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Daniel Boone: The Life and Legend of an American Pioneer
Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Biography for 1993
In the first and most reliable biography of Daniel Boone in more than fifty years, award-winning historian Faragher brilliantly portrays America's famous frontier hero. Drawing from popular narrative, the public record, scraps of documentation from Boone's own hand, and a treasure of reminiscence gathered by nineteenth-century antiquarians, Faragher uses the methods of new social history to create a portrait of the man and the times he helped shape. Blending themes from a much vitalized Western and frontier history with the words and ideas of ordinary people, Faragher has produced a book that will stand as the definitive life of Daniel Boone for decades to come, and one that illuminates the frontier world of Boone like no other.
In the first and most reliable biography of Daniel Boone in more than fifty years, award-winning historian Faragher brilliantly portrays America's famous frontier hero. Drawing from popular narrative, the public record, scraps of documentation from Boone's own hand, and a treasure of reminiscence gathered by nineteenth-century antiquarians, Faragher uses the methods of new social history to create a portrait of the man and the times he helped shape. Blending themes from a much vitalized Western and frontier history with the words and ideas of ordinary people, Faragher has produced a book that will stand as the definitive life of Daniel Boone for decades to come, and one that illuminates the frontier world of Boone like no other.
464 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1992
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April 21, 2021
When I studied Kentucky history in seventh grade, we of course spent some time on our state's first hero, Daniel Boone. I thought it would be interesting to read a real biography of Boone many years later to see how much I remembered. I had assumed that a lot of what I was taught as a twelve year old in 1967 was dumbed down for middle schoolers, mythologized and superseded by more careful modern historical research. I was pleasantly surprised at how much of the basics about Boone's life I remembered correctly -- born in Pennsylvania, reputation as a great hunter and backwoodsman, blazing the Wilderness Road to lead settlers to Kentucky, captivity by Shawnee and escape, lack of success in more settled Kentucky, last years in Missouri. I remember that he allegedly moved to Missouri for more "elbow room". It was true that he did better and felt better on the frontier, but the elbow room quote was made up by one of his early biographers and the real reason that he moved to Missouri was to escape personal and business disappointments that he experienced in Kentucky. I remember seeing his Kentucky long rifle on display in the old state capitol building in Frankfort - turns out that one was a fake. I remembered from my middle school history the story of the kidnapping of his daughter, Jemima and two other girls when they were on a recreational canoe trip on the Kentucky River and how Boone and his party used their unmatched tracking skills to follow and rescue the young women. It turns out that this one was basically true as I remembered it.
Faragher gives us a picture of Boone as a decent man, a great hunter and tracker, a caring but imperfect family man, and a good leader. Surprisingly, he was a reader, carrying his favorite book, Gulliver's Travels, with him on his hunting trips. He was also a terrible business man, whose reputation for honesty suffered unfairly in situations where he got out of his depth in business dealings. He lived an exciting life and survived to old age despite great dangers and the most primitive medicine. Despite his flaws, he still comes off in Faragher's telling as a hero who deserves his place in history. I like that. Of course there are debunkers of Boone, who Fargher acknowledges -- they point out that he was not the first person to lead settlers to Kentucky, not a discoverer of new lands, not an important leader, etc. But in Faragher's telling Boone is rehabilitated and his legend is reenchanted. Not all of our heroes must be irrevocably smashed to smithereens.
Faragher gives us a picture of Boone as a decent man, a great hunter and tracker, a caring but imperfect family man, and a good leader. Surprisingly, he was a reader, carrying his favorite book, Gulliver's Travels, with him on his hunting trips. He was also a terrible business man, whose reputation for honesty suffered unfairly in situations where he got out of his depth in business dealings. He lived an exciting life and survived to old age despite great dangers and the most primitive medicine. Despite his flaws, he still comes off in Faragher's telling as a hero who deserves his place in history. I like that. Of course there are debunkers of Boone, who Fargher acknowledges -- they point out that he was not the first person to lead settlers to Kentucky, not a discoverer of new lands, not an important leader, etc. But in Faragher's telling Boone is rehabilitated and his legend is reenchanted. Not all of our heroes must be irrevocably smashed to smithereens.
April 11, 2011
There's so much good historical biography out there, and it seems to always be getting better. John Mack Faragher's "Daniel Boone: The Life and Legend of an American Pioneer" is a perfect example. This first paperback edition actually dates to 1993, but the professor of American History at Yale has written a book which will prove invaluable to historians and casual history readers for a long time.
Daniel Boone's life represents different values to different people. One of the most important services performed by Faragher is his acknowledgement that succeeding generations of Americans have painted him in the colors of the "fighting frontiersman and forest philosopher" appropriate to the sentiments of his contemporaries who espoused the values of the Enlightenment, or as the "divinlely appointed pathfinder and precursor of civilization" (p. 321) championed by the boosters of Manifest Destiny. Faragher's extensive research reveals an individual who is much more grounded than the lofty labels suggest.
It's hard to suggest a greater understatement than to say that Daniel Boone loved the outdoors. He grew up on a farm with his family in Exeter, near Reading , Pennsylvania. His family moved to Rowan County, on the Yadkin River, in North Carolina when he was fifteen. Several patterns were established at this time which would become constants in Daniel's life. The first was the accompaniment of the immediate Boone family, either during the move or shortly after, of other Boone relatives, and the subsequent wedding of Daniel into another family with extensive relatives living in North Carolina, the Bryans. Daniel's life would be marked by numerous moves for various economic reasons, in concert with a nucleus of Boone-Bryan-and other families. The second significant experience of Boone's at this time would be his participation in his first "long hunt", whereby a hunting party would travel deep into the wilderness for months at a time, shooting and trapping a great number of animals for food and for fur trading. Boone would never engage in farming at the various settlements which he established, favoring the adventure of eking out a living in the country's vast virgin woods.
You can well imagine that Boone's frequent moves further into the wilderness would place him into close and frequent contact with the natives already living there. Boone's name is almost synonymous with the word "pathfinder" since he was always living on the edge where American English and American Aboriginal civilizations met. He didn't have an anthropological interest in Indian culture, nor was he the "Indian fighter" portrayed in popular fiction and biography in this country.
During his boyhood, interior Pennsylvania was home to numerous Indian tribes. Some were indigenous, like the Delawares and Susquehannocks. Conoys, Nanticokes, Tuscaroras, Tutelos and Shawnees migrated from other sections of the country. Numerous Indian settlements were located within a few miles of the original American Boone homestead in the first half of the eighteenth century. A main Indian throrughfare, the Perkiomen Path, ran close to the Boone home. Faragher gives a refreshingly lucid account of how the Penn Colony at this time depended upon the mutual trade between the settlers and the Indians; the Indian trade comprised at least a third of the Commonwealth's foreigh exchange. Far from being a constant "clash of cultures", Colonial America's then-West Coast, bounded by the Susquehanna River, found both cultures picking up language and even personal senses of identity from living in close proximity away from the country's Atlantic coastal cities. Boone early on learned the lingua franca of the forest, consisting of a pidgin dialect based on Algonquian, with a smattering of various European words; how to read the pictograph-painted trail markers; where to find the best camping places; and how to learn from woodland teachers of several cultures. Nevertheless, by the time Daniel's father moved the family from Pennsylvania in 1751 over a doctrinal dispute with the Quakers, the Shawnees and other tribes were also moving West to escape retribution for some violent encounters with settlers and to work new hunting grounds that had not been depleted by the growing European population of settlers. The rest of Boone's life would be lived in close proximity especially with the Shawnees.
Faragher recounts some of the old saws about Daniel Boone's constant moving of his family deeper into the uncharted woods. Boone supposedly said he pulled up stakes in favor of moving to new, isolated territory by saying something like "I learned someone built a cabin ten miles from me and I moved because the neighborhood became too crowded." Whatever the motives, Boone's life would be directed by his never-for-long fulfilled desire to be among the first settlers into a new paradise, the better to stake out a claim from which to build an estate comprising several thousand acres he could perpetually call his own, and derive profit by hunting game and granting or selling land to worthy relatives and later settlers. He would have the opportunity to get close to accomplishing those goals. He would especially eventually own substantial land in both Kentucky and Missouri, but he would die an old man, leaving no estate but his personal possessions. Boone bought into the most popular sport of American pioneering since the Pilgrims, land speculation in areas bought/swindled/traded from the Indians. Like the majority of amateur real estate speculators, he would find that the majority of profit from America's newly-opened wild areas would be sucked up by usually politically connected sharpies. Common working pioneers like Boone would lose their fortunes to arcane state laws and shoddy surveying practices which made ownership of any particular piece of ground subject to legal challenge, or to outright theft.
