Daniel Boone died on September 26, 1820 at the age of 85 "when the sun was half an hour high."
These are a few notes taken from the book "Daniel Boone" by John Mack Faragher.
Page 25ff
Daniel Boone‘s family were Quakers. His father Squire Boone left the Quakers after he had a conflict with them about one of his children getting pregnant out of wedlock. Sarah Morgan, Daniel’s mother, continued with the Quakers. Daniel Boone left the Quakers at the same time at the age of 13. He always considered himself to be a Christian, but after this he no longer attended Christian services. He said “I never knew any good to come of religious disputes.“
Page 45
When Daniel Boone courted Rebecca, he was uncomfortable and awkward. There is a story that in his nervousness he tossed his knife to the ground several times, and at some point actually tour her apron. Boone, offered no apology. Later he told his children that he did it to “try her temper – thinking if it was fiery, she would fly into a passion.“ When she did not, he knew she was the woman for him.
Page 47
“hers was a world in which little effort was made to limit conception, and that pattern, which had characterized the women of previous generations, would persist in those that followed.“
Rebecca‘s four daughters had 33 children between them. Her daughters in law of her three married sons for another 35. These children and their spouses and children often resided in the home with Rebecca. A traveling preacher noted that in the Yadkin area he saw 23 persons living in the one room cabin of William and Mary Boone Grant.
Page 58
At one point Boone, was separated from his family for two years. During that time apparently Jemima was born. That raised the question of her father. One theory was that she was conceived by Daniel‘s brother Ned. Apparently Daniel was not too upset by this.
Page 60
Some are of the opinion that the frontier men did a little work around their farms. One preacher said that they often lived like the Indians.
Page 63
Boone did have some debt problems, and he was accused of running from his responsibilities. However, even though it might have taken a long time, he did try to make good on his debts.
Pages 64-65
Boone, took a party of adventurers to explore the Florida panhandle. Apparently this trip involved a good deal of flirting and cavorting with pretty serving girls and Seminole Indian maidens. At one point the party got lost. Boone, was once asked if he had ever been lost. He replied, “no, I can’t say as ever I was lost, but I was bewildered once for three days.”
Page 80
The American Indians were angered by the way Americans hunted deer for their skins and left most of the meat to rot. In the same way American farmers resented the Indian claims of large territories that they kept as hunting preserve but did not develop and use intensively as farmlands
Page 93
Daniel Boone’s oldest son James and several other young men were attacked during their trip to Kentucky by group of Delaware Indians. The Cherokee by the name of big Jim tortured them by ripping out their fingernails until they struck them in the head. Their bodies were shot through with arrows.
Page 121
“A set of scoundrels who scarcely believe in God or fear a devil” This is how Richard Henderson, Boone’s partner, described the men trying to settle Kentucky.
Page142-43
Boone, supported neither the revolution nor the loyalists. His main concern was his local community, his clan and his family. This represented a lot of the early settlers. Rebecca’s family were loyalists.
Page 147.
The term for tough men: “men with the bark on”
Page 310
During Boone,‘s last year‘s, there was a lot of revivalism on the Feme Osage (the area in Missouri where Boone retired). And a few of the Boone family members were caught up in the revivalism. A Baptist pastor once asked Boone if he had any feelings toward the savior. "No, sir,” Boone, answered sharply, “I always loved God ever since I could recollect.“
Page 312
Toward the end of his life Boone did attend worship services, and he also read the Bible.
In a letter to Sarah Deb, his Quaker sister-in-law, he wrote (Boone had notoriously bad spelling.):
You can gass at my feilings by your own as we are So Near of age.... how we Leve in this World and what Chance we have in the next we know Not. for my part I am as ignerant a Child[.] all the Relegan I have [is] to Love and fear god, beleve Jeses Christ, Dow all the good to my Nighbour and my Self thi Can, and Do as Little harm as I Can help, and trust on god’s marcy for the Rest and I beleve god never made a man of prisipel to be Lost.
Page 316
Boone Quotes:
Better mend a fault than find a fault.
If we can’t say good, we should say no harm.
A man needs three things to be happy: A good gun, a good horse, and a good wife.
A few thoughts of my own...
Daniel Boone was always torn between his responsibilities to his family and community and his great love for exploring the vast natural world. He wasn't quite the historical hero of a young America that I saw as a kid on the TV show with Fess Parker, but within the mixed bag of the good things and bad things he did, there was a lot of good.
One of the things I wished the book would have explained better was the actual way in which Boone travelled so long and alone in the wilderness. What exactly did he take along in his kit? rifle, knife, blanket, etc.? How did he sleep, handle mosquitoes, stay warm and dry, etc.?
His religious life is interesting to me. I think Quakerism tended to lead people away from the church, but it must have planted some seeds of faith. The Quakers and many other Christian sects absolutely hated the religious controversies that raged in America. This happens when you have freedom of religion. In other countries many heresies would have been stamped out by the government. Unfortunately they often stamped out Christian orthodoxy as well. You can't have freedom of religion without religious controversies. If Boone would have read his Bible more closely as a younger man, he would have noticed that religious controversy rages throughout the Bible. That is because God's truth will always face major assaults on all sides. For our part Christians must avoid unnecessary controversies as Paul warned (Galatians 5.13-15), but they must also stay steadfast with the true church to which,
"He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ— from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love." (Ephesians 4.11-16)
