Boone, Daniel (1734-1820)was An American Pioneer, Who Played A Major P

Boone, Daniel (1734-1820)was an American pioneer, who played a major part in the exploration and settlement of Kentucky. Boone was born on November 2, 1734, near Reading, Pennsylvania. In 1753 his family settled on the Yadkin River in what is now North Carolina. In this primitive settlement Boone received some schooling and became a skillful hunter and trapper. He served with the forces led by the British general Edward Braddock in the campaign in 1755 against Fort Duquesne during the French and Indian War. Subsequently Boone set out to explore and settle the wilderness around the Kentucky River, making the first of many trips into the region in 1767. Between 1769 and 1771, on his most important expedition, he explored eastern Kentucky, following a trail through the Cumberland Gap with five companions. In 1775, having been engaged as the agent of a Carolina trading company to establish a road by which colonists could reach Kentucky and settle there, he built a stockade and fort on the site of Boonesboro. The first group of settlers crossed the Cumberland Gap to Boonesboro by the road established by Boone, later called the Wilderness Road. During the American Revolution the community suffered repeated attacks by Native Americans, and in 1778 Boone was taken captive by Native American raiders. The settlement, however, was eventually established as a permanent village. During the early 1780s Boone was forced to abandon his claims to the land around Boonesboro because of invalid titles, and he moved to Boone's Station, Kentucky. He later left Kentucky and from 1788 to 1798 lived near Point Pleasant, Virginia (now West Virginia). About 1799 he settled near Saint Louis, in present-day Missouri, where he remained until his death. The region was then under the authority of Spain; in 1803 it became United States territory as part of the Louisiana Purchase, and in 1814 Boone's claim to the land he occupied was confirmed by the U.S. Congress. He died on September 26, 1820. The name Daniel Boone will forever be synonymous with the saga of the American frontier. Born and raised in Pennsylvania, Boone was the inveterate wayfarer who achieved lasting fame guiding land-hungry settlers to the Kentucky frontier and fighting to defend them against Indian attack. Boone was born November 2, 1734, in the log farmhouse that evolved into - and was replaced by - the main house of the Daniel Boone Homestead, situated east of Reading in Berks County. Daniel's father, Squire Boone, was an English Quaker born in Devonshire in 1696. While still a youth, Squire, his brother George and sister Sarah embarked for Philadelphia to appraise the possibilities of settlement for their father's family, who immigrated finally in 1717. Squire settled first in Abington, then moved to Gwynedd, where he met Sarah Morgan, born in 1700 to Welsh Quakers. Married in 1720, they lived first near Gwynedd, then in Chalfont, Bucks County, before purchasing 250 acres of the Homestead in 1730. Squire's father and brothers also lived in the area and became prominent in business, local government and the Friends Meeting. Daniel was the sixth child, one of eleven, born to Squire and Sarah. Although little is known of Daniel's Pennsylvania years, he undoubtedly helped his father as farmer, weaver and blacksmith and had the usual experiences of a boy growing up in the back country. In 1750 Squire and Sarah joined the growing southward movement of Pennsylvanians, and concluded their long trek in the Yadkin Valley of North Carolina. While their principal motive may have been economic, it is also a fact that Squire had been "read out of Meeting" by the Exeter Friends in 1748 for his unrepentance in allowing his son Israel to marry a non-Quaker. Daniel was then only 15 1/2 years old, but ahead was a life filled with the rigors of the American frontier. In 1756 he married Rebecca Bryan and with her - when he was home - raised ten children. In 1773 he failed in his first attempt to settle Kentucky, but in 1775 he succeeded in establishing Boonesborough. Between 1775 and 1783 Daniel Boone was a leader among settlers in opening new parts of Kentucky and in resisting Indian raids. Although Boone lost