Boone's outstanding historical accomplishment celebrated through the generations, especially of Kentuckians, was his guiding of the state's earliest pioneer families through the Cumberland Gap into what was then mostly spelled "Kentucke", or pronounced "Caintuck." This feat is commemorated in the outstanding, historically romanticized painting by George Caleb Bingham, "Daniel Boone Escorting Settlers through the Cumberland Gap", painted about thirty years after Boone's death. Boone had hunted as far as Kentucky as early as 1767. The area was unbelievably rich in game, including buffalo. He originally tried settling there when he led a group of friends and family along the old Indian trail. His first attempt to settle Kentucky had to be aborted when parts of his group were attacked by Shawnees at Cumberland Gap and several young men were tortured and killed, including Boone's son James. This did not stop land speculators from sending surveying parties to mark land for new communities, where land could be sold to new settlers around the nucleus of new towns. Boone would lead a second party along the Wilderness Road, through the Cumberland Gap in 1775. He was by this time the single greatest non-Indian authority of the geography of Kentucke. He worked as an agent for Richard Henderson, a North Carolina real estate tycoon, who thanked Boone for his many services, including leading the defense of the settlers against Shawnee attacks, through the verbal (and ultimately worthless) promise of several thousand acres of land, and naming his Transylvania Company's new settlement "Boonesboro."
Faragher paints a picture of life on the frontier that was far from idyllic. The settlers had to build their homesteads in forested areas. They had to get crops planted and try to raise as much food as possible for their immediate needs and to survive long winters. Much of their diet would be protein-heavy, since they were constantly hunting to obtain food. Since they were living in areas claimed also by Indians, the risk of attack was real, either in the form of raiding by small bands, or outright widespread insurrections. Probably the most serious, unseen threat to health and sanity was boredom. The initial Kentucky settlers met this issue somewhat by their need to build their homes in settlements for strength in numbers, but women in individual families would sometimes have to persevere without their husbands for extended periods, as they engaged in long hunts or served militia service. Boone had been gone from home for two years on a hunt, from 1769 to 1771.
Despite these long absences, Daniel and Rebecca Boone would have ten children. As Faragher states, women in this era were teenagers when they married and they were constantly pregnant. Rebecca's mother bore ten children; Daniel's mother bore eleven. Rebecca's four daughters had thirty-three children among them, and the Boones' three married sons and their wives bore thirty-five children. It was not uncommon for twenty people to live under the roof of a simple cabin, since many pioneers, including the Boones, took in orphaned nieces and nephews and raised them when the harsh frontier life caused their parents' deaths. Only one of the four Boone daughters, Jemima, survived her child-bearing years. Faragher quotes a Kentucky woman responding to the burden of living under these conditions, who laments that the women have to suffer while the men and dogs have a fine time.
This is a grand study a man who does not fit the common media-defined stereotypes of his life. He did devote a good portion of his life to hunting, but he spent great effort (and ultimately didn't succeed) at trying to find his fortune at tavern keeping, land speculation, trading and surveying. He was physically very strong but didn't have the large stature suggested by Hollywood portrayers of his life, like Fess Parker. Thanks to Walt Disney and Fess Parker, many people cannot tell the difference between Boone and the next generation's Davy Crockett, although Boone didn't have Crockett's drive for self promotion. Boone loved the freedom of the wild but kept slaves. He frequently had to engage in warfare with Indians, including his inspired leadership of the defense of Boonesboro during the famous siege of British-instigated Shawnees in 1778, but he praised Indians for their honesty and maintained friendships with some of his former adversaries into his old age. He did not discover the land called Kentucky; he was not the first Colonial immigrant to that country; his Wilderness Trail through the Cumberland Gap was not the only way to enter Kentucky. But the memories of his spirit and of his accomplishments are remembered today by many, especially Kentuckians, who, as Faragher quotes, consider Boone to have had a very large impact on their heritage.
Faragher very nicely sums up the Boone heritage (on p. 351) as coming from someone who personified the westward movement as much as representing an individual who lived at a certain time and place. He displayed traits that Americans have traditionally held valuable: the dominance of the frontier in their history; the fantasy of wanderlust; the commitment to family; a love of nature combined with huge desire for development and material success. As Faragher says, Americans have always felt they have learned something of themselves through the lens of Boone's life and legend.
Daniel Boone's life represents different values to different people. One of the most important services performed by Faragher is his acknowledgement that succeeding generations of Americans have painted him in the colors of the "fighting frontiersman and forest philosopher" appropriate to the sentiments of his contemporaries who espoused the values of the Enlightenment, or as the "divinlely appointed pathfinder and precursor of civilization" (p. 321) championed by the boosters of Manifest Destiny. Faragher's extensive research reveals an individual who is much more grounded than the lofty labels suggest.
It's hard to suggest a greater understatement than to say that Daniel Boone loved the outdoors. He grew up on a farm with his family in Exeter, near Reading , Pennsylvania. His family moved to Rowan County, on the Yadkin River, in North Carolina when he was fifteen. Several patterns were established at this time which would become constants in Daniel's life. The first was the accompaniment of the immediate Boone family, either during the move or shortly after, of other Boone relatives, and the subsequent wedding of Daniel into another family with extensive relatives living in North Carolina, the Bryans. Daniel's life would be marked by numerous moves for various economic reasons, in concert with a nucleus of Boone-Bryan-and other families. The second significant experience of Boone's at this time would be his participation in his first "long hunt", whereby a hunting party would travel deep into the wilderness for months at a time, shooting and trapping a great number of animals for food and for fur trading. Boone would never engage in farming at the various settlements which he established, favoring the adventure of eking out a living in the country's vast virgin woods.
You can well imagine that Boone's frequent moves further into the wilderness would place him into close and frequent contact with the natives already living there. Boone's name is almost synonymous with the word "pathfinder" since he was always living on the edge where American English and American Aboriginal civilizations met. He didn't have an anthropological interest in Indian culture, nor was he the "Indian fighter" portrayed in popular fiction and biography in this country.
During his boyhood, interior Pennsylvania was home to numerous Indian tribes. Some were indigenous, like the Delawares and Susquehannocks. Conoys, Nanticokes, Tuscaroras, Tutelos and Shawnees migrated from other sections of the country. Numerous Indian settlements were located within a few miles of the original American Boone homestead in the first half of the eighteenth century. A main Indian throrughfare, the Perkiomen Path, ran close to the Boone home. Faragher gives a refreshingly lucid account of how the Penn Colony at this time depended upon the mutual trade between the settlers and the Indians; the Indian trade comprised at least a third of the Commonwealth's foreigh exchange. Far from being a constant "clash of cultures", Colonial America's then-West Coast, bounded by the Susquehanna River, found both cultures picking up language and even personal senses of identity from living in close proximity away from the country's Atlantic coastal cities. Boone early on learned the lingua franca of the forest, consisting of a pidgin dialect based on Algonquian, with a smattering of various European words; how to read the pictograph-painted trail markers; where to find the best camping places; and how to learn from woodland teachers of several cultures. Nevertheless, by the time Daniel's father moved the family from Pennsylvania in 1751 over a doctrinal dispute with the Quakers, the Shawnees and other tribes were also moving West to escape retribution for some violent encounters with settlers and to work new hunting grounds that had not been depleted by the growing European population of settlers. The rest of Boone's life would be lived in close proximity especially with the Shawnees.
Faragher recounts some of the old saws about Daniel Boone's constant moving of his family deeper into the uncharted woods. Boone supposedly said he pulled up stakes in favor of moving to new, isolated territory by saying something like "I learned someone built a cabin ten miles from me and I moved because the neighborhood became too crowded." Whatever the motives, Boone's life would be directed by his never-for-long fulfilled desire to be among the first settlers into a new paradise, the better to stake out a claim from which to build an estate comprising several thousand acres he could perpetually call his own, and derive profit by hunting game and granting or selling land to worthy relatives and later settlers. He would have the opportunity to get close to accomplishing those goals. He would especially eventually own substantial land in both Kentucky and Missouri, but he would die an old man, leaving no estate but his personal possessions. Boone bought into the most popular sport of American pioneering since the Pilgrims, land speculation in areas bought/swindled/traded from the Indians. Like the majority of amateur real estate speculators, he would find that the majority of profit from America's newly-opened wild areas would be sucked up by usually politically connected sharpies. Common working pioneers like Boone would lose their fortunes to arcane state laws and shoddy surveying practices which made ownership of any particular piece of ground subject to legal challenge, or to outright theft.
