Daniel Boone Daniel Boone ( September 26 , 1820 ) was an American pioneer , explorer , and frontiersman whose frontier exploits made him one of the first folk heroes of the United States . Boone is most famous for his exploration and settlement of what is now Kentucky , which was then part of Virginia but on the other side of the mountains from the settled areas . Despite some resistance from American Indian tribes such as the Shawnee , in 1775 Boone blazed his Wilderness Road through the Cumberland Gap in the Appalachian Mountains from North Carolina and Tennessee into Kentucky . There he founded the village of Boonesborough , Kentucky , one of the first American settlements west of the Appalachians . Before the end of the 18th century , more than 200 , 000 European people migrated to Kentucky / Virginia by following the route marked by Boone . Boone was a militia officer during the Revolutionary War ( 1775 – 83 ) , which in Kentucky was fought primarily between the American settlers and the British - aided Native Americans . Boone was captured by Shawnee warriors in 1778 , who after a while adopted him into their tribe . Later , he left the Indians and returned to Boonesborough to help defend the European settlements in Kentucky / Virginia . Boone was elected to the first of his three terms in the Virginia General Assembly during the Revolutionary War , and fought in the Battle of Blue Licks in 1782 . Blue Lick was one of the last battles of the Revolutionary War , coming after the main fighting ended in October 1781 . Following the war , Boone worked as a surveyor and merchant , but fell deeply into debt through failed Kentucky land speculation . Frustrated with the legal problems resulting from his land claims , in 1799 Boone emigrated to eastern Missouri , where he spent most of the last two decades of his life ( 1800 – 20 ) . Boone remains an iconic figure in American history . He was a legend in his own lifetime , especially after an account of his adventures was published in 1784 , making him famous in America and Europe . After his death , he was frequently the subject of heroic tall tales and works of fiction . His adventures — real and legendary — were influential in creating the archetypal Western hero of American folklore . In American popular culture , he is remembered as one of the foremost early frontiersmen . The epic Daniel Boone mythology often overshadows the historical details of his life . Youth . Daniel Boone was of English and Welsh ancestry . Because the Gregorian calendar was adopted during his lifetime , Boone ' s birth date is sometimes given as November 2 , 1734 ( the " New Style " date ) , although Boone used the October date . The Boone family belonged to the Religious Society of Friends , called " Quakers " and were persecuted in England for their dissenting beliefs . Daniel ' s father , Squire ( his first name , not a title ) Boone ( 1696 – 1765 ) emigrated from the small town of Bradninch , Devon ( near Exeter , England ) to Pennsylvania in 1713 , to join William Penn ' s colony of dissenters . Squire Boone ' s parents , George and Mary Boone , followed their son to Pennsylvania in 1717 , and in 1720 built a log cabin at Boonecroft . In 1720 , Squire Boone , who worked primarily as a weaver and a blacksmith , married Sarah Morgan ( 1700 – 77 ) . Sarah ' s family were Quakers from Wales , and had settled in Towamencin Township , Montgomery County , Pennsylvania in 1708 . In 1731 , the Boones moved to the Oley Valley , near the modern city of Reading . There they built a log cabin , partially preserved today as the Daniel Boone Homestead . Daniel Boone was born there , the sixth of eleven children . Daniel Boone spent his early years on what was then the edge of the Pennsylvania frontier . Several Lenape Indian villages were nearby . The pacifist Pennsylvania Quakers had good relations with the Indians , but the steady growth of the white population compelled many Indians to move further west . Boone was given his first rifle at the age of 12 , as families depended on hunting for much of their food . He learned to hunt from both local settlers and the Lenape , and he always loved it . Folk tales have often emphasized Boone ' s skills as a hunter . In one story , the young Boone was hunting in the woods with some other boys , when the howl of a panther scattered all but Boone . He calmly cocked his rifle and shot the predator through the heart just as it leaped at him . This may not be true , but the story was told so often that it became part of his popular image . In Boone ' s youth , his family became a source of controversy in the local Quaker community when two of the oldest children married outside the endogamous community , in present - day Lower Gwynedd Township , Pennsylvania . In 1742 , Boone ' s parents were compelled to