County of marker: St. Charles County
Location of marker: MO-94, Daniel Boone Judgement Tree Memorial, Matson
Date erected: December 1999
Historian: Ken Kemper
Marker Text:
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(The Julian calendar), and November 2nd (new Gregorian calendar), 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 the Cherokee Indians attacked the settlements in the Yadkin River valley in 1759, Daniel moved his family to the safely 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 to his family in 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 mountains into Tennessee. During this year he went to 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, in 1773, with a group of families made a failed attempt as 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 Dunsmore's War in 1774, was commissioned as a lieutenant, then a Captain. During the war he was put in charge of three forts in southwestern 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 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 efforts. 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 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 yar to Lieutenant Colonel, then 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 in the county militia, Sheriff, Deputy Surveyor, Coroner, and trustee for the earliest towns of Kentucky.
In 1782, while Daniel and the Bone's second oldest son, Israel, took part in the Battel of Blue Lick against the Shawnee Indians in eastern Kentucky, Israel was killed. Daniel also took part in a number of other Indian skirmishes and campaigns during this period.
The following year Daniel was appointed to the highest position in Fayette County, [ED. Note: how could this be, Kentucky WAS a county of Virginia, and could not have counties inside of itself. Kentucky did not become a state until 1792] County Lieutenant (in charge of a whole county, both civilian and military). Several years later he and Rebecca moved to the town of Limestone in northeastern Kentucky where they operated an inn, and where Daniel was elected to the Virginia Legislature for a second time.
Several years later he moved his family to the Kanawha Valley of present West Virginia, where he was elected in 1791 to the Virginia Legislature for a third time. He was also appointed Lt. Colonel of the Kanawha County militia. During this time Daniel rescued six year old Chloe Flinn from an Indian village.
In the mid-1790's the Boones moved back to Kentucky. Daniel Morgan Boone, the oldest living son, began to explore in Spanish Louisiana (Missouri) where he obtained a Spanish Land Grant in 1797. The nest year the Spanish Lt. Governor sent a letter via Daniel Morgan Bone, [actually I read the letter, it was sent to Daniel Morgan Boone, period] asking Daniel to move from Kentucky to become head of a colony of emigrants in Spanish Louisiana.(a)
The invitation was accepted in 1799, and the Boone family left Kentucky, [actually there were 46 families who made this trek on Daniel Morgan Boone's Grants] the men going overland with the animals and the women going by boat down the Ohio and p the Mississippi Rivers. The arrived in Spanish Upper Louisiana (Missouri) i October and settled along the Missouri River and nearby Femme Osage Creek, being the western most settlements of Americans (temporary as Spanish subjects) west of the Mississippi River.
(the next two paragraphs are pure fantasy. Daniel was so infirmed when he arrived in Missouri area in 1799, he was denied his land grant and lived in a log cabin on the Femme Osage on Nathan Boone's property. Carlos Tyron's letter describe Daniel as "so infirmed as to not be able to farm the land nor protect his wife from Indians". As a matter of fact Daniel NEVER held a grant, even after the Spanish left, William Clark Governor of Missouri also denied Daniel his claim. Rebecca lived with her daughter Jemima Callaway near present Dutzow. Daniel did not move around much, in 1804 when Lewis & Clark visited the site Daniel could not move one-half mile to visit them. Daniel's sons did all the things Mr. Kemper says Daniel did.)
From about 1808, when he was in his mid-70's, he developed a series of illnesses'.
Rebecca passed away in 1813, after becoming ill while making sugar maple syrup at their daughter's Jemima Callaway's place, near present Marthasville. [actually in Dutzow]
In 1820, while at his daughter Jemima Callaway's home, Daniel had al attack of fever. He recovered and returned to Nathan's, where after a few days he became ill again, and passed away of September 26th. Like Rebecca, Daniel is buried near Marthasville, in the Bryan Family Cemetery, across the Missouri River from Washington. Daniel had lived in Missouri for 21 years, longer than the tie spent in any of the other present states. He never returned to Kentucky to visit as sometimes stated. Missouri was his chosen home.