Boone's outstanding historical accomplishment celebrated through the generations, especially of Kentuckians, was his guiding of the state's earliest pioneer families through the Cumberland Gap into what was then mostly spelled "Kentucke", or pronounced "Caintuck." This feat is commemorated in the outstanding, historically romanticized painting by George Caleb Bingham, "Daniel Boone Escorting Settlers through the Cumberland Gap", painted about thirty years after Boone's death. Boone had hunted as far as Kentucky as early as 1767. The area was unbelievably rich in game, including buffalo. He originally tried settling there when he led a group of friends and family along the old Indian trail. His first attempt to settle Kentucky had to be aborted when parts of his group were attacked by Shawnees at Cumberland Gap and several young men were tortured and killed, including Boone's son James. This did not stop land speculators from sending surveying parties to mark land for new communities, where land could be sold to new settlers around the nucleus of new towns. Boone would lead a second party along the Wilderness Road, through the Cumberland Gap in 1775. He was by this time the single greatest non-Indian authority of the geography of Kentucke. He worked as an agent for Richard Henderson, a North Carolina real estate tycoon, who thanked Boone for his many services, including leading the defense of the settlers against Shawnee attacks, through the verbal (and ultimately worthless) promise of several thousand acres of land, and naming his Transylvania Company's new settlement "Boonesboro."
Faragher paints a picture of life on the frontier that was far from idyllic. The settlers had to build their homesteads in forested areas. They had to get crops planted and try to raise as much food as possible for their immediate needs and to survive long winters. Much of their diet would be protein-heavy, since they were constantly hunting to obtain food. Since they were living in areas claimed also by Indians, the risk of attack was real, either in the form of raiding by small bands, or outright widespread insurrections. Probably the most serious, unseen threat to health and sanity was boredom. The initial Kentucky settlers met this issue somewhat by their need to build their homes in settlements for strength in numbers, but women in individual families would sometimes have to persevere without their husbands for extended periods, as they engaged in long hunts or served militia service. Boone had been gone from home for two years on a hunt, from 1769 to 1771.
Despite these long absences, Daniel and Rebecca Boone would have ten children. As Faragher states, women in this era were teenagers when they married and they were constantly pregnant. Rebecca's mother bore ten children; Daniel's mother bore eleven. Rebecca's four daughters had thirty-three children among them, and the Boones' three married sons and their wives bore thirty-five children. It was not uncommon for twenty people to live under the roof of a simple cabin, since many pioneers, including the Boones, took in orphaned nieces and nephews and raised them when the harsh frontier life caused their parents' deaths. Only one of the four Boone daughters, Jemima, survived her child-bearing years. Faragher quotes a Kentucky woman responding to the burden of living under these conditions, who laments that the women have to suffer while the men and dogs have a fine time.
This is a grand study a man who does not fit the common media-defined stereotypes of his life. He did devote a good portion of his life to hunting, but he spent great effort (and ultimately didn't succeed) at trying to find his fortune at tavern keeping, land speculation, trading and surveying. He was physically very strong but didn't have the large stature suggested by Hollywood portrayers of his life, like Fess Parker. Thanks to Walt Disney and Fess Parker, many people cannot tell the difference between Boone and the next generation's Davy Crockett, although Boone didn't have Crockett's drive for self promotion. Boone loved the freedom of the wild but kept slaves. He frequently had to engage in warfare with Indians, including his inspired leadership of the defense of Boonesboro during the famous siege of British-instigated Shawnees in 1778, but he praised Indians for their honesty and maintained friendships with some of his former adversaries into his old age. He did not discover the land called Kentucky; he was not the first Colonial immigrant to that country; his Wilderness Trail through the Cumberland Gap was not the only way to enter Kentucky. But the memories of his spirit and of his accomplishments are remembered today by many, especially Kentuckians, who, as Faragher quotes, consider Boone to have had a very large impact on their heritage.
Faragher very nicely sums up the Boone heritage (on p. 351) as coming from someone who personified the westward movement as much as representing an individual who lived at a certain time and place. He displayed traits that Americans have traditionally held valuable: the dominance of the frontier in their history; the fantasy of wanderlust; the commitment to family; a love of nature combined with huge desire for development and material success. As Faragher says, Americans have always felt they have learned something of themselves through the lens of Boone's life and legend.
April 9, 2022
"When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."
The quote from the classic John Ford western "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" applies remarkably well to the life (and legend) of Daniel Boone. Faragher's 1993 biography does a fine job of separating fact from myth (or just from bad facts) in presenting the intensely *American* life of pioneer Daniel Boone. Extensive use of primary sources presents a figure that is both hard to imagine existing in real and yet at the same time feels all too familiar.
The unreality of Boone's life on the American frontier, including everything from his extensive exploration of what would become Kentucky to his repeated battles with/captures by/escapes from Indian tribes (sometimes hostile, sometimes not), not to mention his extensive long hunts throughout the Kentucky/Missouri wilderness, the factual Boone is legendary in and of itself.
That Boone became such a symbol for so many -- was he the quintessential frontiersman, the backwoods philosopher, the Indian fighter? -- yes and no. Faragher does draws out the truth behind many of the myths surrounding Boone including the famous (but likely false) story of his carving into a Wisconsin tree that "D. Boon cilled a bar. 1760." For while Boone certainly "cilled" a lot of "bars" - the location and misspelling of the name (Boone never forgot the "e" when writing his name renders the validity of this particular tree suspect). Small details and corrections like this abound and are wonderful insights into what Boone was, meant, and symbolized.
Faragher also demonstrates Boone's thoroughgoing *Americanness* by showing how often Boone ended up in court and in debt. So many popular histories of prominent Colonial era figures tend to gloss over the fact that they almost uniformly engaged in rampant land speculation and tended to accumulate massive and frequent debts as a result. The sheer number of lawsuits that Boone was a party to or deposed in as a result of his land speculations or less-than-average-quality surveys become almost comical as the book goes on.
One of the most intriguing aspects of Faragher's book is that while Boone is frequently lauded as a founding father of sorts for Kentucky, he left Kentucky for Missouri in 1799 as a result of multiple debts and legal actions, vowing never to return to the Bluegrass State (and mostly kept his word) - this estrangement from Kentucky became such a sore point that over the next 150 years (!) both Missouri and Kentucky would engage in small scale historical and legislative battles over who really "owned" the legacy (not to mention the earthly remains) of Daniel Boone.
It's a supremely odd and interesting coda to a fascinating and full biography of an American legend.
The quote from the classic John Ford western "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" applies remarkably well to the life (and legend) of Daniel Boone. Faragher's 1993 biography does a fine job of separating fact from myth (or just from bad facts) in presenting the intensely *American* life of pioneer Daniel Boone. Extensive use of primary sources presents a figure that is both hard to imagine existing in real and yet at the same time feels all too familiar.
The unreality of Boone's life on the American frontier, including everything from his extensive exploration of what would become Kentucky to his repeated battles with/captures by/escapes from Indian tribes (sometimes hostile, sometimes not), not to mention his extensive long hunts throughout the Kentucky/Missouri wilderness, the factual Boone is legendary in and of itself.
That Boone became such a symbol for so many -- was he the quintessential frontiersman, the backwoods philosopher, the Indian fighter? -- yes and no. Faragher does draws out the truth behind many of the myths surrounding Boone including the famous (but likely false) story of his carving into a Wisconsin tree that "D. Boon cilled a bar. 1760." For while Boone certainly "cilled" a lot of "bars" - the location and misspelling of the name (Boone never forgot the "e" when writing his name renders the validity of this particular tree suspect). Small details and corrections like this abound and are wonderful insights into what Boone was, meant, and symbolized.
Faragher also demonstrates Boone's thoroughgoing *Americanness* by showing how often Boone ended up in court and in debt. So many popular histories of prominent Colonial era figures tend to gloss over the fact that they almost uniformly engaged in rampant land speculation and tended to accumulate massive and frequent debts as a result. The sheer number of lawsuits that Boone was a party to or deposed in as a result of his land speculations or less-than-average-quality surveys become almost comical as the book goes on.
One of the most intriguing aspects of Faragher's book is that while Boone is frequently lauded as a founding father of sorts for Kentucky, he left Kentucky for Missouri in 1799 as a result of multiple debts and legal actions, vowing never to return to the Bluegrass State (and mostly kept his word) - this estrangement from Kentucky became such a sore point that over the next 150 years (!) both Missouri and Kentucky would engage in small scale historical and legislative battles over who really "owned" the legacy (not to mention the earthly remains) of Daniel Boone.
It's a supremely odd and interesting coda to a fascinating and full biography of an American legend.
February 4, 2022
I have mixed feelings about this book. On one hand I think it is well written and chocked full of details and accounts from numerous sources. I think the author does a good job of addressing the legend vs the man, while being respectful to both. He doesn’t gloss over character flaws and doesn’t overly glorify personal accomplishments.
