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Show 1 THE BICENTENNIAL II 4 II I of BAN'L BOONE WM I By ELMO SCOTT WATSON " -V N NOVEMBER 2, 1734, there was born t0 a Quaker weaver and I blacksmith In Exeter township, near the present city of Reading, hi Pa., a son to whom was given the L name of Daniel. And now, 200 years later, that boy's name still ? has the power to stir the Imagination Imagina-tion of his fellow-Americans. For he was Daniel Boone. Last month the magic of his name drew to a Uttle town In Kentucky all the high officials of that commonwealth, representatives of the governors gov-ernors of eight states and a great crowd of people from every part of the country. They had gathered there to participate In the opening ceremonies cer-emonies of the Boone bicentennial which is being be-ing observed this year and which will come to a climax late this month. Although the celebration at Boonesboro on September 3 was primarily a Kentucky affair, since Kentucky regards Dan'l Boone as essentially essen-tially her own, a dozen other states have some claim upon him. Among them are Pennsylvania, where he was born; Virginia, North Carolina By ELMO SCOTT WATSON " tp "vVB - rJ fyy N NOVEMBER 2, 1734. there was ' 'Ji V born to a Quaker weaver and !vA J? - I blacksmith In Exeter township, ;' jfew S Jjht iV r- "ear the present city of Reading SA . Jf. A -JiT M Pa., a son to whom was g.ven the A)? i fiT -fl&T - " - n name of Daniel. And now, 200 f f?V Z1 1 1 " .vV" r years later, that boy's name still 1 ''A,"" rf , ' jL 's the power to stir the lmagina- Jj t "V TOVj. Mry . v -' tlon of his fellow-Americans. For .1? -'s , v" V , )V - f." " he was Daniel Boone. v I L? -few'j? S g v AV'-i - Last month the magic of his name drew to a f flMil ifg ' ' r& -''jtX Uttle town In Kentucky all the high officials of & I ' J V " , 4f that commonwealth, representatives of the gov- V -. ) Vl W ' ' - ' . I? .ernors of eight states and a great crowd of lVs-iCA W TSf JT people from every part of the country. They had "jcs. 'V S vl M , iV" gathered there to participate In the opening cer- - tAJ l'sLJ' ' ' f M ' emonles of the Boone bicentennial which is be- MXM JCr""' . v'PWWSff? ? tag observed this year and which will come to C j""- I a climax late this month. r J . " DANIEL, BOONE Although the celebration at Boonesboro on 'WUlLv'" ' ' - September 3 was primarily a Kentucky affair, Ju " ' - - since Kentucky regards Dan'l Boone as essen- ' p S ' r tlally her own, a dozen other states have some I Yj - claim upon him. Among them are Pennsylvania, II - M where he was born; Virginia, North Carolina Ilk fe4 f v I ! RB - ; 'DDw Daniel Boone Leadmq If " " , ' 3 I a Band of Pioneers i VV i Into KentucKtj- J ' s f Birthplace, of Daniel Boone I and Tennessee, where his youth was spent and emerged a new Daniel Boone who bears little f.y-y,.- diMZ tf&Sk j where he started upon his career as a hunter resemblance to the Boone of the myth-makers. Fort BoonesbOroUcrh. j and frontiersman; West Virginia (then a part One of the first of these was the late Clarence J I and Tennessee, where his youth was spent and j where he started upon his career as a hunter j and frontiersman; West Virginia (then a part j of the Old Dominion) where he made his home j after the loss of his lands in Kentucky; Ohio, where he had some of his most thrilling adven- j tures; and Missouri, where he spent his declin- : lng years and where he was buried when death I claimed him In 1S20. Even Kansas, Nebraska, ! North and South Dakota, Wyoming and Mon- I tana have more than a casual interest In him. j For In his old age, still the keen hunter and j trapper, he made long trips into the western I wilderness and It Is possible that he trod the soil of all those states. But In a larger sense Daniel Boone belongs to the whole nation. Symbolical of that fact was j the authorization by the last congress of a spe- i clal half-dollar for the Boone bicentennial this year. Designed by one of America's most dis- ! tlnguished sculptors, Augustus Lukeman, the coin bears on the obverse side Boone's likeness and on the reverse the figures of a frontiersman and an Indian and the designation of tf)34 as ) Pioneer Year. These coins will be sold at a I . premium and the proceeds will go to the Boone bicentennial commission of Kentucky to be used in acquiring the sites of three pioneer forts Fort