The backwoods town in colonial days—The place of the backwoodsmen in the march of progress—Boone and his descendants among the leading pioneers—How the backwoods fighters forced the boundary westward—The frontier farmer was necessarily hunter and fighter—The character of the backwoodsman and his manner of life—The dwellings, dress and weapons of the frontier—Daniel Boone, a typical backwoodsman—His birth and boyhood in a frontier settlement—His parents migrate to North Carolina—Then he marries and settles on the border—He explores Kentucky and forms a determination to settle there.

We shall be able to follow the story of Daniel Boone with a better understanding if, before entering upon it, we take a brief survey of the country in which his entire life was passed and the people among whom he lived—the American backwoods and the American backwoodsmen.

At the outbreak of the Revolution the American colonies extended no farther west than the Alleghany Mountains, and consisted of the narrow strip of territory lying between that rocky wall and the Atlantic seaboard. By far the greater portion of the population dwelt along the coast in urban centres, or in comparatively closely settled districts which had been cleared and cultivated. In this belt were found the large plantations and wealthy slave-owners. Beyond it, the land was covered with virgin forest, dense, impenetrable, except along the trails, and infested by wild beasts and savages.

In the portion of this region that lay nearest to civilization a rude backwoods town might be found here and there. It lay in a clearing of a few hundred acres, and usually at the junction of several frequented trails. It consisted of a cluster of log cabins, a general store, perhaps a smithy, a school, a tavern, and court-house. The inhabitants seldom numbered more than three or four hundred. It may not be strictly proper to speak of a people to whose midst the schoolmaster and the judge penetrated, as beyond the bounds of civilization, and, of course, the expression is used in a comparative sense. The backwoods dominie was hardly worth considering as an educational factor. He was generally ignorant, frequently intemperate, and sometimes immoral. The law lost much of its wonted majesty in a community where an unpopular judge was liable to be mobbed and a dishonest sheriff to be lynched.

The fact is that these people were entirely different from the colonists of the coast—different in origin, in religion, in manners, and customs. With splendid natural qualities, such as made them peculiarly fitted to act as the pioneers of the nation, they were rude, unlettered, and impatient of restraint. In the upbuilding of the infant nation, these pathfinders formed the muscle and sinew, whilst the older communities supplied the brain. Although both classes were essentially Americans, in the Revolutionary period they had hardly anything in common but their patriotism.

The inhabitants of the backwoods towns were in general the less bold spirits. Deeper in the forest wilderness were found more daring souls, scattered along the mountain border that divided the colonies from the Indian territory. They lived face to face and in constant touch with the fierce savages, and acted as a buffer to their countrymen behind them.

The term “backwoods” conflicts somewhat with a proper sense of the actual situation. From the time that they turned their backs on the mother country, our people faced steadily towards the west, and maintained a forward march in that direction until they reached the distant shores of the continent. A marked peculiarity of the class we have under consideration is that when they arrived in the country, they pushed through the ranks of the colonists and, assuming the vanguard, continued at the head of the advance, first taking possession of Kentucky and Tennessee, then settling Mississippi and Missouri, and ultimately marching across the continent to the Pacific. Son followed father, and continued on when the latter lay in the peace of the grave. Two children of Boone were among the first Americans to make homes beyond the “Father of Waters”; a grandson was the first settler in Kansas; another among the earliest in Colorado; and a third—the famous Kit Carson—acted as scout and guide to the expedition of General FrÉmont.

Many backwoods families devoted themselves, through several generations, to the winning of the wilderness with rifle and axe. The debt of the nation to these people is a heavy one. They may be compared to the outposts of an encamped army, the border settlers being the sentries, stretching along the enemy’s face, and the backwoods towns the pickets. As an army sleeps in security behind its outposts, so was the main body of the colonists, screened from the Indians by the backwoods settlers, enabled to build up towns and cultivate its plantations in safety. And as, when an army resumes the march, the outpost of the night before forms the advance guard, so these border sentinels were ever in the front of our territorial progress.

In 1783 the western boundary of the United States had been carried forward to the Mississippi River. The large area between it and the Alleghanies had been won for us by the dauntless backwoodsmen after a decade of intense struggle. By holding the border Indians in check they performed a valuable service to the colonies in their fight for freedom. The settlement of Kentucky made possible the capture of the British posts in the Illinois and Indiana regions, and paved the way for the acquisition of our Western territory.