Daniel Boone was clearly a remarkable man and even in his own time was something of a legend. His accomplishments can’t be overlooked, and his life experiences are fascinating to be sure. The problem is that what he did was over-hunt everywhere he went, wasting much of the meat of his prey, since he could only eat so much and it was not practical to transport large amounts of venison, elk, bison, or bear meat for long distances without modern transportation or storage. He simply wanted the hides for trade, which is how he made his living, and would kill dozens, even hundreds of animals in a given week. He would later complain about the lack of game in a region due to more and more people moving into an area. I think he failed to see his contribution to the decrease in the animal population.
He also played a big role in “settling the west”, which is a nice way of saying that he cleared the way for others to relocate into Kentucky and beyond by displacing native tribes. There is a lot more that could be said about this, but my review is already too long, so read the book.
The final thing about Boone that I can’t reconcile is that he owned slaves. His family continued to own them after his death, and many of his children and grandchildren were staunchly against emancipation throughout the civil war, which says a lot about them and him.
He was a very accomplished and an interesting character. I enjoyed the book, as it was well researched and written, but Boone is ultimately a tragic figure in my opinion, and should not be glorified as the hero he wasn’t.
Daniel Boone was clearly a remarkable man and even in his own time was something of a legend. His accomplishments can’t be overlooked, and his life experiences are fascinating to be sure. The problem is that what he did was over-hunt everywhere he went, wasting much of the meat of his prey, since he could only eat so much and it was not practical to transport large amounts of venison, elk, bison, or bear meat for long distances without modern transportation or storage. He simply wanted the hides for trade, which is how he made his living, and would kill dozens, even hundreds of animals in a given week. He would later complain about the lack of game in a region due to more and more people moving into an area. I think he failed to see his contribution to the decrease in the animal population.
He also played a big role in “settling the west”, which is a nice way of saying that he cleared the way for others to relocate into Kentucky and beyond by displacing native tribes. There is a lot more that could be said about this, but my review is already too long, so read the book.
The final thing about Boone that I can’t reconcile is that he owned slaves. His family continued to own them after his death, and many of his children and grandchildren were staunchly against emancipation throughout the civil war, which says a lot about them and him.
He was a very accomplished and an interesting character. I enjoyed the book, as it was well researched and written, but Boone is ultimately a tragic figure in my opinion, and should not be glorified as the hero he wasn’t.
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April 16, 2017The thing I really love about modern scholarship is not just that the women get their voices heard, but ordinary people. Also, older biographies tended to either be stiff reports of facts without any motivation, hagiographies, or else salacious delvings into sexual antics. The sex lives of powerful people (I think anyway) are only interesting in not whether they "did it " or not, but why, and how their passions influenced their actions.
So, to bring this ramble to Daniel Boone, I never cared whether or not his wife had a child out of wedlock. I admired the heck out of her for protecting home and kids, with a shotgun if necessary, during the long periods Boone was roaming the countryside.
Well, JMF makes it clear that she did--and why. And how the family rallied around her, shrugging such things off. And even more interesting, how much influence the native peoples had in the lives of pioneers, even though the two cultures were at odds due to the indefatigable westward movement.
So, to bring this ramble to Daniel Boone, I never cared whether or not his wife had a child out of wedlock. I admired the heck out of her for protecting home and kids, with a shotgun if necessary, during the long periods Boone was roaming the countryside.
Well, JMF makes it clear that she did--and why. And how the family rallied around her, shrugging such things off. And even more interesting, how much influence the native peoples had in the lives of pioneers, even though the two cultures were at odds due to the indefatigable westward movement.
June 13, 2024
“Speaking of fabulous characters…we’ve managed to come up with a few of our own. How about Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill, Johnny Appleseed, Black Bart, Davy Crockett, Daniel Boone…” Thus elaborated the narrator Bing Crosby to the 1949 Disney animated feature “The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad”. The inclusion of two real life American frontiersmen Crockett and Boone is at the heart of Faragher’s biography of Daniel Boone. He attempts to separate the mythological fiction that has developed in the two centuries since the time of Daniel Boone to retrieve a more realistic picture of the flesh and blood historical man.
Faragher does and admirable job. Yet, his work now being more than three decades old, it does suffer from a lack of more modern historiography that has been discovered since. There are minor errors throughout, but most of those I attribute to editorial mistakes. One aspect of Faragher’s account is the relation of the now defunct story of Shawnee Chief Blue Jacket having been a white man adopted by the Shawnee. This has been disproven, both through historical research and DNA testing on the Bluejacket family descendants. Yet, that occurred a number of years after the publication of Faragher’s work. Blue Jacket is also a very minor tertiary character, mentioned on only a couple of pages. Overall, an excellent effort to recover the historical truth about the legendary American icon Daniel Boone.
Faragher does and admirable job. Yet, his work now being more than three decades old, it does suffer from a lack of more modern historiography that has been discovered since. There are minor errors throughout, but most of those I attribute to editorial mistakes. One aspect of Faragher’s account is the relation of the now defunct story of Shawnee Chief Blue Jacket having been a white man adopted by the Shawnee. This has been disproven, both through historical research and DNA testing on the Bluejacket family descendants. Yet, that occurred a number of years after the publication of Faragher’s work. Blue Jacket is also a very minor tertiary character, mentioned on only a couple of pages. Overall, an excellent effort to recover the historical truth about the legendary American icon Daniel Boone.
November 24, 2025
BOOK REVIEW - Daniel Boone, The Life and Legend of an American Pioneer, by John Mack Faragher (2004)
Faragher rescues the “real” Daniel Boone from the layers of TV myth, and explains how and why that myth became so enduring in the American imagination. Faragher portrays Boone not as a caricature of buckskin bravado, but as a complex man shaped by geography, conflict, and constant movement. The book follows his life from his Quaker childhood in Pennsylvania to his years in the backcountry of North Carolina, his dramatic leadership during the settlement of Kentucky, and his later peregrinations into Missouri territory. Faragher situates Boone within the tumultuous dynamics of Native American diplomacy, the land speculation bubble, and the volatile politics of early American expansion.
Boone emerges as a man who was courageous but not reckless, shrewd but not calculating, honorable yet often undone by the complexities of business and land title law. His failures—particularly in land claims and debt—are not treated as personal shortcomings but as reflections of the chaotic and often predatory frontier economic system.
One of the book’s greatest strengths is Faragher’s analysis of how Boone’s life was transformed into national legend. He documents the ways in which early writers—especially John Filson—turned Boone into a symbolic figure of American expansion, a kind of wilderness knight whose exploits were exaggerated or simplified to fit national aspirations. Faragher is particularly good at explaining how Boone’s legend evolved: first as a heroic explorer, later as a model of rugged individualism, and finally as a cultural archetype that lived on in novels, cheap pamphlets, paintings, and eventually television. Throughout, he demonstrates that Boone’s myth represented not just the man but America’s ongoing struggle to reconcile expansion with displacement, liberty with violence, and opportunity with loss.
This biography succeeds because Faragher refuses to strip Boone of his humanity. He is neither idol nor villain but a figure caught in the moral ambiguities of frontier life. Faragher writes with sympathy for Boone’s motives, clarity about his missteps, and honesty about the broader forces—Native dispossession, speculation, and national ambition—that shaped his world. The book is richly sourced yet very readable. Faragher’s prose is elegant, and his ability to blend biography with cultural history makes this not merely a life story but a study of the early American character.
Quotes:
“Boone lived in a land perpetually on the hinge between possibility and loss, and he came to embody that tension in the American mind. The frontier was for him a place of beauty, abundance, and renewal, yet it was also a place of violence, confusion, and betrayal. In Daniel Boone’s world, every idyll in the forest could be shattered overnight, and every new beginning came with the shadow of what must be surrendered.”
“More than any other figure of the early republic, Boone became the blank canvas upon which Americans painted their aspirations. Filson’s narrative did not merely recount Daniel Boone’s exploits—it remade them. In turning Boone into a hero of liberty and wilderness mastery, the young nation created a myth that would outlast the frontier itself. The legend was never Boone’s creation, yet it followed him like a second life he could neither fully embrace nor wholly escape.”
Faragher rescues the “real” Daniel Boone from the layers of TV myth, and explains how and why that myth became so enduring in the American imagination. Faragher portrays Boone not as a caricature of buckskin bravado, but as a complex man shaped by geography, conflict, and constant movement. The book follows his life from his Quaker childhood in Pennsylvania to his years in the backcountry of North Carolina, his dramatic leadership during the settlement of Kentucky, and his later peregrinations into Missouri territory. Faragher situates Boone within the tumultuous dynamics of Native American diplomacy, the land speculation bubble, and the volatile politics of early American expansion.
Boone emerges as a man who was courageous but not reckless, shrewd but not calculating, honorable yet often undone by the complexities of business and land title law. His failures—particularly in land claims and debt—are not treated as personal shortcomings but as reflections of the chaotic and often predatory frontier economic system.