publicly apologize after their eldest child , Sarah , married John Willcockson , a " worldling " ( non - Quaker ) . Because the young couple had " kept company " , they were considered " married without benefit of clergy " . When the Boones ' oldest son Israel married a " worldling " in 1747 , Squire Boone stood by him . Both men were expelled from the Quakers ; Boone ' s wife continued to attend monthly meetings with their younger children . In 1750 , Squire Boone sold his land and moved the family to North Carolina . Daniel Boone did not attend church again . He identified as a Christian and had all of his children baptized . The Boones eventually settled on the Yadkin River , in what is now Davie County , about two miles ( 3 km ) west of Mocksville . This was in the western backwoods area . Because he grew up on the frontier , Boone had little formal education but deep knowledge of the woods . According to one family tradition , a schoolteacher once expressed concern over Boone ' s education , but Boone ' s father said , " Let the girls do the spelling and Dan will do the shooting … . " Boone received some tutoring from family members , though his spelling remained unorthodox . The historian John Mack Faragher cautions that the folk image of Boone as semi - literate is misleading , and argues that he " acquired a level of literacy that was the equal of most men of his times . " Boone regularly took reading material with him on his hunting expeditions — the Bible and " Gulliver ' s Travels " were favorites . He was often the only literate person in groups of frontiersmen . Boone would sometimes entertain his hunting companions by reading to them around the evening campfire . Hunter , husband , and soldier . As a young man , Boone served with the British military during the French and Indian War ( 1754 – 1763 ) , part of the Seven Years War between Britain and France . In North Carolina and the frontier , it played out as a struggle for control of the land to the west of the Appalachian Mountains . In 1755 , he was a wagon driver in General Edward Braddock ' s drive to push the French out of the Ohio Country , which ended with defeat of the Braddock expedition at what is known as the Battle of the Monongahela . ( The British ultimately won the war in 1763 . ) Marriage and family . Boone returned home and on August 14 , 1756 , he married Rebecca Bryan , a neighbor in the Yadkin Valley whose brother married one of Boone ' s sisters . The couple initially lived in a cabin on his father ' s farm . They eventually had ten children . His grandson , Enoch Boone , became the first white man born in Kentucky . Continuing warfare . In 1758 , a conflict erupted between the British forces and the Cherokee , their allies in the French and Indian War ( which continued in other parts of the continent ) . After the Yadkin Valley was raided by Cherokee , the Boones and many other families fled north to Culpeper County , Virginia . Boone served in the North Carolina militia during this " Cherokee Uprising " . His militia expeditions deep into Cherokee territory beyond the Blue Ridge Mountains separated him from his wife for about two years . Boone ' s chosen occupation made for long absences from home . He supported his growing family in these years as a market hunter , collecting pelts for the fur trade . Almost every autumn , Boone would go on " long hunts " , extended expeditions into the wilderness lasting weeks or months . Boone went alone or with a small group of men , accumulating hundreds of deer skins in the autumn , and trapping beaver and otter over the winter . The hunt followed a network of bison migration trails , known as the Medicine Trails . When the long hunters returned in the spring , they sold their take to commercial fur traders . Such frontiersmen often carved messages on trees or wrote their names on cave walls , and Boone ' s name or initials have been found in many places . One on a tree in present Washington County , Tennessee reads " D . Boon Cilled a . Bar [ killed a bear ] on [ this ] tree in the year 1760 " . A similar carving , preserved in the museum of the Filson Historical Society in Louisville , Kentucky , reads " D . Boon Kilt a Bar , 1803 . " The inscriptions may also be among numerous forgeries of the famous trapper , part of a long tradition of phony Boone relics . In 1762 , Boone , his wife and four children moved back to the Yadkin Valley from Culpeper . By the mid - 1760s , with peace made with the Cherokee , colonial immigration into the area increased . The competition of new settlers decreased the amount of game available . Boone had difficulty making ends meet ; he was often taken to court for nonpayment of debts . He sold his land to pay off creditors . After his father ' s death in 1765 , Boone traveled with his brother Squire and