 Picture Courtesy of Jim Kuntz
 Picture Courtesy of Jim Kuntz
A SUMMARY CHRONOLOGY OF THE
LIFE OF DANIEL BOONE
Daniel Boone was born six miles east of present Reading, in the colony of Pennsylvania, on October 22 (by the Julian Calender), and November 2nd (New Gregorian calender), 1734. He was the 6th of 10 children of Squire and Sarah (Morgan) Boone. He learned how to hunt and became an excellent marksman at a very early age. He also lived near Indians and learned their ways and how to survive in the wilderness.
In 1750 when Daniel was 15 years old his family left Pennsylvania, going down through the Shenandoah in Virginia, to settle near the forks of the Yadkin River in North Carolina.
The French and Indian War started in 1754, and the next year, Daniel became a wagon driver during General Edward Braddock's ill-fated campaign against the French.
In 1756 Daniel married 17 year old Rebecca Bryan. During their marriage they would have ten children.
When Cherokee Indians attacked the settlements in the Yadkin River Valley in 1759, Daniel moved his family to the safety of Virginia. During the next couple of years Daniel took part in the frontier war against the Cherokee Indians, hunted some in Tennessee, and then returned with his family to North Carolina in 1762.
Once back in North Carolina, Daniel explored and hunted in present Georgia, Florida, southwest Virginia and Kentucky. In 1769 he blazed the earliest known trail from North Carolina over the mountains to Tennessee. During this year he went into Kentucky with six other men. All of the men, except Daniel returned to North Carolina, after Daniel was captured twice and escaped and one of the other men was killed by Indians. Daniel remained and spent two years hunting and exploring. Following his return, Daniel, in 1773, with a group of families made a failed attempt at establishing the first white settlement in Kentucky. During this attempt, some of the group was ambushed by Indians and the Boone's oldest son James was killed. Only part way into Kentucky at the time, the party turned back to the safety of the settlements.
Daniel was involved in Lord Dunmore's War in 1774, was commissioned as a Lieutenant, then a Captain. During the war he was put in charge of three forts in southwest Virginia along the Clinch River.
In 1775, much of the area of present Kentucky was purchased from the Cherokee Indians by a group of North Carolina businessmen. They named the purchase area Transylvania, the 14th colony. Soon after the purchase, Daniel Boone led the cutting of Boone's Wilderness Trail from Tennessee into the center of Kentucky, where Fort Boonesborough was built and named in Daniel's honor.
The Next year Daniel's daughter Jemima, and two other girls were captured by Indians. Daniel led the successful rescue effort. The following year he was wounded in an Indian attack, and during the next year Daniel was captured by Shawnee Indians, and taken to their villages in Ohio, where he was adopted as a son of a Shawnee War Chief. He escaped after five months. Soon after his escape the Indians attacked Fort Boonesborough, where Daniel played a main role in the successful defense. He was afterward raised in rank to Major, and within the next several years to Lieutenant Colonel, and then to full Colonel in the Virginia militia. During this time he was elected to the Virginia legislature. Captured by the British while in Virginia, and appointed to many Kentucky positions, including, Lt. Colonel, then Colonel of the county militias, Sheriff, Deputy Surveyor, Coroner, and Trustee for the earliest towns of Kentucky.
[continued in Part II]
Ken Kamper, Boone Historian, and The Daniel Boone Judgment Tree Memorial Committee.
MO-94, Daniel Boone Judgment Tree Memorial, Matson, Saint Charles County Missouri
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