One of the book’s greatest strengths is Faragher’s analysis of how Boone’s life was transformed into national legend. He documents the ways in which early writers—especially John Filson—turned Boone into a symbolic figure of American expansion, a kind of wilderness knight whose exploits were exaggerated or simplified to fit national aspirations. Faragher is particularly good at explaining how Boone’s legend evolved: first as a heroic explorer, later as a model of rugged individualism, and finally as a cultural archetype that lived on in novels, cheap pamphlets, paintings, and eventually television. Throughout, he demonstrates that Boone’s myth represented not just the man but America’s ongoing struggle to reconcile expansion with displacement, liberty with violence, and opportunity with loss.
This biography succeeds because Faragher refuses to strip Boone of his humanity. He is neither idol nor villain but a figure caught in the moral ambiguities of frontier life. Faragher writes with sympathy for Boone’s motives, clarity about his missteps, and honesty about the broader forces—Native dispossession, speculation, and national ambition—that shaped his world. The book is richly sourced yet very readable. Faragher’s prose is elegant, and his ability to blend biography with cultural history makes this not merely a life story but a study of the early American character.
Quotes:
“Boone lived in a land perpetually on the hinge between possibility and loss, and he came to embody that tension in the American mind. The frontier was for him a place of beauty, abundance, and renewal, yet it was also a place of violence, confusion, and betrayal. In Daniel Boone’s world, every idyll in the forest could be shattered overnight, and every new beginning came with the shadow of what must be surrendered.”
“More than any other figure of the early republic, Boone became the blank canvas upon which Americans painted their aspirations. Filson’s narrative did not merely recount Daniel Boone’s exploits—it remade them. In turning Boone into a hero of liberty and wilderness mastery, the young nation created a myth that would outlast the frontier itself. The legend was never Boone’s creation, yet it followed him like a second life he could neither fully embrace nor wholly escape.”
April 26, 2018
A superior example of a biography that tells a fascinating story while remaining faithful to the facts of a life. Before reading this book I thought I knew about Boone (maybe too much from the old Fess Parker series). As it turned out, there was much I didn't. For instance, I assumed Boone was mostly illiterate but he was quite literate for his place and time. His exploits with native tribes, in particular the fluid nature of being a captive, was more gripping than most fictional accounts of it. I owned this book for years before finally picking it up; the ultimate compliment I can give Faragher's work is that I'm sorry I waited so long.
February 28, 2009
In this highly readable book, Faragher undertakes to separate the life from the legend of Daniel Boone. His goal is not to be a an iconoclast but to understand why it is that the legends have persisted.
April 18, 2021
Interesting book about Boone.
Unfortunately the legend is bigger than life.
Unfortunately the legend is bigger than life.
January 23, 2025
We all know the legend and the American icon. It's fun to find out the real story—at least as much as really can be known. There's quite a bit to his story that is fascinating. He is constantly on the frontier and keeps moving west as civilization approaches in a bigger way. He is involved in the fight during the American Revolution and the War of 1812 and seeing that aspect of these bigger events is interesting.
August 12, 2023
Enjoyed this book for a historical biography. Held my attention and was informative. I became increasingly interested in Daniel Boone after listening to an episode of a podcast called Bear Grease.
July 19, 2025
Pretty good! Well written, and effective at distinguishing the man from the myth.
February 1, 2024
A man yearning to be left alone and a society that over time grows to engulf him.
This was a fun and interesting history of a man who enjoyed a lifestyle that had one of the lowest survivability rates in that era. Seeing all the death and brutality that being on the front-lines of nature brings, it is rather interesting that he still preferred that over society.
And it is very timely as we in these modern times choose evermore to go harder towards safety over one's own freedom. Is it right or wrong? I don't know, but Boone made his choice and seemed to end old and happy.
This was a fun and interesting history of a man who enjoyed a lifestyle that had one of the lowest survivability rates in that era. Seeing all the death and brutality that being on the front-lines of nature brings, it is rather interesting that he still preferred that over society.
And it is very timely as we in these modern times choose evermore to go harder towards safety over one's own freedom. Is it right or wrong? I don't know, but Boone made his choice and seemed to end old and happy.
November 30, 2016
This book is as much about Daniel Boone's times as it is about the pioneer, who managed to become something of a pop star in his own time, even though he lived in what was then the wilds of Kentucky. While still a fairly young man, he was discovered by a popular novelist who wrote dozens of cheap, bestselling books about his real and imagined exploits, spreading his fame as far away as Europe.
Boone often lived and dressed as an Indian and was happiest when he was roaming far from civilization as a hunter. Before and after the American Revolution he began leading settlers over the Allegheny Mountains through the Cumberland Gap against the bitter resistance of the Shawnee, Cherokee and Mingo tribes who tried and failed to protect their ancestral hunting grounds.
The Indians were particularly outraged by the actions of white "market hunters," who slaughtered animals by the tens of thousands for their hides. Kentucky, for instance, teemed with buffalo prior to the white man's arrival, but by the early 1790s, the species was extinct. Boone was a market hunter, abetting the slaughter. In one two week period, he claims to have killed 155 bears in western Kentucky.
Beginning in the 1750s, the book describes many incidents of Indian raids and warfare on the frontier and along the Ohio River Valley, a real eye-opener since so much of what we know about Native America focuses on those of the Great Plains and a relatively short period.
Boone lost two sons to the Indians (one tortured to death), along with a brother. He himself was captured twice and was adopted by Blackfish, chief of a Shawnee faction. He escaped in time to save his settlement at Boonesborough from attack, and here, author Faragher raises history to the level of a thriller.
Despite his trials with the Indians, Boone never grew to hate them as was common for many pioneers. An often failed businessman and patriarch of a large, extended family, he ended his days as a simple hunter living beyond the Mississippi River in Missouri, always seeking to get as far away from civilization as possible. A fascinating book that reads like a page-turner, "Daniel Boone" is packed with information on a little-known, but thrilling time in American history.
Boone often lived and dressed as an Indian and was happiest when he was roaming far from civilization as a hunter. Before and after the American Revolution he began leading settlers over the Allegheny Mountains through the Cumberland Gap against the bitter resistance of the Shawnee, Cherokee and Mingo tribes who tried and failed to protect their ancestral hunting grounds.
The Indians were particularly outraged by the actions of white "market hunters," who slaughtered animals by the tens of thousands for their hides. Kentucky, for instance, teemed with buffalo prior to the white man's arrival, but by the early 1790s, the species was extinct. Boone was a market hunter, abetting the slaughter. In one two week period, he claims to have killed 155 bears in western Kentucky.
Beginning in the 1750s, the book describes many incidents of Indian raids and warfare on the frontier and along the Ohio River Valley, a real eye-opener since so much of what we know about Native America focuses on those of the Great Plains and a relatively short period.
Boone lost two sons to the Indians (one tortured to death), along with a brother. He himself was captured twice and was adopted by Blackfish, chief of a Shawnee faction. He escaped in time to save his settlement at Boonesborough from attack, and here, author Faragher raises history to the level of a thriller.
Despite his trials with the Indians, Boone never grew to hate them as was common for many pioneers. An often failed businessman and patriarch of a large, extended family, he ended his days as a simple hunter living beyond the Mississippi River in Missouri, always seeking to get as far away from civilization as possible. A fascinating book that reads like a page-turner, "Daniel Boone" is packed with information on a little-known, but thrilling time in American history.
October 5, 2023
To think I thought he was just a story made up about the early days of the USA to encourage young boys to not be afraid of the wilderness. NO, Daniel Boone,lived and did whatever he wanted when he wanted until eventually he reaped the effects of the big picture he helped bring in. The story of famous strong people who made an impact dying poor as well as being bullied by the very people they had helped is not lost here. The writer says he was on his death bed but then continues the storyline for several chapters and continued traveling to pay small debt. The book is fun with some tales of greetings and something you may have seen in a comedy video and excessive in some areas but overall a little long but enjoyable. This one book could be a 3 book series at a minimum so be prepared for someone afraid to stop the story or even venture far from the main and what seems to be the only character developed which was excessive with no personality of those around him, or even a little more about the Bluegrasses of Kentucky would have been nice to fill in the picture of the wild country.
August 30, 2020
This is an extraordinary biography of Daniel Boone, and may be the most balanced view of Boone available, but as a readable book, this book has a lot of problems.
1. The Chapters are simply way too long. The author ignores clear points where it would be easy to end a chapter and start a new one and just continues.
2. It skips around. Going from "the last action of the War of 1812" to 1813 is not conducive to people getting a sense of what was happening with Boone. The book has way too much "stream of thought" instead of structure based on time-line.
