Explorer; born in
Bucks county, Pa., Feb. 11, 1735.
From his youth he was a famous hunter, and, while yet a minor, he emigrated, with his father, to
North Carolina, where he married.
In May, 1759,
Boone and five others went to explore the forests of
Kentucky.
There he was captured by some
Indians, but escaped, and returned home in 1771.
In 1773 he led a party of settlers to the wilds he had explored; and in 1774 conducted a party of surveyors to the
falls of the
Ohio (now
Louisville). He had taken his family with the other families to
Kentucky in 1773, where they were in perpetual danger from the barbarians of the forest.
He had several fights with the Indians; and in 1775 he built a fort on the
Kentucky River on the present site of
Boonesboro.
In 1777 several attacks were made on this fort by the Indians.
They was repulsed, but in February, 1778.
Boone was captured by them, and taken to
Chillicothe, beyond the
Ohio, and thence to
Detroit.
Adopted as a son in an Indian family, he became a favorite, but managed to escape in June following, and returned to his fort and kindred.
In August, about 450 Indians attacked his fort, which he bravely defended with about fifty men. At different times two of his sons were killed by the Indians.
Boone accompanied
General Clarke on his expedition against the Indians on the
Scioto, in Ohio, in 1782, soon after a battle at the
Blue Licks.
Having lost his lands in
Kentucky in consequence of a defective title, he went to the
Missouri country in 1795, and settled on the Osage Woman River, where he continued the occupations of hunter and trapper.
Again he was deprived of a large tract of land in
Missouri, obtained
[
377]
under the
Spanish authority, by the title being declared invalid.
He died in Charette,
Mo., Sept. 26, 1820.
Boone's remains, with those of his wife, rest in the cemetery near
Frankfort, Ky.