a group of men to Florida , which had become British territory after the end of the war , to look into the possibility of settling there . According to a family story , Boone purchased land near Pensacola , but Rebecca refused to move so far away from her friends and family . The Boones moved to a more remote area of the Yadkin Valley , and Boone began to hunt westward into the Blue Ridge Mountains . Kentucky . Boone first reached Kentucky in the fall of 1767 while on a long hunt with his brother Squire Boone Jr . Boone ' s first steps in Kentucky were near present - day Elkhorn City . While on the Braddock expedition years earlier , Boone had heard about the fertile land and abundant game of Kentucky from fellow wagoner John Finley , who had visited Kentucky to trade with American Indians . Boone and Finley happened to meet again , and Finley encouraged Boone with more tales of Kentucky . At the same time , news had arrived about the Treaty of Fort Stanwix , in which the Iroquois had ceded their claim to Kentucky to the British . This , as well as the unrest in North Carolina due to the Regulator movement , likely prompted Boone to extend his exploration . On May 1 , 1769 , Boone began a two - year hunting expedition in Kentucky . On December 22 , 1769 , he and a fellow hunter were captured by a party of Shawnees , who confiscated all of their skins and told them to leave and never return . The Shawnees had not signed the Stanwix treaty , and since they regarded Kentucky as their hunting ground , they considered white hunters there to be poachers . Boone , however , continued hunting and exploring Kentucky until his return to North Carolina in 1771 , and returned to hunt there again in the autumn of 1772 . On September 25 , 1773 , Boone packed up his family and , with a group of about 50 emigrants , began the first attempt by British colonists to establish a settlement in Kentucky . Boone was still an obscure hunter and trapper at the time ; the most prominent member of the expedition was William Russell , a well - known Virginian and future brother - in - law of Patrick Henry . On October 9 , Boone ' s eldest son James and a small group of men and boys who had left the main party to retrieve supplies were attacked by a band of Delawares , Shawnees , and Cherokees . Following the Treaty of Fort Stanwix , American Indians in the region had been debating what to do about the influx of settlers . This group had decided , in the words of historian John Mack Faragher , " to send a message of their opposition to settlement … . " James Boone and William Russell ' s son Henry were captured and gruesomely tortured to death . The brutality of the killings sent shock waves along the frontier , and Boone ' s party abandoned its expedition . The massacre was one of the first events in what became known as Dunmore ' s War , a struggle between Virginia and , primarily , Shawnees of the Ohio Country for control of what is now West Virginia and Kentucky . In the summer of 1774 , Boone volunteered to travel with a companion to Kentucky to notify surveyors there about the outbreak of war . The two men journeyed more than in two months to warn those who had not already fled the region . Upon his return to Virginia , Boone helped defend colonial settlements along the Clinch River , earning a promotion to captain in the militia as well as acclaim from fellow citizens . After the brief war , which ended soon after Virginia ' s victory in the Battle of Point Pleasant in October 1774 , Shawnees relinquished their claims to Kentucky . Following Dunmore ' s War , Richard Henderson , a prominent judge from North Carolina , hired Boone to travel to the Cherokee towns in present North Carolina and Tennessee and inform them of an upcoming meeting . In the 1775 treaty , Henderson purchased the Cherokee claim to Kentucky to establish a colony called Transylvania . Afterwards , Henderson hired Boone to blaze what became known as the Wilderness Road , which went through the Cumberland Gap and into central Kentucky . Along with a party of about 30 workers , Boone marked a path to the Kentucky River , where he founded Boonesborough . Other settlements , notably Harrodsburg , were also established at this time . Despite occasional Indian attacks , Boone returned to the Clinch Valley and brought his family and other settlers to Boonesborough on September 8 , 1775 . American Revolution . Violence in Kentucky increased with the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War ( 1775 – 1783 ) . Native Americans who were unhappy about the loss of Kentucky in treaties saw the war as a chance to drive out the colonists . Isolated settlers and hunters became the frequent target of attacks , convincing many to abandon Kentucky . By late spring of 1776 , fewer than 200 colonists remained in Kentucky , primarily at the fortified settlements of Boonesborough , Harrodsburg , and Logan ' s Station . On July 14 , 1776 , Boone ' s daughter Jemima and two other teenage girls were captured outside Boonesborough by an Indian war party , who carried the girls north towards the Shawnee towns in the Ohio country . Boone and a group of men from Boonesborough followed in pursuit , finally catching up with them two days later . Boone and his men ambushed the Indians while they were stopped for a meal , rescuing the girls and driving off their captors . The incident became the most celebrated event of Boone ' s life . James Fenimore Cooper created a fictionalized version of the episode in his classic book " The Last of the Mohicans " ( 1826 ) . In 1777 , Henry Hamilton , the British Lieutenant Governor of Canada , began to recruit American Indian war parties to raid the settlements in Kentucky . On April 24 , Shawnee Indians led by Chief Blackfish attacked Boonesborough . A bullet struck Boone ' s leg , shattering his kneecap , but he was carried back inside the fort amid a flurry of bullets by Simon Kenton , a recent arrival at Boonesborough . Kenton became Boone ' s close friend , as well as a legendary frontiersman in his own right . While Boone recovered , the Shawnees kept up their attacks outside Boonesborough , destroying the surrounding cattle and crops . With the food supply running low , the settlers needed salt to preserve what meat they had , so in January 1778 , Boone led a party of 30 men to the salt springs on the Licking River . On February 7 , 1778 , when Boone was hunting meat for the expedition , he was surprised and captured by warriors led by Chief Blackfish of the Chilicothe Shawnee . Because Boone ' s party was greatly outnumbered , he persuaded his men to surrender rather than put up a fight . Blackfish wanted to continue to Boonesborough and capture it , since it was now poorly defended , but Boone convinced him the women and children were not hardy enough to survive a winter trek . Instead , Boone promised that Boonesborough would surrender willingly to the Shawnees the following spring . Boone did not have an opportunity to tell his men he was bluffing to prevent an immediate attack on Boonesborough , however . Boone pursued this strategy so convincingly that many of his men concluded he had switched his loyalty to the British . Boone and his men were taken to Blackfish ' s town of Chillicothe , where they were made to run the gauntlet . As was their custom , the Shawnees adopted some of the prisoners into the tribe to replace fallen warriors ; the remainder were taken to Hamilton in Detroit . Boone was adopted into a Shawnee family at Chillicothe , perhaps into the family of Chief Blackfish himself , and given the name " Sheltowee " ( Big Turtle ) . On June 16 , 1778 , when he learned Blackfish was about to return to Boonesborough with a large force , Boone eluded his captors and raced home , covering the to Boonesborough in five days on horseback and , after his horse gave out , on foot . During Boone ' s absence , his wife and children ( except for Jemima ) had returned to North Carolina , assuming he was dead . Upon his return to Boonesborough , some of the men expressed doubts about Boone ' s loyalty , since after surrendering the salt making party he had apparently lived quite happily among the Shawnees for months . Boone responded by leading a preemptive raid against the Shawnees across the Ohio River , and then by helping to successfully defend Boonesborough against a ten - day siege led by Blackfish , which began on September 7 , 1778 . After the siege , Captain Benjamin Logan and Colonel Richard Callaway — both of whom had nephews who were still captives surrendered by Boone — brought charges against Boone for his recent activities . In the court martial that followed , Boone was found " not guilty " , and was even promoted after the court heard his testimony . Despite this vindication , Boone was humiliated by the court martial , and he rarely spoke of it . After the trial , Boone returned to North Carolina to bring his family back to Kentucky . In the autumn of 1779 , a large party of immigrants came with him , including ( according to tradition ) the family of Abraham Lincoln ' s grandfather . Rather than remain in Boonesborough , Boone founded the nearby settlement of Boone ' s Station . He began earning money at this time by locating good land for other settlers . Transylvania land claims had been invalidated after Virginia created Kentucky County , so settlers needed to file new land claims with Virginia . In 1780 , Boone collected about $ 20 , 000 in cash from various settlers and traveled to Williamsburg to purchase their land warrants . While he was sleeping in a tavern during the trip , the cash was stolen from his room . Some