Show THE bicentennial JAL of DAN BOONE B 0 ran N E by ELMO SCOTT WATSON SWATSON N NOVEMBER 2 1734 there was born to a quaker weaver and blacksmith in exeter township near the present city of rending va ia a son to whom was given the lie name of daniel and now 20 years later that boys name still qa has the power to stir the alon ua of ills his fellow americans for he wits was daniel boone last month the magic of ills his nn nit me e drew to a little town in kentucky all the high officials of that commonwealth representatives of the alie gov ebors of eight states and a great crowd of people front from every part of the country they had gathered there to participate in the opening ceremonies of the Boone bicentennial which Is te he ing observed this year and which will come to a climax late tills this month although the celebration at boonesboro Coone Boone on september 3 was primarily a kentucky affair since kentucky regards danl dan noone boone as essentially her own a dozen other states have some claim upon him among them are pennsylvania where he was born virginia north carolina X A J r daniel boone leading a band of pioneers into parn the b 4 dincina I 1 its 41 0 1 t z y of Daniel boone and tennessee where his big youth was spent and where he started upon his career as a hunter and frontiersman west virginia then a part of the old dominion where he made his home after the loss of his lands in kentucky ohio where he had some of his most thrilling adventures and missouri where here lie spent his declining years and where lie was buried when deatti death claimed him in 1820 kven even kansas nebraska north and south dakota wyoming and montana have more than a casual interest in him for in his bis old age still the keen hunter and trapper lie he made long trips into the western wilderness and it Is possible that he be trod the soil of all those states but in a larger sense daniel boone belongs to the whole nation symbolical of that fact was the authorization by the last congress of a special half dollar for the coone boone bicentennial this year designed hy by one of americas most ills distinguished sculptors augustus lukeman the coin bears on the obverse side boones likeness and on the reverse the figures of a frontiersman and an and the designation of 1934 as pioneer year these coins will be sold at a premium and the proceeds will go to the roone boone bicentennial commission of kentucky to be used in acquiring the sites of three pioneer forts fort Boones boonesborough borough boones station and bryans station these three together with the site of the battle of blue licks will comprise the pioneer national monument with a memorial highway connecting the four shrines t even v en without these material reminders of the fame of danl dana 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 ever westward and a wilderness to be won in the america of today there are no wore more frontiers where venturesome souls may escape the humdrum of eier everyday affairs there Is no wilderness to he 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 quickly it spent its youthful heritage of high adventure and and brave enterprise looks back somewhat longingly to those glan lorous dayland days and seeks some fl flure figure ure in which 1 Is embodied the spirit of its lusty yuth 1 daniel boone it finds such a faure americans of today reading of him find and associating themselves in their minds will him can experience vicariously the adventures which befell him in real life fire such Is the magic of the name of daniel boone and to st 19 out of a hundred americans he Is the pioneer pa par r excellence ills apotheosis began long ago for just a as a george washington had cad his parson beems to make him film more of a myth than a man so did daniel boone bonne have his john filson to make him a frontier demigod the ine result has been many a misconception about boones part in the settlement of kentucky and many a popular belief about his importance as a frontier leader which are partially it if not entirely erroneous modern historical scholarship paints a somewhat different picture of him from the one which our schoolbook histories have presented scientific historians devoted to seeking the truth and making the truth known have gone back to the source material and out of their findings has A wa w DANIE 1 BOONE V J ko emerged it a new daniel boone who bears little j resemblance to the boone of the myth ni makers 1 one of the fir firstos these was the late clarence walworth alvord of the university of illinois and the university of minnesota whose reputation gained in his researches into the early his tory of the mississippi valley Is too secure for him to be regarded as an idle debu of the great writing in the american mercury nearly a decade ago lie declared the facts of the life of the man boone indeed have little to in common with those of the superman so universally exalted ue he Is idolized as the most heroic 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 list hat A study of the alie 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 the mountains 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 DO trace another distinguished historian who Is probably 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 1027 corroborated Al alfords Alv vordis statements in regard to the priority of other men as kentucky pioneers but dealt somewhat more kindly with the superman myth lie he Is dr archibald henderson who ho Is incidentally a great great grandson of boones employer writing of boones activities as agent for the transylvania company he says while these are the revelations of modern historical investigation they do not detract front from the distinctive qualities of boones real fame boone was probably the most skillful hunter of big game who lio ever lived upon the american continent lie he wits 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 calla waya way boune boone was unsurpassed as an individual indian lighter fighter who on countless occasions proved himself more than a match for the crafil est and subtlest of his indian opponents seen through the glorifying glorify ing lialo 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 aby as some wild thing of the primeval forest five feet eight inches to in height with broad chest and shoulders dark locks genial blue eyes acebed with fair eyebrows thin lips and wide mouth nose of sil fitly ron roman cast and fair ruddy countenance te nance in suit of buckskin indian moccasins and coonskin cap with rifle knife and tomahawk alternating with the axe and the surveyors compass he Is the true of a cooper romance fort boonesborough Boones borough here perhaps Is a clew to the reason why theres 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 Is 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 go when cooper symbolized the amerlean american pioneer la 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 doone boone did it was almost a certainty certainly 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 the citizens of 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 lighting fighting man in order to survive the pioneers who invaded his hunting grounds had bad to outwit and outfight him those who soon lost their scalps those who did were able to maintain their precarious hold on their new homes homei in the wilderness ss until the overwhelming elming numbers of the he white man made certain the subjugation of the red man and the acquisition of his bis lands outstanding among the pioneers who were able to survive was daniel boone who as henderson has said was unsurpassed as an individual indian fighter so when we read of one of his victories over the y redskins red skins it confirms our feeling of racial superiority just as reading of victories in the revolution and those of scott and taylor in the mexican war confirma our feelings of national superiority daniel boone was as an american we are americans ergo ve e too would have been able to have outwitted those wily redskins red skins lie he was a crack shot with the long rifle of that fier period lod he was the most skillful hunter of big game who eer eci lived upon the american continent ho he was a peerless explorer a supreme scout 11 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 leader in a romantic pioneering era but so long as we can cherish our belief in him as aa the symbol of something which we consider es senti ally american his name hame will be a living memory during the centuries to come as it has during the two centuries that have passed since he was born 0 by western newspaper union |