Story and Legend of Daniel Boone

Story and Legend of Daniel Boone. . , Daniel Boone was legendary while he was alive, thanks to his exploits in leading American settlers to Kentucky and both fighting and befriending American Indians. Outwardly simple, an accomplished hunter and woodsman, conspicuously brave yet soft-spoken, Boone had a rich and remarkable life as he moved from east to west. The American nation was also expanding east to west, and Boone symbolized the country's growth. Even today, when he isn't confused with Davy Crockett, Boone is the model of the common man as great American., Boone Leaves His Name , Daniel Boone and his family came to Missouri in 1799 and settled around Femme Osage Creek near today's Matson. His name is preserved in central Missouri places such as the Boonslick region, Boonville and Boone County. In fact, it was his sons, Nathan and Daniel Morgan, whose salt-making operation at Boone's Lick brought the Boone name to the region. Their salt business, started in 1805, the year before the Lewis and Clark Expedition returned to St. Louis, is now Boone's Lick State Historic Site, located 10 miles northwest of Boonville., Life and Death in Missouri , Boone apparently did not meet the Lewis and Clark Expedition during its stop at Boone Settlement on May 23, 1804. He may have been away on a trip, but his absence is not mentioned in the expedition journals. Boone spent his time in Missouri as one might expect of a semi-retired frontiersman: hunting, trapping, exploring, having close scrapes with death and meeting Indians. Seen as both Indian fighter and friend, our attitudes about Boone have reflected national views of American Indians., Two Centuries of Legendary Boone , Daniel Boone died in his son Nathan's home in 1820 at the age of 85, seven years after his wife, Rebecca, passed away. They were buried in a cemetery between Dutzow and Marthasville (only half a mile from the Katy Trail), and reburied in Kentucky's capital, Frankfurt, in 1845. Since John Filson's Boone "autobiography" in 1784, the Boone legend has grown. Boone was a founding role model of the Boy Scouts of America in 1910 and the original mold for strong and silent men-of-action heroes. Books, paintings, poems, movies and a 1960s television series, whether they contained actual history or not, all contributed to the Daniel Boone story.