Booneshorough, Bnone's Station and Bryan's Bry-an's Station. These three, together with the site of the Battle of Blue Ucks, will comprise the rionecr national monument with a memorial highway connecting the four shrines. Even without these material reminders of the fame of Dan'l Boone, his Is a deathless name In the American consciousness. He Is the eternal symbol of the pioneer, of a land where there were frontiers to be pushed ever westward and a wilderness to be won. In the America of today there are no more frontiers where venturesome souls may escape the humdrum of everyday affairs; af-fairs; there Is no wilderness to be conquered; and pioneer life exists only in the fading memories memo-ries of a few aging men and women facing the sunset of their days. So this nation, still youthful but realizing how quickly it spent Its youthful heritage of high adventure and brave enterprise, looks back somewhat longingly to those glamorous days and seeks some figure In which is embodied the spirit of Its lusty youth. In Daniel Boone it finds such a figure. Americans of today, reading of him and associating themselves In their minds with him, can experience vicariously the adventures which befell him In real life. Such Is the magic of the name of Daniel Boone and to 0J out of a hundred Americans he Is the pioneer par excellence. Ills apotheosis began long ago, for Just as George Washington had his Parson Weetns to make him more of a myth than a man, so did Daniel Boone have his John Filson to make him a frontier demigod. The result has been many a misconception about Boone's part In the settlement of Kentucky and many a "popular belief" about his Impor-! Impor-! tance as a frontier loader which are partially. If not entirely, erroneous. Modern historical scholarship paints a somewhat some-what different picture of him from the one which our schoolbook histories have presented. Scientific Scien-tific historians, devoted to socking the truth and making the truth known, have gone back to the source material and out of their findings has I t emerged a new Daniel Boone who bears little resemblance to the Boone of the myth-makers. One of the first of these was the late Clarence Walworth Alvord of the University of Illinois and the University of Minnesota, whose reputation, reputa-tion, gained in his researches into the early history his-tory of the Mississippi valley, is too secure for him to be regarded as an idle "debunker" of the great. Writing in the American Mercury nearly a decade ago, he declared: "The facts of the life of the man Boone, Indeed, In-deed, have little in common with those of the superman so universally exalted. ... He Is Idolized as the most heroic of western explorers, explor-ers, as the first to make known to settlers the fertility of the 'dark and bloody country' of Kentucky, Ken-tucky, and as the first to plant in the West a permanent settlement of Americans. "But it requires only the most superficial research re-search to knock the story into a cocked hat. A study of the historical sources proves that thousands thou-sands of men explored Kentucky before Boone, and the region was well known to multitudes who needed no superhuman herald either to tell them of the fertility of the soil or to summon them to action. Finally, In this whole complex movement across the mountains Boone played a subordinate part; he was little more than an employee of an empire builder, Richard Henderson, Hen-derson, a North Carolina speculator and the founder of the Transylvania company. Daniel Boone was one of many pawns In the magnificent magnifi-cent game of chess being played on Kentucky territory. Of the superman there Is no trace." Another distinguished historian, who is probably prob-ably the leading authority today on the history of the Old Southwest (Kentucky and Tennessee) and who Is now writing a definitive biography of Boone, in an article which appeared in the New York Times Magazine In 1927, corroborated Alvord's statements in regard to the priority of other men as "Kentucky pioneers" but dealt somewhat more kindly with the superman myth. He Is Dr. Archibald Henderson who is, incidentally, inci-dentally, a great-great-grandson of Boone's employer. em-ployer. Writing of Boone's activities as agent for the Transylvania company, he says: "While these are the revelations of modern historical Investigation they do not detract from the