Show ane JAL 1 0 it of DAN L BOONE p 1 1 by ELMO SCOTT WATSON VATSON Y N NOVEMBER 2 1734 there was P 00 v B born to a quaker weaver and fy blacksmith lo in exeter township I 1 aa near the present city of reading V 4 v jk pa fa a son to whom v hom was given the pa A ame ot daniel dallel and now IR years later that boys i name still arv asil has the power to stir tilt the w LM alon VA of ills his fellow americans for he be was darnel daniel boone last month the magic of his name drew to a A V little atle town to in kentucky all the high officials of that bat commonwealth representatives of the arbors of eight states and a great crowd of people eople from every part of the country they had gathered adhered there to participate in the opening J of the koone boone bicentennial which Is beig ing observed this jear fear and which will come to a climax late this month E nv DANIEL BOONE although the celebration at boonesboro Boone on september ep 3 was vias primarily a kentucky affair since nce kentucky regards dan boone as essen ally her own a dozen other states have some claim aim upon him among them are pennsylvania n where here he was born virginia north carolina V 41 at 4 aw 1 10 0 Z TI J of W 5 c daniel boone a band of pioneers i into kentucky i ntine bu bil at caleb singham A ILI e Z irv fd 0 M 4 41 ua birthplace ace OF dalip l and tennessee where his youth was spent and where he be started upon his career as a hunter and nd frontiersman west virginia then a part of the old dominion whore where he made his home after the loss of 0 ills his lands in kentucky ollo ohio where he had some of his hia most thrilling adventures and missouri where he spent his declining years and where he be was buried when death claimed him in 1820 even kansas nebraska 10 north I 1 orth and south dakota wyoming and montana have nore than a casual interest in him for in his old oil age still the keen hunter and trapper ho made long trips into the western wilderness and it la Is possible that lie be trod the soil oil of all those states but in a larger sense daniel coone boone belongs to the whole nation symbolical of that tact fact was the authorization by the last congress of a special half dollar tor for the boone bicentennial this year designed by one of americas most distinguished sculptors augustus lukeman the coln coin bears on the obverse side I ISo ones likeness and on the reverse the figures of a frontiersman and an indian and the designation of 1934 as pioneer year roar these coins will be sold at a 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 boonesborough Coones Boones borough boones station and bryans station these three together with the site of the cattle battle of P blue lue licks will viii comprise tile the pioneer national monument with a memorial highway connect connecting log the four shrines even without these material reminders of the fame of danl boone his Is a deathless name in the american consciousness lie Is the eternal symbol of the pioneer of a land where there were frontiers to be pushed cier eich westward and a wilderness to be won in the america of of today there are no more frontiers where venturesome souls may escape the humdrum of everyday affairs there Is no wIlder wilderness to be conquered and pioneer life exists only in the fading memories of a few a aging ing men and women facing the sunset of their days so this nation still youthful but realizing how bow quickly it spent its youthful heritage 0 of f high adventure and brave enterprise looks back somewhat longingly ly to those glamorous days and seeks some figure in which Is embodied t the lie spirit of its lusty youth to lo dante daniel boone it finds such a figure americans ot of today reading of him biro and associating themselves in their minds with him can experience vicariously the adventures which befell beregi him in real life such Is the magic of 0 the name of daniel boone and to HU 99 out of a hundred americans he be Is the pioneer par excellence ills apotheosis began long ago for just as george washington had his parson weems to make him film more of a myth than a man so did daniel coone boone have hla his john filson to make him a frontier demigod the result has been many a misconception about Llo boones ones part in tile the settlement of kentucky and many a popular belief about his bis importance as a frontier leader which are partially it riot not entirely erroneous modern historical scholarship paints a somewhat different picture of him from the one which out our schoolbook histories have presented scientific historians devoted to seeking the truth and making mailing the truth known have gone back to the tha dource material and out of their findings has emerged a new daniel coone boone who bears little resemblance to the coone boone of the myth makers one of the first of 0 these was the late clarence walworth alord of 0 the university of illinois antl and the university of minnesota whose reputation gained in his bli researches into the early history of the mississippi valley la is too secure tor for him to be regarded as an