Whilst working out the destiny of a nation, the simple-minded backwoodsmen were quite unconscious of any such high purpose. They pushed forward into the wilderness because land was to be had there for practically nothing. They desired to make homes for their children, and were willing to risk their lives in the venture. As to the hardships, they and their fathers had been accustomed to arduous poverty in the old country. The life of the hunter, which was an inseparable part of backwoods existence, appealed to them as it does to all healthy men. In fact, the majority of them grew to love their hard lot, with its constant adventure. Many, like Boone, became so enamoured of the life, despite its dangers and hardships, that they shunned the approach of civilization and moved farther into the forest whenever the region they had opened up began to be at all thickly populated.

The backwoodsman was at once hunter, fighter, and farmer. He could not look for aid or protection from the Government. He had to depend upon his own resources and, even in the acquisition of new territory, upon his own strong right arm. This was particularly the case with the pioneer settlers of Kentucky, for the movement took place when all the men and material available were needed to strengthen the Continental forces, and the backwoodsmen battling with the Indian allies of the British had difficulty in getting sufficient powder and lead to carry on the conflict. Every man and youth was a home-made soldier. Most of the women could handle a rifle, and the annals of the frontier teem with stories of brave mothers and daughters who, in the absence of their men-folk, successfully defended their cabins against the attacks of savages. In the frequent sieges of the forts the women loaded the weapons, moulded bullets, and sometimes stood to a port-hole. It is significant of the life of the backwoodsmen that every male among them who was old enough to carry fire-arms was spoken of as a “gun.”

For the most part, the people of the backwoods were of Scotch or Irish descent, with a strong sprinkling of English and Germans, but in the second generation differences of nationality were rarely detectable. Their characters and even their physical traits were greatly affected by the peculiar conditions of their lives, which created a type the members of which were all much alike, whilst they differed widely from the colonists in general. Their isolation tended to develop some of the best human qualities. It taught them independence and self-reliance and at the same time prompted them to help one another. On the border men practiced the golden rule and maintained a homely code of morality and justice. They were hard, rough and self-contained, but neither ungenerous, cruel, nor morose.

In their dealings with hostile Indians the backwoodsmen may appear to have exercised merciless severity, but that is hardly to be wondered at when the provocation is considered. The wanton barbarity of their enemies hardened them and goaded them to revenge. This sometimes took the form of deplorable cruelty but, as a rule, the backwoodsmen were neither inhuman nor bloodthirsty. They fought in defence of their homes and property, and when they carried the conflict into the Indian’s country it was usually in retaliation for an attack and with a view to checking further hostilities. The settler was always glad to live in peace if he might.

As to the respective rights of the white men and their red foes, a great deal has been said on both sides, and perhaps it would be impossible to exactly weigh the equities in the case. It was, however, inevitable that a growing and energetic race should have contested the possession of the soil with the mere handful of savages that did not occupy it but merely roamed over it, hunting and camping here and there and keeping up a perpetual warfare among themselves. They set up claims, it is true, to the exclusive possession of certain large areas but, even among themselves, such claims were only sustained by superior strength, and one tribe frequently ousted another from its accustomed territory.

The most ardent defenders of the Indians must find it difficult to establish a case of trespass against the settlers of Kentucky. The territory that is now comprised within that State was ceded by the Indians in more than one treaty and purchased for a definite sum. Moreover, it had not been the home or country of any particular tribe, but was held as a hunting-ground common to all and in which none were allowed to settle. It contained no permanent Indian villages, nor was an acre of its soil cultivated until the white man cleared the land.

The pioneers of the wilderness made their settlements in groups of five or six families. The first thing they did was to erect their cabins and form a fort. This was usually accomplished by raising the former in a row and making their backs one side of a palisaded enclosure, with blockhouses at the corners. This was the refuge of all during an attack by the Indians, but otherwise each family lived in a cabin upon its farm. The clearings were generally four hundred acres in extent and lay at some distance from each other in the heart of the forest. The trees having been felled, the settler left the stumps standing, rolled the trunks to one side and burned the branches on the spot. He then planted his fields with maize or other cereals. Some stock was raised and a few sheep, but only in sufficient numbers to supply local needs. Corn, or maize, was the principal reliance of the frontier farmer. His wife made a coarse flour and hominy from it, and a bag of the parched grains served him for food on his hunting expeditions.