distinctive qualities of Boone's real fame. Boone was probably the most skillful hunter of big game who ever lived upon the American continent con-tinent He was a peerless explorer, a supreme scout. Unsuccessful as a leader even the leadership lead-ership in the defense of Booneshorough seems to have fallen not to Boone but to Richard Callaway Calla-way Boone was unsurpassed as an Individual Indian lighter, who on countless occasions proved himself more than a match for the craftiest crafti-est and subtlest of his Indian opponents. "Seen through the glorifying halo of a century and three-quarters of time, Daniel Boone still rises before us as a romantic figure, poised and resolute, simple, benign as naive and shy as some wilil tiling of the primeval forest five feet eight Inches in height, with hroad chest and shoulders, dark locks, genial blue eyes arched with fair eyebrows, thin lips and wide mouth, nose of slightly Roman cast and fair ruddy countenance. coun-tenance. In suit of buckskin, Indian moccasins and coonskin cap, with rifle, knife and tomahawk, toma-hawk, alternating with the axe and the surveyor's survey-or's compass, he Is the true Leatherstocklng of a Cooper romance." Here, perhaps, Is a clew to the reason why there's still magic for us in the name of Daniel ' Boone. We are more influenced in our thinking by the fiction we read than we realize. It la easier to think in terms of symbols and types than It Is to take into account individual differences differ-ences In arriving at an estimate of some one person. So, when Cooper symbolized the American Amer-ican pioneer in the romantic figure of Natty Btimppo, we accepted Leatherstocking as the prototype pro-totype of all frontiersmen. And when a character char-acter In real life came as close to fitting the fictitious portrait which Cooper drew as Daniel Boone did, it was almost a certainty that his name would be stamped indelibly on the American Amer-ican consciousness. Involved in this result, of course, Is a matter of racial and national pride and also personal vanity. We Americans like to consider ourselves superior to other peoples, especially those whose .skins are another color, although in this respect we are, perhaps, no different from the British, the French, the Germans or the citizens of any other country. When we set out to overrun this continent, we encountered a natural opposition from its original orig-inal owner, the red man. He was wily and daring; dar-ing; he was skilled In woodcraft; he was a first-class first-class fighting man. In order to survive, the pio. neers who invaded his hunting grounds had to outwit and outfight him. Those who didn't, soon lost their scalps. Those who did, were able to maintain their precarious hold on their new homes in the wilderness until the overwhelming numbers of the white man made certain the subjugation of the red man and the acquisition of his lands. Outstanding among the pioneers who were able to survive was Daniel Boone who, as Henderson Hen-derson has said, was "unsurpassed as an Individual Indi-vidual Indian fighter." So when we read of one of his victories over the "wily redskins" it confirms con-firms our feeling of racial superiority, just as reading of Washington's victories In the Revolution Revolu-tion and those of Scott and Taylor In the'Mex-Ican the'Mex-Ican war confirmn our feelings of national superiority. superi-ority. Daniel Boone was an American; we are Americans; Amer-icans; ergo, we, too, would have been able to have outwitted those "wily redskins." He was a crack shot with the long rifle of that period; he was "the most skillful hunter of big game who ever lived upon the American continent"; he was "a peerless explorer, a supreme scout" Therefore, by the same process of reasoning, we are all of those things. In other words he was a champion In his field of endeavor. And how we Americans do love champions and love to be champions! The scientific historians may take away our popular belief that Daniel Boone was the first explorer of Kentucky and the outstanding pioneer pio-neer leadtT in a romantic pioneering era. But so long as we can cherish our belief in him as the symbol of something which we consider es sentlally American, his naure will be a living memory during the centuries to come as It has during the two centuries that have pasfed sine he was born. & by Western Newspaper Union. |