Daniel Boone, the most famous of America’s early western pioneers is a figure almost more legendary than real. When he was born in 1734 Americans paid obeisance to the English king: by the time he died in 1820 the United States had come into existence and it was Boone, foremost among an inspired handful of Long Hunters, who opened the land.
When it was originally published in 1976, Lawrence Elliott’s study was the first major one to appear since 1939 and it draws upon a vast amount of historical research into and understanding of the Revolutionary frontier. It provides a highly readable account with a sympathetic yet realistic portrait of Boone which adds depth to the traditional portrait of a frontier hero.
Boone was certainly the stuff of which legends were made: he blazed trails, hunted and fought Native American Indians in areas that stretched from Florida to the Yellowstone River. Celebrated yet private, Boone was a complex amalgam, goaded into stunning acts of bravery and of foolishness, who died without owning an acre of the precious land he discovered. The details of his troubled personal life are told here for the first time.