3. It badly needs a good editor. It is probably 30% longer than it should be because of repetition, inefficient phrasing and just plain meandering.
If you are REALLY interested in Daniel Boone, this book is worth reading. But it will not be easy.
1. The Chapters are simply way too long. The author ignores clear points where it would be easy to end a chapter and start a new one and just continues.
2. It skips around. Going from "the last action of the War of 1812" to 1813 is not conducive to people getting a sense of what was happening with Boone. The book has way too much "stream of thought" instead of structure based on time-line.
3. It badly needs a good editor. It is probably 30% longer than it should be because of repetition, inefficient phrasing and just plain meandering.
If you are REALLY interested in Daniel Boone, this book is worth reading. But it will not be easy.
June 26, 2022
I’m not sure what I’m rating here…the book or the man. The book is well written, the man is overblown. It seems near everything Boone did was mediocre at best…I suppose if you happen to get there before everyone else, you get the first-mover advantage and can propagate the myths. He was a sub-par politician, an epic failure as a surveyor, a failed businessman, and a self-imposed exile from the State he founded. I have given little weight to the military tacticians that took on the Native Americans, the tactics, training, and munitions were far inferior and most of the battles were via ambush, slaughter, and plunder. Boone did not seem to be an exception and lost multiple times to the Native Americans and then used questionable negotiation and outright lies to re-gain freedom. Not a fan of Daniel Boone.
June 20, 2018
Daniel Boone was a man, yes a big man-No, he wasn't. He only stood about 5' 8'' which was average height for that time.
From the coonskin cap on the top of old Dan-"Only a fool would wear a fur cap lest it was winter" And when did wear one it was a beaver hat. Most of the year he wore a leather hat with a wide brim.
The rippinest roarest fightest man, he frontier ever knew- Actually he was known as a sober man especially for a frontiersman.
Lots of info about his finnancial dealings and the hard choices he had tomake in his dealing with the Shawnee and the British during the Revolutionary War. I especially like informationon the womenin his life especially his mother, Sarah, his wife Rebecca Bryant, and his youngest daughter, Jemmina Boone Calloway.
From the coonskin cap on the top of old Dan-"Only a fool would wear a fur cap lest it was winter" And when did wear one it was a beaver hat. Most of the year he wore a leather hat with a wide brim.
The rippinest roarest fightest man, he frontier ever knew- Actually he was known as a sober man especially for a frontiersman.
Lots of info about his finnancial dealings and the hard choices he had tomake in his dealing with the Shawnee and the British during the Revolutionary War. I especially like informationon the womenin his life especially his mother, Sarah, his wife Rebecca Bryant, and his youngest daughter, Jemmina Boone Calloway.
December 17, 2024
“God never made a man of my prisipel to be lost.” These words, spoken by Daniel Boone himself, encapsulate the rugged confidence and unshakable resilience of a man whose life has been endlessly mythologized. Yet as Faragher demonstrates in his brilliant and unflinching exploration, Boone was both a hero and a tragic figure—a man celebrated for opening the American frontier while paradoxically struggling to find his place in it.
Faragher strips away the romanticism surrounding Boone to uncover a deeply human story of triumph, contradiction, and hardship. Chapters Seven through Ten are especially poignant, revealing Boone as a pioneer who could “open the land for others but never hold a single acre of his own.” This paradox lies at the heart of Boone’s life: a man who led settlers into the wilderness only to lose out to speculators, legal disputes, and the structures of a society he helped to create but never quite fit into. Boone, Faragher argues, was not just a wanderer on the map but also in spirit—a man exiled by the very progress he enabled.
Boone’s Relationship with Land and Legacy
In Chapter Seven – Unable to Call a Single Acre His Own, Boone’s struggles with land ownership come into sharp focus. The chaotic nature of land claims during the westward expansion left him repeatedly dispossessed, despite his pivotal role in charting these territories. Boone emerges here not as the landowner of legend, but as a victim of legal and economic systems that favored opportunism over fairness. Faragher’s meticulous detail exposes the darker realities of the American dream and reminds us that the pioneers often paid the highest price.
Boone as a Wanderer
Chapter Eight – A Wanderer in the World deepens this theme, presenting Boone as a nomad, always searching yet never fully settling. He was a man shaped by the wilderness and undone by civilization’s encroachments. Faragher paints Boone as a figure torn between two worlds: the untamed land he loved and the expanding society that increasingly defined success through property and wealth. This conflict makes Boone profoundly relatable, even timeless—someone whose principles often clashed with the changing values around him.
Philosophy and Resilience
In Chapter Nine – God Never Made a Man of My Prisipel to Be Lost, Boone’s personal philosophy takes center stage. Despite his many defeats, Boone’s belief in himself and his connection to the natural world remained unshaken. Faragher gives us a portrait of a man who placed integrity, family, and freedom above all else—a stark contrast to the myth of the solitary and self-serving frontiersman.
Boone’s Final Years
Finally, Chapter Ten – Left Until I’m Put in the Ground is both haunting and beautiful. In his later years, Boone retreated quietly from the world that had once celebrated him. Faragher offers a moving reflection on a man who, while out of step with the world’s ambitions, continued to embody the pioneer spirit until his death. His story is not one of failure but of fidelity to values that the frontier itself began to abandon.
The Triumphs and Contradictions of the Frontier
What makes this book exceptional is how it uses Boone’s life to explore the American frontier’s broader contradictions—freedom and opportunity coexisting with dispossession and loss. Faragher masterfully juxtaposes the romantic myth of Boone with the harsh realities of his experiences. Boone’s story becomes a cautionary tale about the price of expansion and a reminder of how easily legends can distort reality.
Faragher’s Daniel Boone is not just a biography; it is a meditation on history, myth, and humanity. It forces us to ask uncomfortable questions: What do we lose in the pursuit of progress? And what happens to the pioneers, the dreamers, and the wanderers when their world moves on without them?
This book redefines Boone not as a man of legend but as a man of principle—flawed, complex, and deeply compelling. It is a must-read for anyone interested in the human side of America’s frontier story. Boone’s life, as Faragher shows us, was both triumphant and tragic—proof that even heroes are not immune to the forces of history.
Faragher strips away the romanticism surrounding Boone to uncover a deeply human story of triumph, contradiction, and hardship. Chapters Seven through Ten are especially poignant, revealing Boone as a pioneer who could “open the land for others but never hold a single acre of his own.” This paradox lies at the heart of Boone’s life: a man who led settlers into the wilderness only to lose out to speculators, legal disputes, and the structures of a society he helped to create but never quite fit into. Boone, Faragher argues, was not just a wanderer on the map but also in spirit—a man exiled by the very progress he enabled.
Boone’s Relationship with Land and Legacy
In Chapter Seven – Unable to Call a Single Acre His Own, Boone’s struggles with land ownership come into sharp focus. The chaotic nature of land claims during the westward expansion left him repeatedly dispossessed, despite his pivotal role in charting these territories. Boone emerges here not as the landowner of legend, but as a victim of legal and economic systems that favored opportunism over fairness. Faragher’s meticulous detail exposes the darker realities of the American dream and reminds us that the pioneers often paid the highest price.
Boone as a Wanderer
Chapter Eight – A Wanderer in the World deepens this theme, presenting Boone as a nomad, always searching yet never fully settling. He was a man shaped by the wilderness and undone by civilization’s encroachments. Faragher paints Boone as a figure torn between two worlds: the untamed land he loved and the expanding society that increasingly defined success through property and wealth. This conflict makes Boone profoundly relatable, even timeless—someone whose principles often clashed with the changing values around him.
Philosophy and Resilience
In Chapter Nine – God Never Made a Man of My Prisipel to Be Lost, Boone’s personal philosophy takes center stage. Despite his many defeats, Boone’s belief in himself and his connection to the natural world remained unshaken. Faragher gives us a portrait of a man who placed integrity, family, and freedom above all else—a stark contrast to the myth of the solitary and self-serving frontiersman.
Boone’s Final Years
Finally, Chapter Ten – Left Until I’m Put in the Ground is both haunting and beautiful. In his later years, Boone retreated quietly from the world that had once celebrated him. Faragher offers a moving reflection on a man who, while out of step with the world’s ambitions, continued to embody the pioneer spirit until his death. His story is not one of failure but of fidelity to values that the frontier itself began to abandon.
The Triumphs and Contradictions of the Frontier
What makes this book exceptional is how it uses Boone’s life to explore the American frontier’s broader contradictions—freedom and opportunity coexisting with dispossession and loss. Faragher masterfully juxtaposes the romantic myth of Boone with the harsh realities of his experiences. Boone’s story becomes a cautionary tale about the price of expansion and a reminder of how easily legends can distort reality.
