Eight Things You Didn't Know about Daniel Boone

Eight Things You Didn’tKnow about Daniel Booneby Robert MorganEditor’s Note: Novelist andpoet Robert Morgan grew up inthe North Carolina mountainsnear Daniel Boone’s stompingground. Morgan’s fascinationwith the legendary trailblazer wasrekindled while doing research forBrave Enemies, his novel of theAmerican Revolution. The result:a full-blown and fully authoritativenew biography.Robert Morgan,The folklore — or “fakelore”— about Danielboat, and poled it up the Ohioginseng, loaded it on a keel-author ofBooneBoone began during hisRiver. The boat hit a snag andown lifetime and has grownsteadily ever since. Luckily, theoverturned. The wet “sang” wasrescued, loaded on packhorses,real Daniel Boone is even more interestingthan the legend — to wit:1. Forget the coonskin cap; Boone neverwore one. According to his son Nathan,Boone thought coonskin caps uncomfortableand uncouth. It was probably the politicianDavy Crockett who created the legend of thecoonskin-topped frontiersman. And becausethe same actor, Fess Parker, played bothBoone and Crockett on television, we confusethe two. Boone was raised as a Quaker,and all his life he preferred a Quaker-stylefelt hat made from beaver fur toand carried to Hagerstown, Maryland, whereit brought only half price because of waterdamage. The story was told to the scholarLyman Draper by Boone’s youngest son,Nathan, in 1851. Dried ginseng is, however,light as paper, and fifteen “tons” of it wouldfill a warehouse. What Nathan actually describedwas fifteen “tuns,” or barrels. Mostthings were shipped in barrels in those days:tobacco, flour, nails, dry ginseng.3. The great bird painter John James Audubonclaimed to have hunted with Boone inKentucky and described Booneprotect him from the sun andrain.2. The legend is that in thesummer of 1788 Boone andhis sons dug fifteen “tons” ofBooneby Robert MorganISBN-13: 978-1-56512-455-4HardcoverPublication: October 2007a shannon r avenel bookas a giant of a man. But Booneleft Kentucky in 1799 whileAudubon was still a teenagerin Haiti (he may well have metBoone later, in Missouri), andF a l l / W i n t e r 2 0 0 7 1 8 T h e A l g o n k i a n

although Boone was powerfully built andpossessed extraordinary strength, he wasonly five feet eight inches tall, about averagefor a man of the time.4. Boone was neither the discoverer of theCumberland Gap nor the firstwhite settler in Kentucky. Thegap, called Cave Gap by whitehunters, Ouasioto by the Indians,and Cumberland Gap byDr. Thomas Walker (who firstrecorded the existence of thegap), had been used as the entrance to Kentuckyfor several decades before Boone wentthere in 1769 to hunt and trap and explore.5. Though the legend grew that Boonewas a notable Indian fighter, the truth is heusually avoided conflict by offering Indianshis furs and fine rifle and a drink from hisflask. In fact, Boone was sometimes called awhite Indian and was distrusted because ofhis friendship with Indians. He told his sonNathan that in his long life he was sure ofkilling only one Indian, at the Battle of BlueLicks in 1782. Boone was a dreamer, and hisgreat dream was to live in the wilderness atpeace with the Indians.6. Boone’s respect for all human life,whether Indian, British, or American, isoften credited to his Quaker upbringing.But his son Nathan reported that Boone,like Washington, Franklin, and Lafayette,was a Freemason. A fresh wind of fellowshipsweeping through Europe and NorthAmerica in the eighteenth century, Freemasonryadvocated brotherhood among menand service toward society. Boone’s behaviorduring the American Revolution, whichsometimes raised questions about his loyalty,“Forget the coonskin cap;Boone never wore one.”— Robert Morganmay have been influenced by his connectionto Freemasonry.7. The legend that Boone had a Shawneewife while a captive at Chillicothe in 1778may have some truth in it. The Shawneeswere losing population fromdisease and war, and they oftenkidnapped whites, blacks, andother Indians for adoption.Boone became Sheltowee, or“Big Turtle, honored son of thewar chief,” and, as the honoredadopted son of Chief Blackfish, he wouldhave been expected to take a wife. He latertold a granddaughter that during his captivityhe had taken a Shawnee wife who cookedand mended his moccasins.8. For almost two hundred years therehave been rumors that one of Daniel and RebeccaBoone’s children was conceived whileDaniel was away from home for two yearshunting, serving in the militia, or capturedby Indians. The story goes that Rebecca toldhim the father of the new baby was one of hisown brothers and that Boone’s response wasthat since it was all in the family he acceptedthe child as his own. Certainly it’s a colorfulstory. The problem is that Boone was awayfrom home for two years only once, from1769 to 1771, and his son Daniel MorganBoone was born in December 1769, sevenmonths after Boone left for Kentucky. Differentversions of the story contradict each otherand it’s likely the legend arose from the factthat the birth of Daniel Morgan was monthsafter Boone left home. Sorting through thestrands of the legend, we see folklore come tolife and grow. ■F a l l / W i n t e r 2 0 0 7 1 9 T h e A l g o n k i a n