Boone

Boone, Daniel (1735-1820), an American pioneer who has been the subject of many memoirs and of many romances. He, like the trapper to whom Fenimore Cooper introduces us, loved the wilderness and liked to avoid the haunts of men. North Carolina, to which he had emigrated early in life, was not wild enough for him, and he made for the Red River, a branch of the Kentucky. Here he was captured by Indians; but, escaping, he fell in with his brother who was on his trail, and they spent a winter in a cabin. After a time he again went to the Kentucky country, and built a stockade fort which was twice attacked by Indians in 1777. The next year he was again captured by Indians, but escaped to the fort, and with his men repelled another Indian attack.

When Kentucky was joined to the Union, Boone's title as squatter was not enough to secure him his land, and he retired into deeper wilderness. But in 1813 he was awarded a tract of land as an acknowledgment of his public services, and it was at Charette on the Missouri river that he died.