Faragher’s Daniel Boone is not just a biography; it is a meditation on history, myth, and humanity. It forces us to ask uncomfortable questions: What do we lose in the pursuit of progress? And what happens to the pioneers, the dreamers, and the wanderers when their world moves on without them?
This book redefines Boone not as a man of legend but as a man of principle—flawed, complex, and deeply compelling. It is a must-read for anyone interested in the human side of America’s frontier story. Boone’s life, as Faragher shows us, was both triumphant and tragic—proof that even heroes are not immune to the forces of history.
June 5, 2022
This was a solid biography that lived up to my expectations. John Mack Faragher, now a professor at Yale, paints a fair picture of the legendary Daniel Boone, which is a hard thing to do. Much of Boone's life is shrouded in mystery and myth, as the mortal man quickly ascended to God-like status before his life was even over.
Daniel Boone put his mark on much of the United States, much more than I expected. His explorations and exploits are still considerable even to this day. I had no idea that Boone explored parts of Florida and possibly made it all the way to Yellowstone. I think in the present day Boone is overlooked and forgotten, and possibly when he is he's seen as an antagonist to Native Americans and
a disruptor to pre-Columbian America. This, as his life and times show, isn't really true. He was a friend of Natives and was even adopted into the Shawnee tribe, despite fighting them for much of his life. He, like so many of the long hunters, were probably more like Native Americans than they were like their fellow whites due to their adherence to nature and the wilderness.
Evidently, Boone was very much a humble man and was simply a man of his times. He would have probably said he wasn't out to do this or that, but simply to satisfy his sense of wanderlust and keep away from civilization as it pushed ever westward. This can be easily seen as he was born in Pennsylvania, died in Missouri, and lived in about every state in between. He was very much a person in tune with nature and the wilderness, as evidenced by the hybrid culture of white settlers and Indians in frontier America in those days. Boone did not first discover Kentucky and Boonesborough was not the first settlement, but he and it are what we remember.
Much of this book is about the world Boone lived in and the history of Boone's legend, which makes it feel comprehensive. I did find that portions of the book are slow and that Faragher spends too much time detailing unimportant facts like Boone's legal troubles regarding land deeds. Faragher does do an excellent job of detailing the history of Boone's image, which ranges from the near mythical to the complete opposite. I'm sure the real Boone would have fallen somewhere in between. He was of course a celebrity in his time, and rightfully so, but he wasn't super human.
This book meant a lot to me personally, as I grew up loving Daniel Boone like so many American boys do. A lot of the early chapters talk about well known places of my childhood-the Holston, Clinch, and Powell river valleys, Long Island on the Holston, Cumberland Gap, Sycamore Shoals, and many more. The acknowledgements even mention my hometown's library, the Abingdon Virginia Public Library. It was good to brush up on my knowledge of Boone, and I'd recommend this book as a starting point for anyone else.
Daniel Boone put his mark on much of the United States, much more than I expected. His explorations and exploits are still considerable even to this day. I had no idea that Boone explored parts of Florida and possibly made it all the way to Yellowstone. I think in the present day Boone is overlooked and forgotten, and possibly when he is he's seen as an antagonist to Native Americans and
a disruptor to pre-Columbian America. This, as his life and times show, isn't really true. He was a friend of Natives and was even adopted into the Shawnee tribe, despite fighting them for much of his life. He, like so many of the long hunters, were probably more like Native Americans than they were like their fellow whites due to their adherence to nature and the wilderness.
Evidently, Boone was very much a humble man and was simply a man of his times. He would have probably said he wasn't out to do this or that, but simply to satisfy his sense of wanderlust and keep away from civilization as it pushed ever westward. This can be easily seen as he was born in Pennsylvania, died in Missouri, and lived in about every state in between. He was very much a person in tune with nature and the wilderness, as evidenced by the hybrid culture of white settlers and Indians in frontier America in those days. Boone did not first discover Kentucky and Boonesborough was not the first settlement, but he and it are what we remember.
Much of this book is about the world Boone lived in and the history of Boone's legend, which makes it feel comprehensive. I did find that portions of the book are slow and that Faragher spends too much time detailing unimportant facts like Boone's legal troubles regarding land deeds. Faragher does do an excellent job of detailing the history of Boone's image, which ranges from the near mythical to the complete opposite. I'm sure the real Boone would have fallen somewhere in between. He was of course a celebrity in his time, and rightfully so, but he wasn't super human.
This book meant a lot to me personally, as I grew up loving Daniel Boone like so many American boys do. A lot of the early chapters talk about well known places of my childhood-the Holston, Clinch, and Powell river valleys, Long Island on the Holston, Cumberland Gap, Sycamore Shoals, and many more. The acknowledgements even mention my hometown's library, the Abingdon Virginia Public Library. It was good to brush up on my knowledge of Boone, and I'd recommend this book as a starting point for anyone else.
May 16, 2022
The author does a laudable job in assembling the facts about Boone's life and times and offers us a clearer picture of life on the early frontier of America than any history textbook. He shows Boone to be a man of contradictions, seen by some admirers who considered him in the vanguard of civilization and others who admired his dedication to a life in the wilderness. Much of his frontier life was spent battling against native Americans desperate to stop the flood of Americans onto their lands, most notable the Shawnee. While feeling a great affinity for the Indians and their way of life and maintaining friendships with many of them, yet he consistently joined other settlers in invading whatever territory they retreated to, even when it was supposedly guaranteed by treaty.
Boone was driven by an obsessive urge to wander in the wilderness, hunting and trapping not just for food or money but for sheer delight in his bloody pursuits, and to be free of the entanglements of the very society he had helped establish in Kentucky. By the time Boone left Kentucky in his later years the forests he had loved were mostly despoiled of the game he and others had destroyed so wantonly, bear, deer, and buffalo and beaver among them.
There is more to Boone's story involving various grants of enormous land grants handed to him, most of which he never improved, lost in court battles, or sold at a loss.
I was left with a vision of Boone as probably a likeable man, endowed with courage and incredible energy, but at the same time one who embodied everything despicable in the British/American pioneer, especially that arrogance to imagine that all that wild land and the living beings there before he arrived might rightfully be subjugated, enslaved, exploited, and ultimately destroyed simply because he was a man and white.
Boone was driven by an obsessive urge to wander in the wilderness, hunting and trapping not just for food or money but for sheer delight in his bloody pursuits, and to be free of the entanglements of the very society he had helped establish in Kentucky. By the time Boone left Kentucky in his later years the forests he had loved were mostly despoiled of the game he and others had destroyed so wantonly, bear, deer, and buffalo and beaver among them.
There is more to Boone's story involving various grants of enormous land grants handed to him, most of which he never improved, lost in court battles, or sold at a loss.
I was left with a vision of Boone as probably a likeable man, endowed with courage and incredible energy, but at the same time one who embodied everything despicable in the British/American pioneer, especially that arrogance to imagine that all that wild land and the living beings there before he arrived might rightfully be subjugated, enslaved, exploited, and ultimately destroyed simply because he was a man and white.
November 20, 2020
"Daniel Boone was a man, yes a big man..." This was my favorite show as a kid. I read kids books about him. I've been to Fort Boonesborough State Park and some other Boone associated places. I've read some articles. I know he didn't wear a coonskin cap and wasn't nearly as physically big as Fess Parker. Still, when I saw this among the Audible plus selections, I was on it.
Daniel Boone was one of many children and had many children (not just Isreal like the TV show). He was from a Quaker family who had left England and settled in Pennsylvania for religious reasons (note to Quaker school I went to: this info might have made me more interested in Quakerism and school). Living nearby in PA were Abraham Lincolns ancestors. They were friendly with the large Boone family and would move with them to NC and then to KY.
Like the heroic version, he trapped, hunted, and fought in the French & Indian War as well as the Revolution and in skirmishes with Indians. Restless, he blazed the trail to Kentucky through the Cumberland Gap. Even during his lifetime, he had a larger than life heroic reputation due to an early biography.
Unlike the heroic version, he failed at real estate and running a trading post in Kentucky. He was kidnapped by Shawnee for 4 months. He was gone hunting so long his family thought he was dead and returned to NC. Fortunately, he was able to find them after he returned to Fort Boonesborough and all was forgiven. After running into financial problems, he left for Missouri (then part of Spain), where he spent the rest of his life. Among his many descendants are the baseball playing Boone family.
This book is very detailed and well read by Tom Parker. As it turns out, the real Daniel Boone is more interesting than the heroic version and his life also sheds more light on the history of his time.
Daniel Boone was one of many children and had many children (not just Isreal like the TV show). He was from a Quaker family who had left England and settled in Pennsylvania for religious reasons (note to Quaker school I went to: this info might have made me more interested in Quakerism and school). Living nearby in PA were Abraham Lincolns ancestors. They were friendly with the large Boone family and would move with them to NC and then to KY.
