This illustration depicts General Braddock’s defeat during the French and Indian War in 1755. Daniel Boone barely escaped the ambush. After his wagon was destroyed during the British retreat, he cut his lead horse loose and rode it to safety.
In 1748, the local Quakers expelled Squire Boone. His crime? Two of his children had married non-Quakers. Two years later, Squire led his family south to North Carolina. He bought 640 acres near the Yadkin River. Land was cheap on the frontier.
The Boones cleared their fields and planted a corn crop. Daniel hunted deer, turkey, and bear with Tick Licker, his long-barreled flintlock. Legend tells us he could shoot a tick off a bear’s snout at one hundred yards. Soon, he was staying in the woods for weeks at a time. On the frontier, this was known as a “long hunt.” The hides and furs he brought back sold for a good price. After one hunt, the teenager spent all his profits “on a general jamboree.”
In 1754, British and French forces clashed on the western frontier. The first shots signaled the start of the French and Indian War. In 1755, the British sent General Edward Braddock to seize Fort Duquesne from the French. Daniel went along as a wagon driver. He enjoyed the trek through western Pennsylvania. At night, he listened spellbound to John Finley’s yarns about far-off Kentucky. Finley told him that the land beyond the Appalachians was a paradise.
On July 9, Braddock’s troops ran into an ambush. French soldiers, fighting beside Iroquois and Shawnee warriors, cut down the advance guard. As war cries echoed in their ears, the British redcoats panicked and fled. Daniel’s wagon was caught in the crush. Unable to turn, he jumped on his lead horse and cut the reins. Then he rode for his life.
Soon after he returned home, Daniel met the love of his life. He first saw Rebecca Bryan at a wedding, but legend tells a more romantic tale. Daniel was hunting deer at night, the story goes. All at once, he saw the light of a friend’s torch reflected in a pair of startled eyes. As Daniel raised his rifle, a sixth sense told him to hold his fire. In the next instant, Rebecca jumped up and ran off through the woods.
Daniel must have chased after her, for he married Rebecca on August 14, 1756. She was seventeen years old, an attractive girl with black hair and dark eyes. The groom was twenty-one. He stood five feet, eight inches tall, with broad shoulders and chest. Piercing blue eyes studied the world from beneath a mop of dark hair. Thin lips framed a large, mobile mouth. His Cherokee friends called him Wide Mouth.
The newlyweds moved into a snug cabin on Sugar Creek. Rebecca proved to be an able helpmate. When Daniel went hunting, she took over the farmwork. In time, she would also give birth to six sons and four daughters. Their first child, James, was born in 1757.
This illustration depicts General Braddock’s defeat during the French and Indian War in 1755. Daniel Boone barely escaped the ambush. After his wagon was destroyed during the British retreat, he cut his lead horse loose and rode it to safety.
For ten years, the Boones lived a quiet life. Daniel raised crops on a 640-acre farm. In the fall and early winter, he left for his long hunts. One hunting trip in 1760 took him into eastern Tennessee. Years later, someone found a beech tree there with deeply inscribed letters. The carving read: D. Boon cilled a Bar on tree in the year 1760. Some argue that it is a fake. Daniel, they say, never misspelled his own name.
By the mid-1760s, Daniel was growing restless. Game was growing scarce as settlers flooded into the Yadkin Valley. In 1765, he trekked to Florida to check out Spain’s offer of free land. The hunting was poor, and the swamps bred swarms of insects. Despite these drawbacks, Daniel talked to Rebecca about moving. She refused to leave her family and friends.
In 1769, John Finley stopped by the Boone cabin. Daniel had not forgotten his friend’s stories of Kentucky. Now he wanted to see the paradise for himself. On May 1, Daniel led Finley and four friends westward. The men passed through the Cumberland Gap on an American Indian trail called the Warrior’s Trace. A few weeks later, Daniel stood on a hilltop north of the Kentucky River. There he gazed for the first time at “the beautiful [land] of Kentucke.”