Boone: A Biography

by Robert Morgan

With the move to Marble Creek around 1783, Boone’s life entered a new phase, almost another dispensation. He was almost fifty and the events for which he would be remembered were mostly behind him: his long 1769–71 hunt into Kentucky, his negotiations with the Cherokees for the Transylvania Company, hacking Boone’s Trace and building Boonesborough in 1775, the rescue of Jemima in 1776, his adoption by the Shawnees in 1778, and his heroic escape and defense of Boones-borough. The debacle at the Blue Licks marked an end to his era of exploits, heroism, genius. And to really put a period to that phase of his life, he was about to become famous. He may have been a legend on the frontier for a dozen years already, but he was about to become even more of a legend back east, in Britain, and on the Continent. It is hard for anyone, even a man of Daniel Boone’s modesty, cheer, courtesy, and resourcefulness, to survive his own legend.