The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1908-02-02


- ANIEL BOONE will always occupy
s. unique place in our history the arch
- type of the hunter and wilderness
wanderer. He was true pioneer,
and stood at the head of that class
of Indian-fghters game-hunters, forestellcrs, and
backwoodsl farmers who, generation after gen
Grafton pushed westward the border of civilization
from the A1eghanies to the Pacific. AS he himself
said he was ian instrument ordained of God to set
tie the wilderness" Born in Pennsylvania, he
drifted south into western North Carolina, and set
tied on what was then the extreme frontier. There
he married, built log cabin and hunted, chopped
trees and titled the ground like any other frontiers
man. The Allegheny Mountains still marked a
for west of them lay immense reaches of frowning
forest uninhabited save by bands of warke Indians
Occasionally some venturesome hunter or trapper
penetrated this immense wilderness, and returned
with strange stories of what he had seen and done
In 1900 Boone, excited by these vague and won
drous tales determined himself to cross the noun
tains and find out what of land it that
lay beyond With few chosen companions he set
out making his trail through the gloomy forest.
After weeks of wandering, he at last emerged into
which, in after years, the red and the white
strove with such obstinate fury that it grew to be
called "the dark and bloody ground" But when
Boone first it, it fair and smiling land
of groves and glades and running waters, where
the open forest grew tall and beautiful and where
nnumerable herds of game grazed, roaming cease
1essly to and fro along the trails they had trodden
during countless generations Kentucky not
owned by any Indian tribe, and visited only by
wandering war-parties and hunting parties who
from among the savage nations living north
of the Ohio or south of the Tennessee.
A rowing war-party stumbled upon of Boones
companions and killed him, and the others then
left Boone and journeyed home; but his brother
came out to join him, and the two spent the winter
together Self-rcliant, fearless, and possessed of
great bodily strength and hardhood they cared little
for tho loneliness. The teemng myrads of game
furnished abundant food; the herds of shaggy
,maned bison and nobe-antlered elk, the bands of
deer and the numerous black bear, were all ready
for the rifle, and they were tame and easily slain
The wolf and the cougar, too, sometimes fell victims
Ito the prowcss of tho two hunters.
AZ times they slept in hollow trees, or in some
bush lean-to of their own making; at other times,
when they feared Indians they changed their rest
ing-placc every night, and after making FIRE would
go off mile or two in the woods to sleep. Sur
rounded by brute and human foes, they owed their
lives their sleepess vigilance, their keen senses
their eagle eyes. and their resolute hearts.
When the spring came, and thetwoods were white
With the dogwood blossoms, and crimsoned with
the red-bud. Boones brother left him, and Daniel
remained for three months alone in the wilderness
Tho brother soon came back again with party of
hunters; and other parties likewise came in, to
wander for months and years through the wilder
ness; and they wrought huge havoc among the vast
herds of game
In 1871 Boone returned to his home. Two years
later he started to lead party of settlers to the
NaceWO7T9coWOC1z 81