Boone


 * Of the great names which in our faces stare,


 * The General Boon, back-woodsman of Kentucky,


 * Was happiest amongst mortals any where;


 * For killing nothing but a bear or buck, he


 * Enjoyed the lonely vigorous, harmless days


 * Of his old age in wilds of deepest maze.


 * -Lord Byron, Don Juan (1822)

Daniel Boone [October 22, 1734 – September 26, 1820] was an American pioneer and hunter, most famous for his exploration and settlement of what is now the state of Kentucky.

Boone was born on October 22, 1734. He was the sixth of eleven children in a family of Quakers and grew up in a log cabin in Southeast Pennsylvania. As a young man, he worked as a wagon driver in the British military and a hunter. After moving from Pennsylvania to North Carolina, he made many long hunts in Kentucky and founded several cities there. James Fenimore Cooper's book The Last of the Mohicans included a story based on an episode in which Boone rescued his daughter from a group of Native Americans who had kidnapped her. Later, Boone was an officer during the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783). He was captured by Shawnee Native Americans in 1778, but he escaped and continued to help defend the Kentucky settlements.

Daniel Boone was a hero and an extremely accomplished hunter, frontiersman, and explorer, however many stories about him were embellished or completely made-up. In an 1833 biography, the rumors that he got in a fist fight with a bear and escaped from Native Americans by swinging on vines were created. These and other stories were turned into popular books for young boys.

Although he fought with Native Americans in many wars (and lost two sons in those wars), he was respectful and sympathetic to them throughout his life. In his later life he hunted with the very Shawnees that had earlier captured him.

Which of the Becket Mottos do you think best described Daniel Boone?