of the settlers forgave Boone the loss ; others insisted he repay the stolen money , which took him several years to do . A popular image of Boone which emerged in later years is that of the backwoodsman who had little affinity for " civilized " society , moving away from places like Boonesborough when they became " too crowded " . In reality , however , Boone was a leading citizen of Kentucky at this time . When Kentucky was divided into three Virginia counties in November 1780 , Boone was promoted to lieutenant colonel in the Fayette County militia . In April 1781 , he was elected as a representative to the Virginia General Assembly , which was held in Richmond . In 1782 , he was elected sheriff of Fayette County . Meanwhile , the American Revolutionary War continued . Daniel Boone joined General George Rogers Clark ' s invasion of the Ohio country in 1780 , fighting in the Battle of Piqua on August 7 . In October , when Boone was hunting with his brother Ned , Shawnees shot and killed Ned . Apparently thinking they had killed Daniel Boone , the Shawnees beheaded Ned and took the head home as a trophy . In 1781 , Boone traveled to Richmond to take his seat in the legislature , but British dragoons under Banastre Tarleton captured him and several other legislators near Charlottesville . The British released Boone on parole several days later . During Boone ' s term , Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown in October 1781 , but the fighting continued in Kentucky unabated . Boone returned to Kentucky , and in August 1782 , fought in the Battle of Blue Licks , in which his son Israel was killed . In the Battle of Blue Licks he led a militia to Lower Blue Licks where he failed to win the battle . He was out numbered at the battle and out maneuvered and unprepared . At the battle he gave a stray horse to his son Israel , but he was mortally wounded . Later Boone found his son dead and took the horse he gave to his son to escape the battlefield . In November 1782 , he took part in another Clark expedition into Ohio , the last major campaign of the war . Businessman on the Ohio . After the Revolution , Boone resettled in Limestone ( renamed Maysville , Kentucky in 1786 ) , then a booming Ohio River port . In 1787 , he was elected to the Virginia state assembly as a representative from Bourbon County . In Maysville , he kept a tavern and worked as a surveyor , horse trader , and land speculator . He was initially prosperous , owning seven slaves by 1787 , a relatively large number for Kentucky at the time , which was dominated by small farms rather than large plantations . Boone became a celebrity while living in Maysville . In 1784 , on his 50th birthday , historian John Filson published " The Discovery , Settlement And present State of Kentucke " , a book which included a chronicle of Boone ' s adventures . The Revolutionary War had ended , but the border war with American Indians north of the Ohio River resumed . In September 1786 , Boone took part in a military expedition into the Ohio Country led by Benjamin Logan . Back in Limestone , Boone housed and fed Shawnees who were captured during the raid , and helped to negotiate a truce and prisoner exchange . Although the Northwest Indian War escalated and would not end until the American victory at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794 , the 1786 expedition was the last time Boone saw military action . Boone began to have financial troubles while living in Maysville . According to the later folk image , Boone the trailblazer was too unsophisticated for the civilization which followed him and which eventually defrauded him of his land . However , Boone was not the simple frontiersman of legend . He engaged in land speculation on a large scale , buying and selling claims to tens of thousands of acres . The land market in frontier Kentucky was chaotic , and Boone ' s ventures ultimately failed because his investment strategy was faulty and because his decency made him reluctant to profit at someone else ' s expense . According to Faragher , " Boone lacked the ruthless instincts that speculation demanded . " Frustrated with the legal hassles in land speculation , in 1788 , Boone moved upriver to Point Pleasant , Virginia ( now West Virginia ) . He operated a trading post and occasionally worked as a surveyor ' s assistant . When Virginia created Kanawha County in 1788 , Boone was appointed lieutenant colonel of the county militia . In 1791 , he was elected to the Virginia legislature for the third time . He contracted to provide supplies for the Kanawha militia , but his debts prevented him from buying goods on credit , so he closed his post and returned to hunting and trapping . In 1795 , the Boones moved back to Kentucky , living in Nicholas County on land owned by their son Daniel Morgan