idle ot of the great writing in the american mercury nearly a decade ago lie he declared the facts ot of the life of the man boone indeed have bare little to in common with those of the superman so universally exalted lie ile Is 13 idolized as the most heroic ot of western explorers as the first to make known to settlers the fertility of the dark and bloody country of kentucky and as the first to plant in the west a permanent settlement of americans but it requires only the most superficial research to knock the story into a cocked hat A study of the historical sources proves that thousands 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 aloe tlc mountains doone boone played a subordinate part he was little more than an employee of an empire builder richard ilen derson a north carolina speculator and the founder of the transylvania company daniel boone was one of many pawns in the magnificent game of chess being played on kentucky territory of the superman there Is no trace another distad historian who rho Is probably the leading authority today on the history of the old southwest kentucky Kentuck yand and tennessee and who Is now writing a definitive biography of boone in an article which appeared in the new york times magazine la in 1927 1527 corroborated alvirds Alv statements in regard to the priority of other men as kentucky pioneers but dealt somewhat more kindly with the superman myth ue he Is dr archibald henderson who Is incidentally a great great grandson of boones employer writing of boones activities as agent tor for the transylvania company ho he says while these are the revelations of modern historical investigation they do not detract from the distinctive qualities of boones real fame boone was probably the most skillful hunter of big game who ever lived upon the american continent ile was a peerless explorer a supreme scout unsuccessful as a leader even the leadership in the defense of boonesborough Boones borough seems to have fallen not to boone but to richard luchard callaway boone was voas unsurpassed as an individual indian lighter fighter who on countless occasions proofed himself more than a match for the crafto est and subtlest of his indian opponents seen through the halo of a century and three quarters of time daniel coone boone still rises before us us as a romantic figure poised and resolute simple benl benign n as naive and shy as some wild thin thing of the primeval forest flye five feet eight inches in height with broad 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 te nance in suit of buckskin indian moccasins and coonskin cap with rifle ride knife find and tomahawk alternating with the axe and the surveyors compass lie Is the true of a cooper romance 1162 fort boones borough here perhaps la Is a clew to the reason why theres still magic ma ic for us in ID the name of daniel boone we are more influenced in our thinking by the fiction we read than we realize it Is 18 easier to think in terms of symbols and types than it Is to take into account individual differences in arriving at an estimate of some one person so when cooper symbolized the amerlean american pioneer in the romantic figure of natty we accepted as the prototype of all frontiersmen and when a character 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 amerlean american 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 tile the citizens of soy any other country when we set out to overrun this continent we encountered a natural opposition from its original owner the red man ile he was wily and daring he was skilled in woodcraft he was a first class fighting man in order to survive the pio who invaded his hunting grounds had too id outwit and outfight him those who soon soom 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 nen ilea derson has said bald was unsurpassed as an individual indian fighter so when we read of one of his bis victories over the wily redskins red skins it confirms our feeling of racial superiority just as ai reading of victories in the revolution and those 0 of scott and taylor in the mexican war confirms our feelings of national superiority daniel boone iras an american we are arc americans ergo we too would have been able to have outwitted those wily redskins red skins ile he was nas 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 confine t lie was a peerless explorer a supreme scout therefore by the same process of reasoning we are all of those things la in other words be was a champion in his field of endeavor and how we americans do love champions and love to be champions I 1 the scientific historians may take away our popular bellef belief that daniel bootie boone was the first explorer of kentucky and the outstanding pioneer leader in a romantic pioneering era but so long as we e can cherish our belief in him as the symbol of something which we consider es cs sent senti lally ally american his name will be a living memory during the centuries to come as it has during the two centuries that have passed since he ha was wag born a t wf ostern newspaper paper union |