Like the heroic version, he trapped, hunted, and fought in the French & Indian War as well as the Revolution and in skirmishes with Indians. Restless, he blazed the trail to Kentucky through the Cumberland Gap. Even during his lifetime, he had a larger than life heroic reputation due to an early biography.
Unlike the heroic version, he failed at real estate and running a trading post in Kentucky. He was kidnapped by Shawnee for 4 months. He was gone hunting so long his family thought he was dead and returned to NC. Fortunately, he was able to find them after he returned to Fort Boonesborough and all was forgiven. After running into financial problems, he left for Missouri (then part of Spain), where he spent the rest of his life. Among his many descendants are the baseball playing Boone family.
This book is very detailed and well read by Tom Parker. As it turns out, the real Daniel Boone is more interesting than the heroic version and his life also sheds more light on the history of his time.
July 2, 2023
More myth than man, there is an inevitable tragedy to the life of Daniel Boone.
As one of the great hunters and foragers of his time, and a time when the newly formed United States needed a legacy more than ever, Daniel Boome was the perfect fit.
He was everything an American was supposed to be. Hardworking, generous, kind, and a man who answered to no one.
Yet by the very building of this character, and the world he built with it, he created a future that he himself could not be part of.
A forager and hunter by trade, he was happiest at one with wilderness, hunting the things that made nature, well, nature.
Yet by the very act of the hunt, and the cruel economics which abide by such a living, he was creating a world without wilderness, and thus a world without him.
While the tales of his deeds have and continue to long outlive live the man, and his kindness cannot be forgotten, Boone lived his life an utter failure, constantly on the run from debtors, and often without an acre of land to his name.
And yet, despite the tragedy that was his life, he spent up to his final days doing what he loved, and happy doing it.
What he would think of the Kentucky he built, or the world at large today, we cannot know. But what we can take away was that Boone was first and foremost a man of kindness, a man who loved the world for what it was, not what he could make it be.
And if we can look at the world and not see all that is wrong, but all that could be right, well the world might just be a place to be.
As one of the great hunters and foragers of his time, and a time when the newly formed United States needed a legacy more than ever, Daniel Boome was the perfect fit.
He was everything an American was supposed to be. Hardworking, generous, kind, and a man who answered to no one.
Yet by the very building of this character, and the world he built with it, he created a future that he himself could not be part of.
A forager and hunter by trade, he was happiest at one with wilderness, hunting the things that made nature, well, nature.
Yet by the very act of the hunt, and the cruel economics which abide by such a living, he was creating a world without wilderness, and thus a world without him.
While the tales of his deeds have and continue to long outlive live the man, and his kindness cannot be forgotten, Boone lived his life an utter failure, constantly on the run from debtors, and often without an acre of land to his name.
And yet, despite the tragedy that was his life, he spent up to his final days doing what he loved, and happy doing it.
What he would think of the Kentucky he built, or the world at large today, we cannot know. But what we can take away was that Boone was first and foremost a man of kindness, a man who loved the world for what it was, not what he could make it be.
And if we can look at the world and not see all that is wrong, but all that could be right, well the world might just be a place to be.
October 31, 2021
The author has done an excellent job of separating the truth from the legend of Daniel Boone. He was a woodsman, and a leader, but also a man wishing solitude. There are in-depth accounts of how he rescued his daughter and the Calloway girls, and later of being captured before escaping, and leading his people through a siege. These are well documented in the book, and very informative. I was intrigued as to the relationship between Boone and the Shawnees. There was an earned respect for each other, and the author even mentions how Boone went hunting with his Shawnee friends while living in Missouri. For Boone to lead his family and many others into Kentucky, which was wilderness territory, he had to be able to find common ground. He has a leader in this respect.
Overall, being from North Carolina, I am familiar with the Yadkin Valley area he lived in. But I am less familiar with the land in Kentucky, and now have reason to explore that region with new knowledge of Daniel Boone.
Overall, being from North Carolina, I am familiar with the Yadkin Valley area he lived in. But I am less familiar with the land in Kentucky, and now have reason to explore that region with new knowledge of Daniel Boone.
June 14, 2024
Listening to this book I realized I didn’t really know a thing about Daniel Boone, a name I’ve heard all my life like almost every US Citizen. How many of us really know who he was or what he did in his lifetime?
Boone sounds like he really enjoyed being mostly alone in the wilderness, out hunting for long stretches of time. He loved his wife and children so I have to wonder why he was gone just as much as he was? His wife certainly was a very forgiving or understanding wife to be on her own with all the children they had out In territory that had yet to really be safe. They lost at least one if not more children to Indian raids.
Parts of the books certainly seemed a bit boring but I just kept listening. On the whole, it was a good history lesson. It isn’t a book just for anyone as it is more of a historical book. This is the reason I rated it 4 stars. The reader was okay, did get on my nerves just a bit so also a 4. If you know nothing about the Boone family, this has a lot of interesting information.
Boone sounds like he really enjoyed being mostly alone in the wilderness, out hunting for long stretches of time. He loved his wife and children so I have to wonder why he was gone just as much as he was? His wife certainly was a very forgiving or understanding wife to be on her own with all the children they had out In territory that had yet to really be safe. They lost at least one if not more children to Indian raids.
Parts of the books certainly seemed a bit boring but I just kept listening. On the whole, it was a good history lesson. It isn’t a book just for anyone as it is more of a historical book. This is the reason I rated it 4 stars. The reader was okay, did get on my nerves just a bit so also a 4. If you know nothing about the Boone family, this has a lot of interesting information.
August 16, 2019
Recently I've been working on my family tree and it has always been said we were related to Daniel Boone. After some digging, sure enough, I am descended from his uncle George Boone IV. Since not a lot of books were written about my branch of the tree I decided to read something about Daniel in hopes of learning more about my ancestors.
This was an interesting book and I quite enjoyed listening to Daniel's story. I have come to realize much about the people I come from, some good, some negative. In the end, though they were simply people living in an era vastly different than my own. I respect Boone's adventurous spirit, love of solitude, and family loyalty. I am deeply ashamed of the ownership of slaves and the displacement and murder of indigenous people. In the end, though it is interesting to learn how one family, the Boones, shaped so much of this countries formative years.
This was an interesting book and I quite enjoyed listening to Daniel's story. I have come to realize much about the people I come from, some good, some negative. In the end, though they were simply people living in an era vastly different than my own. I respect Boone's adventurous spirit, love of solitude, and family loyalty. I am deeply ashamed of the ownership of slaves and the displacement and murder of indigenous people. In the end, though it is interesting to learn how one family, the Boones, shaped so much of this countries formative years.
October 2, 2021
My primary concern when reading history is accuracy. My assessment is that this book is an accurate portrayal of Daniel Boone's life based on known facts. It does not avoid unpleasant truths such as his owning slaves, but it also does not seek to analyze or place those facts in context or justify them. That is left to the reader. It does explore his complex relationship with native Americans. I found it a bit hard to stay engaged and it would have helped to have a single map that tracked his movements, but overall, I found the book informative and as engaging as one can expect history to be. I am not a Daniel Boone scholar nor do I intend to be. This is the only book I have and likely will read about Daniel Boone, so consider that when you consider my review.
November 12, 2023
The book provides a very good overview of the life of Daniel Boone. It covers everything from birth to death as well as some evolution of his legend in the subsequent years. I especially appreciate the addition of multiple sources for many stories. This provided context to indicate how some stories were shaped and changed over the years depending on the particular aims of the authors. The addition of testimony from relatives and contemporaries was also helpful.
In general, the narration was well performed. The most disappointing moment was the absolute butchering of the title Don Juan (Don Jew-an). It stuck out like a sore thumb. Otherwise, I thought the reading was well paced and intoned.
In general, the narration was well performed. The most disappointing moment was the absolute butchering of the title Don Juan (Don Jew-an). It stuck out like a sore thumb. Otherwise, I thought the reading was well paced and intoned.
December 23, 2021
A well-done biography on an interesting American folk-hero. The author did a good job of introducing fact, fiction, and the in-between without being too nerdy about it. In the final section he addresses why Boone is so famous and one of the few pioneers we still know by name.
The stories of Boone's life very much reminded me of The Deerslayer (we find the Leatherstocking Tales were based on him) as he is constantly interacting with Indians for better or worse - a fact that seems to be the most interesting and controversial part of his life. I can't remember why I picked Faragher's biography over others, but I wasn't disappointed.
The stories of Boone's life very much reminded me of The Deerslayer (we find the Leatherstocking Tales were based on him) as he is constantly interacting with Indians for better or worse - a fact that seems to be the most interesting and controversial part of his life. I can't remember why I picked Faragher's biography over others, but I wasn't disappointed.
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