Boone . The next year , Boone applied to Isaac Shelby , first governor of the new state of Kentucky , for a contract to widen the Wilderness Road into a wagon route . However , the contract was awarded to someone else . Meanwhile , lawsuits over conflicting land claims continued to make their way through the Kentucky courts . Boone ' s remaining land claims were sold off to pay legal fees and taxes , but he no longer paid attention to the process . In 1798 , a warrant was issued for Boone ' s arrest after he ignored a summons to testify in a court case , although the sheriff never found him . The Boones were living at the time at the mouth of the Little Sandy River in northeastern Kentucky . That same year , Kentucky named Boone County in his honor . Missouri . In 1799 , Boone and his family left the mouth of the Little Sandy River and moved to a frontier area then part of Spanish Louisiana . ( It eventually became the state of Missouri . ) The Spanish , eager to promote settlement in the sparsely populated region , did not enforce the requirement that all immigrants had to be Roman Catholic . Looking to make a fresh start , Boone moved with much of his extended family to what is now St . Charles County . The Spanish governor appointed Boone " syndic " ( judge and jury ) and commandant ( military leader ) of the " Femme Osage " district . The many anecdotes of Boone ' s tenure as syndic suggest he sought to render fair judgments rather than to strictly observe the letter of the law . Boone served as syndic and commandant until 1804 , when the area became part of the Louisiana Territory of the United States following the Louisiana Purchase . Because Boone ' s land grants from the Spanish government had been largely based on verbal agreements , he once again lost his land claims . In 1809 , he petitioned Congress to restore his Spanish land claims , which was finally done in 1814 . Boone sold most of this land to repay old Kentucky debts . When the War of 1812 came to the Missouri Territory , Boone ' s sons Daniel Morgan Boone and Nathan Boone took part , but by that time Boone was too old for militia duty . Boone spent his final years in Missouri , often in the company of children and grandchildren . He hunted and trapped as often as his failing health allowed . According to one story , in 1810 or later , Boone went with a group on a long hunt as far west as the Yellowstone River , a remarkable journey at his age , if true . In 1816 , a United States officer at Fort Osage , on the Missouri , wrote , " We have been honored by a visit from " Colonel Boon " , the first settler of Kentucky ; he lately spent two weeks with us . . . . . He left this for the river Platt , some distance above . Col Boon is eighty - five years of age , five feet seven inches high , stoutly made , and active for one of his years ; is still of vigorous mind , and is pretty well informed . He has taken part in all the wars of America , from before Braddock ' s war to the present hour . " [ Boston " Recorder " , July 3 , 1816 ] His obituary , printed in the Missouri " Gazette " , October 3 , 1820 , says , " At the age of eighty , in company with one white man and a black man , whom he laid under strict injunction to return him to his family dead or alive , he made a hunting trip to the headwaters of the Great Osage , where he was successful in trapping of beaver , and in taking other game . " Other stories of Boone around this time have him making one last visit to Kentucky to pay off his creditors , although some or all of these tales may be folklore . American painter John James Audubon claimed to have gone hunting with Boone in the woods of Kentucky around 1810 . Years later , Audubon painted a portrait of Boone , supposedly from memory , although skeptics have noted the similarity of this painting to the well - known portraits by Chester Harding . Boone ' s family insisted he never returned to Kentucky after 1799 , although some historians believe Boone visited his brother Squire near Kentucky in 1810 and have therefore reported Audubon ' s story as factual . Death . Daniel Boone died of natural causes on September 26 , 1820 , at Nathan Boone ' s home on Femme Osage Creek at age 85 , just a few weeks short of his 86th birthday . His last words were , " I ' m going now . My time has come . " He was buried next to Rebecca , who had died on March 18 , 1813 . The graves , which were unmarked until the mid - 1830s , were near Jemima ( Boone ) Callaway ' s home on Tuque Creek , about two miles ( 3 km ) from the present - day Marthasville , Missouri . In 1845 , the Boones ' remains were supposedly disinterred and reburied in a new cemetery Frankfort Cemetery in Frankfort , Kentucky . Resentment in Missouri about the disinterment grew over the years , and a legend arose that Boone ' s remains