Daniel Boone
Daniel BooneMore than any other man, Daniel Boone was responsible for the exploration and settlement of Kentucky. His grandfather came from England to America in 1717. His father was a weaver and blacksmith, and he raised livestock in the country near Reading, Pennsylvania. Daniel was born there on November 2, 1734.
If Daniel Boone was destined to become a man of the wild, an explorer of unmapped spaces, his boyhood was the perfect preparation. He came to know the friendly Indians in the forests, and early he was marking the habits of wild things and bringing them down with a crude whittled spear. When he was twelve his father gave him a rifle, and his career as a huntsman began.
When he was fifteen, the family moved to the Yadkin Valley in North Carolina, a trek that took over a year. At nineteen or twenty he left his family home with a military expedition in the French and Indian War. There he met John Finley, a hunter who had seen some of the western wilds, who told him stories that set him dreaming. But Boone was not quite ready to pursue the explorer\'s life. Back home on his father\'s farm he began courting a neighbor\'s daughter, Rebecca Bryan, and soon they were married.
In 1767 Boone traveled into the edge of Kentucky and camped for the winter at Salt Spring near Prestonsburg. But the least explored parts were still farther west, beyond the Cumberlands, and John Finley persuaded him to go on a great adventure.
On May 1, 1769, Boone, Finley, and four other men, started...
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