The backwoods cabin was commonly a one-roomed structure of unhewn logs, chinked with clay and moss. After a while, when the owner became fairly settled and had his fields in good order, this would give place to a larger building, containing perhaps as many as three rooms and an attic reached by a ladder. A huge stone fireplace occupied one end of the cabin, and the door was always furnished with heavy bolts. The logs were hewn, at least on the inside, and the roof covered with clapboards. There was little furniture and few utensils in such a place. The table was a board set on trestles, and three-legged stools served to sit upon. The beds were rough wooden contrivances covered with skins. The dishes and platters were often of wood and the spoons and forks of pewter, the hunting-knife serving admirably to cut the meat. The family depended very largely upon its head to furnish the larder with venison and bear-steaks.

The dress of the backwoodsman was a distinctive one. He wore a hunting-shirt of buckskin, or homespun, ornamented with a fringe of the same material, or perhaps with porcupine quills. It was a loose tunic, descending nearly to the knees and fastened round the waist with a belt, from which were suspended the tomahawk and hunting-knife. From his shoulders hung by a strap the powder-horn and bullet-pouch, in which he also carried spare flints. On his head he wore a fur cap or a soft felt hat, and his feet were covered with moccasins, after the fashion of the Indians, from whom the dress was in large part borrowed. His legs were encased in leather leggings or trousers.

The backwoodsman’s principal weapon was the heavy flint-lock rifle. It was five feet, and sometimes slightly more, in length, and although it did not carry very far was exceedingly accurate. The most marvellous feats of marksmanship were performed by some of the pioneers with these weapons. Every boy learned to shoot almost as soon as he was strong enough to lift a gun, and his training in woodcraft commenced even earlier, so that it is not surprising that many a youth, such as Kit Carson and Simon Kenton, exhibited the qualities of the expert hunter and Indian fighter before his beard was grown.

There was little money in the backwoods, pelts serving instead. Almost all the needs of the people were supplied by themselves. The women made homespun, in which they clothed the children and themselves. Every man was something of a smith, and most of the rifles were of backwoods manufacture. The men tanned the skins and their wives sewed them into foot-gear and garments. Trenchers and bowls, and even harrows and sleds, were made without much difficulty.

There were, however, a few very necessary articles for which the settlers had to depend upon the outside world. These were salt, iron, powder and lead. In the fall the members of a settlement would make a joint collection of fur-skins and send two or three of their number to some large town, such as Baltimore, to get what was needed. Thus, a train of several peltry-laden horses would make the long, slow journey over a distance which we may cover in these days in two or three hours.

Daniel Boone was a typical backwoodsman. Born in a frontier settlement, he passed his long and adventurous life in sparsely-peopled regions and died in a pioneer community beyond the Mississippi. Boone’s father, a native of England, after living in different parts of Pennsylvania, took up some land on what was then the frontier, in Oley township, about eight miles from the site of the present city of Reading. Here Daniel was born in November, 1734. His early life was that of the ordinary backwoods boy. It embraced no considerable opportunity for scholarship. He learned to read and write but, having little occasion in the course of his active life for the exercise of either accomplishment, his spelling was poor to the day of his death. He helped his mother with the chores and, when old enough, was entrusted with the care of the stock at pasture. His days were spent in the open and he grew to be a lusty lad, well versed in nature and the ways of wild beasts and the less dangerous denizens of the forest. When he had reached the age of twelve, his father gave him a rifle, with which he soon became a good shot and furnished his mother’s kitchen with an ample supply of game. His winters were now spent in hunting, and he often roamed long distances from home in his solitary expeditions, returning with skins secured by his trap or gun.

In 1750 Boone’s parents with their children migrated south and settled on the banks of the upper Yadkin, in the northwestern corner of North Carolina. The location was even wilder than that they had left, and their lives were harder and more adventurous. Attacks by the Indians were not infrequent, and a few years later a border war cost many lives in the Yadkin Valley. Here Daniel, following the custom of young backwoodsmen, married as soon as he had arrived at manhood and set up housekeeping in a log cabin.

Ten years were passed after the usual manner of backwoods existence, in hunting, farming, and fighting Indians. But Boone’s hunting expeditions sometimes partook of the character of explorations. He went far beyond the frontier in various directions, and on two or three occasions crossed the mountains into Kentucky. The beauty and richness of the country and the abundance of game filled him with an irresistible desire to make his home there. In the fall of 1773 Boone sold his farm on the Yadkin and set out at the head of a company, consisting of his own family and several others that he had induced to accompany them, to make new homes in the lovely valleys of Kentucky. It is at this point that we take up his story.