never left Missouri . According to this story , Boone ' s tombstone in Missouri had been inadvertently placed over the wrong grave , but no one had ever corrected the error . Boone ' s relatives in Missouri , displeased with the Kentuckians who came to exhume Boone , kept quiet about the mistake , and they allowed the Kentuckians to dig up the wrong remains . There is no contemporary evidence that this actually happened , but in 1983 , a forensic anthropologist examined a crude plaster cast of Boone ' s skull made before the Kentucky reburial and announced it might be the skull of an African American . Negro slaves had also been buried at Tuque Creek , so it is possible the wrong remains were mistakenly removed from the crowded graveyard . Both the Frankfort Cemetery in Kentucky and the Old Bryan Farm graveyard in Missouri claim to have Boone ' s remains . Cultural legacy . Daniel Boone remains an iconic figure in American history , although his status as an early American folk hero and later as a subject of fiction have tended to obscure the actual details of his life . Boone is commonly remembered as a hunter , pioneer , and " Indian - fighter " , though most people are uncertain when he lived or exactly what he did . Several places in the United States are named for him , including the Daniel Boone National Forest , the Sheltowee Trace Trail , the town of Boone , North Carolina , various settlements carrying the name of " Boonville " , and six counties : Boone County , Illinois , Boone County , Indiana , Boone County , Nebraska , Boone County , West Virginia , Boone County , Missouri , and Boone County , Kentucky . Schools across the United States are named for Daniel Boone , including schools in Birdsboro , Pennsylvania , Douglassville , Pennsylvania , Richmond , Kentucky , Wentzville , Missouri , Warrenton , Missouri , Gray , Tennessee , and the city of Chicago . The U . S . Navy ' s Polaris submarine , was named for Boone . This nuclear submarine was decommissioned in 1994 , and has since been scrapped . She was a member of a class of 41 submarines , all of which were named for great Americans from history , including the , two other noteworthy frontiersmen of the Great West . Boone ' s name has long been synonymous with the American outdoors . For example , the Boone and Crockett Club was a conservationist organization founded by Theodore Roosevelt in 1887 , and the Sons of Daniel Boone was the precursor of the Boy Scouts of America . In 1966 , the U . S . Postal Service issued a 5 cent stamp commemorating Daniel Boone . Emergence as a legend . Boone emerged as a legend in large part because of John Filson ' s " The Adventures of Colonel Daniel Boon " , part of his book " The Discovery , Settlement And present State of Kentucke " . First published in 1784 , Filson ' s book was soon translated into French and German , and made Boone famous in America and Europe . Based on interviews with Boone , Filson ' s book contained a mostly factual account of Boone ' s adventures from the exploration of Kentucky through the American Revolution . However , because the real Boone was a man of few words , Filson invented florid , philosophical dialogue for this " autobiography " . Subsequent editors cut some of these passages and replaced them with more plausible — but still spurious — ones . Often reprinted , Filson ' s book established Boone as one of the first popular heroes of the United States . Like John Filson , Timothy Flint also interviewed Boone , and his " Biographical Memoir of Daniel Boone , the First Settler of Kentucky " ( 1833 ) became one of the best - selling biographies of the 19th century . Flint greatly embellished Boone ' s adventures , doing for Boone what Parson Weems did for George Washington . In Flint ' s book , Boone fought hand - to - hand with a bear , escaped from Indians by swinging on vines ( as Tarzan would later do ) , and so on . Although Boone ' s family thought the book was absurd , Flint greatly influenced the popular conception of Boone , since these tall tales were recycled in countless dime novels and books aimed at young boys . Much of Daniel Boone ' s life was covered by William Henry Bogart in his book " Daniel Boone and the hunters of Kentucky " . At least three well - known American entertainers have claimed kinship with Daniel Boone : the actor and singer Pat Boone ; Richard Boone ( 1917 – 81 ) of the TV series , " Have Gun , Will Travel " ; and Randy Boone , one of the actors in the Western series , " The Virginian " . Symbol and stereotype . Thanks to Filson ' s book , in Europe , Boone became a symbol of the " natural man " who lives a virtuous , uncomplicated existence in the wilderness . This was most famously expressed in Lord Byron ' s epic poem " Don Juan " ( 1822 ) , which devoted a number of stanzas to Boone , including