—His grandfather emigrates to America, and settles in Bucks County, Pennsylvania—Family of Daniel Boone's father—Account of Exeter, the birth-place of Boone—Birth of Daniel Boone—Religion of his family—Boone's boyhood—Goes to school—Anecdote—Summary termination of his schooling.
The immediate ancestors and near relations of the American Boone family, resided at Bradwinch about eight miles from Exeter, England. George Boone the grandfather of Daniel, emigrated to America and arrived, with Mary his wife, at Philadelphia, on the 10th of October, 1717. They brought with them eleven children, two daughters and nine sons. The names of three of the sons have come down to us, John, James, and Squire. The last of these, Squire Boone, was the father of Daniel.
George Boone, immediately after his arrival in America, purchased a large tract of land in what is now Bucks County, which he settled, and called it Exeter, after the city near which he was born. The records distinguish it only as the township of Exeter, without any county. He purchased also various other tracts in Maryland and Virginia; and our tradition says, among others, the ground on which Georgetown, District of Columbia, now stands, and that he laid the town out, and gave it his own name. His sons John and James lived and died on the Exeter purchase.[1]
Daniel Boone's father, Squire Boone, had seven sons and four daughters, viz.: James,[2] Samuel, Jonathan, Daniel, George, Squire, Edward, Sarah, Elizabeth, Mary, and Hannah.
Exeter Township is situated in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and now has a population of over two thousand. Here Daniel Boone was born, on the 11th of February, 1735.[3]
The maiden name