Abilene weekly reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1888-1935, 1888-05-17
DANIEL BOONE.
Biographical Sketch Of This Re-
markable Pioneer.

This hero of the wilderness was born
Quaker. His grandfather, George
Boone, with his nine sons and two
daughters, emigrated from England in
1717, and settled upon farm in Buck
County, Pennsylvania, upon the banks
of the Delaware, neay where the city
of Bristol now stands. The family
Joined the ruling religious denomina-
ton of the region, and thus became
Quakers.
One of the sons, named Squire Boone,
married a fair Quakeress of the wilder.
ness, and an the records of the vicinity
may still be read the names of theiI
children, and the dates OF their birth.
From one of these entries we learn that
Daniel Boone was born on the ODD
of eighth month" (AugusO, 1874.
That was about the time when Ben
iamiD Franklin was beginning to thrive
in business at Philadelphia, as printer
and editor. Philadelphia being then lit
tie more than pleasant, shady village
of five or six thousand inhabitants.
Indians were continually seen in its
street, and bears, wolves. wild turkeys
and deer were shot within ten miles of
the State House. Where Daniel Boone
grew up, twenty miles above Philadel-
phia, the country was still almost a
wilderness, in which were to be found
panthers. wolves and bears. as well as
abundance of smaller game. He was
wholly child of the woods. He lived
and died a pioneer.
BY fortunate chance an Irish
school-master came into the neighbor-
hood during his boyhood, and his father
engaged him to teach his own and his
neighbours children to read and write.
Daniel must have improved this oppor-
tunity, for the letters which we have
from his pen are very well written and
composed. But it was in the lore of
the woods that he became most deeply
versed. He was an excellent shot. He
learned TO track the panther to his hid
ing place. He became an adept in all
the arts by which life is maintained in
the wilderness against savage men,
savage beasts and wild nature.
1t is a strange thing, and fortunate
for the development of the country,
that q pioneer becomes discontinued
when the first difficulties of the situa-
ton are overcome, and neighbors
begin to gather about him. He then
has an unappeasable desire to break
up his home, move westward, and 90
again through the hardships of creating
a farm.
When Daniel was fourteen years OF
age the mania to remove seized his
father, and they went seven hundred
miles to the southwest, and settled
upon the Yadkin river, in the north
western part of North Carolina. The
party consisted of father. mother and
nine children, most of whom must have
been transported on horseback. and all
of them maintained on the way by the
rifles of the father and his elder son.
There was considerable movement of
emigrants in that direction at the time,
the lands in that region being ex-
tremely fertile and attractive, as they
remain to this day.
1t was here, in the wild woods OF
Western Carolina that Daniel Boone
grew to manhood. and, at the age of
twenty-one, built his own log hut.
established his own farm, and married
the daughter of his fathers nearest
neighbor. This happy event occurred
Just rs he had begun his twenty-first
year.
But now again reighbors began to
be unpleasantly numerous, and they
were of kind by no means congenial
with this family of Pennsylvania
Quakers. Most of them were Scotch
Irish. and among them were the rela-
tives and ancestors of Andrew Jackson
and John C. Calhoun. They brought
with them strong Scotch accent, and
various habits and notions offensive to
the BooneS, besides introducing more
expensive style of living than that to
which the pioneers were accustomed.
From the door of his log hut Daniel
Boone could see the peaks of the
Allegheny mountains, six thousand
feet above the plain. barrier which
had yet been seldom crossed bv
white men. OF the regions beyond.
the Indians brought glowing accounts;
and, at length. John Finley and two
or three companies crossed the noun
tains, and brought back such descrip-
ton of the land beyond tennessee
and Kentucky that Daniel Boone de-
termined to see it with his own eyes,
and select home for himself in that
garden of the world. With five COM
panions he set out and spent several
months in leisurely traversing the
country. in the course of which they
had all the usual adventures, includ-
ing weeks captivity among the
Indians.
In due time he led forth a little band
OF emigrants, consisting of four fami-
lies, .twenty-six men, four women, and
Jour or i've children. who settled at a