this one : Byron ' s poem celebrated Boone as someone who found happiness by turning his back on civilization . In a similar vein , many folk tales depicted Boone as a man who migrated to more remote areas whenever civilization crowded in on him . In a typical anecdote , when asked why he was moving to Missouri , Boone supposedly replied , " I want more elbow room ! " Boone rejected such an interpretation of his life , however . " Nothing embitters my old age , " he said late in life , like " the circulation of absurd stories that I retire as civilization advances … . " Existing simultaneously with the image of Boone as a refugee from society was , paradoxically , the popular portrayal of him as civilization ' s trailblazer . Boone was celebrated as an agent of Manifest Destiny , a pathfinder who tamed the wilderness , paving the way for the extension of American civilization . In 1852 , critic Henry Tuckerman dubbed Boone " the Columbus of the woods " , comparing Boone ' s passage through the Cumberland Gap to Christopher Columbus ' s voyage to the New World . In popular mythology , Boone became the first to explore and settle Kentucky , opening the way for countless others to follow . In fact , other Americans had explored and settled Kentucky before Boone , as debunkers in the 20th century often pointed out , but Boone came to symbolize them all , making him what historian Michael Lofaro called " the founding father of westward expansion " . In the 19th century , when Native Americans were being displaced from their lands and confined on reservations , Boone ' s image was often reshaped into the stereotype of the belligerent , Indian - hating frontiersman which was then popular . In John A . McClung ' s " Sketches of Western Adventure " ( 1832 ) , for example , Boone was portrayed as longing for the " thrilling excitement of savage warfare . " Boone was transformed in the popular imagination into someone who regarded Indians with contempt and had killed scores of the " savages " . The real Boone disliked bloodshed , however . According to historian John Bakeless , there is no record that Boone ever scalped Indians , unlike other frontiersmen of the era . Boone once told his son Nathan that he was certain of having killed only one Indian , during the battle at Blue Licks , although he believed others may have died from his bullets in other battles . Even though Boone had lost two sons in wars with Indians , he respected Indians and was respected by them . In Missouri , Boone often went hunting with the very Shawnees who had captured and adopted him decades earlier . Some 19th - century writers regarded Boone ' s sympathy for Indians as a character flaw and therefore altered his words to conform to contemporary attitudes . Fiction and film . Boone ' s adventures , real and mythical , formed the basis of the archetypal hero of the American West , popular in 19th - century novels and 20th century films . The main character of James Fenimore Cooper ' s Leatherstocking Tales , the first of which was published in 1823 , bore striking similarities to Boone ; even his name , Nathaniel Bumppo , echoed Daniel Boone ' s name . As mentioned above , " The Last of the Mohicans " ( 1826 ) , Cooper ' s second Leatherstocking novel , featured a fictionalized version of Boone ' s rescue of his daughter . After Cooper , other writers developed the Western hero , an iconic figure which began as a variation of Daniel Boone . In the 20th century , Boone was featured in numerous comic strips , radio programs , and films , where the emphasis was usually on action and melodrama rather than historical accuracy . These are little remembered today ; probably the most noteworthy is the 1936 film " Daniel Boone " , with George O ' Brien playing the title role . Horn in the West , an outdoor drama performed annually in Boone , North Carolina since 1952 , is a fictional account of the lives of settlers whom Daniel Boone had led into the Appalachian Mountains . Television . Audiences of the " baby boomer " generation are more familiar with the " Daniel Boone " television series , which ran from 1964 to 1970 . In the popular theme song for the series , Boone was described as a " big man " in a " coonskin cap " , and the " rippin ' est , roarin ' est , fightin ' est man the frontier ever knew ! " This did not describe the real Daniel Boone , who was not a big man and did not wear a coonskin cap . Boone was portrayed this way because Fess Parker , the tall actor who played Boone , was essentially reprising his role as Davy Crockett from an earlier TV series . That Boone could be portrayed the same way as Crockett , another American frontiersman with a very different persona , was another example of how Boone ' s image could be reshaped to suit popular tastes . interviews with Nathan Boone .