Boone: A Biography

Praise for
Boone

“[A] comprehensive and deeply sympathetic biography. . .. Ideally suited to today’s reader with its vivid descriptive passages . . ., its persuasive portrait of Boone and its firm sense of his place in American history.”

—
The Washington Post Book World

“[A] long, passionate, and authoritative biography.”

—
Entertainment Weekly

“Stunning, and perhaps determinative in settling the frontiersman’s reputation.”

—The Dallas Morning News

“Highly readable. . .. [Morgan] brings fresh context and depth to this portrait.”

—
The Christian Science Monitor

“[A] revelatory biography. . .. [Morgan] crafts images that carry the reader into that world which Boone saw. . .. What Morgan has done with his
Boone
, is to make the man important as an entry point for today’s readers into what has become legend.”

—The Boston Globe

“Intriguing. . .. Morgan effectively demonstrates the way Boone’s life exemplified different ideals later taken up by Romantic writers and artists in America and Europe, from Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau and Walt Whitman to Lord Byron and the Hudson River School painters.”

—
Chicago Tribune

“By carefully drawing on many different accounts, Morgan works toward as clearly focused a picture of the real man as possible.”

—
The New York Review of Books

“Morgan’s skills as a novelist and poet help in making this the most detailed and compelling life of Daniel Boone to date. . .. This is a work of genuine scholarship.”

—
Bookforum

“[Morgan] brings to this new biography his novelist’s instinct for drama, an eye for telling details and valuable insight into human nature. . .. The flesh-and-blood Boone who emerges is vivid and rare, a far cry from the enigmatic icon. This is historical biography at its best.”

—
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

“[A] beautifully written account of a life that was important for itself as well as for the legends that grew from it.”

—The Commercial Dispatch

“A model of its genre—both thoroughly researched and powerfully written.”

—The Louisville Courier-Journal

“Robert Morgan is a genius. . .. [He] brings his deep understanding of metaphor and his brilliant storytelling to the life of this complicated and fascinating frontiersman.”

—
The Raleigh News & Observer

“An excellent biography based on a mountain of research. Robert Morgan . . . is exactly the writer to produce this inquisitive study.”

—
The Roanoke (VA) Times

“Phenomenal.”

—
The State
(SC)

“Admirable. . .. Define[s] the misty edges of the legend.”

—
Winston-Salem Journal

“Engaging and sympathetic. . .. [Morgan] brings to Boone a novelist’s eye for detail and pacing.”

—The Columbus Dispatch

“[A] beautifully written study of Boone.”

—Richmond Times-Dispatch

“Perfect.”

—
The Week

“A masterwork contribution to the scholarship on America’s frontier trailblazing. . .. A fine tribute to the historical figure and to the conflicted realities of the man.”

—
The Grand Rapids Press

“Splendid. . .. A richly textured masterpiece.”

—
Rocky Mount (NC) Telegram

“What emerges from this intelligent, beautifully written and wellresearched biography is an American frontiersman who was completely drawn into his time and place, a shrewd, articulate adventurer who has come to symbolize the valiant, resourceful individual as American hero.”

—
The Southern Pines (NC) Pilot

“In addition to rendering a complete portrait of Boone, Morgan lends insight into life on the frontier.”

—
The Newark Star-Ledger

“[An] impressive new biography of the American legend. . .. Meticulously researched and elegantly told. . .. Written with admiration and great care. . .. The narrative teems with fascinating asides.”

—
BookPage

“[An] absorbing and stirring chronicle of the great frontiersman. . .. Outstanding.”

—
Booklist
, starred review

“A beautifully written biography. . .. Strongly recommended.”

—
Library Journal
, starred review

“Boone comes alive in [these] pages. Morgan’s objectivity gives us a completely realized man.”

—
Publishers Weekly

“Wow.
Boone
is a pleasure. I wish more first-rate novelists-poets wrote biography. Robert Morgan has given us the man himself, so much more interesting and impressive than all the myths about him.”

—Richard Bausch, author of
Wives and Lovers

“A narrative tour de force. . .. Informed by serious scholarship and propelled by superb storytelling, Morgan’s book captures the heart of an American original.”

—Daniel Blake Smith, author of the screenplays
Trail of Tears
and
Black Indians

“This exquisitely written, meticulously researched biography is as compelling and unputdownable as a great novel.”

—Ron Rash, author of
Saints at the River

“A riveting account of the
real
Boone. . .. Morgan’s compelling and richly contextualized narrative reflects the author’s intimate knowledge and feel for the terrain that Boone explored.”

—Michael Kammen, author of
Mystic Chords of Memory

Boone

Also by Robert Morgan

FICTION

The Blue Valleys

The Mountains Won’t Remember Us

The Hinterlands

The Truest Pleasure

The Balm of Gilead Tree

Gap Creek

This Rock

Brave Enemies

POETRY

Zirconia Poems

Red Owl

Land Diving

Trunk & Thicket

Groundwork

Bronze Age

At the Edge of the Orchard Country

Sigodlin

Green River: New and Selected Poems

Wild Peavines

Topsoil Road

The Strange Attractor: New and Selected Poems

NONFICTION

Good Measure: Essays, Interviews, and Notes on Poetry

Daniel Boone
. Fred G. Walker. Oil on canvas. 24¾” × 29½. Ca. 1914. Based on a Chester Harding portrait and presented to Berea College by the artist in 1914. (Courtesy Berea College, Berea, KY.)

A BIOGRAPHY

BY
Robert Morgan

For my grandson Grayson

A Shannon Ravenel Book

Published by
Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
Post Office Box 2225
Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27515-2225

a division of
Workman Publishing
225 Varick Street
New York, New York 10014

© 2007 by Robert Morgan. All rights reserved.
First paperback edition, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, September 2008.
Originally published by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill in 2007.
Printed in the United States of America.
Published simultaneously in Canada by
Thomas Allen & Son Limited.
Design by Barbara Williams
.

Library of Congress
Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Morgan, Robert, 1944–
Boone: a biography / by Robert Morgan.—1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN-13: 978-1-56512-455-4 (HC)
1. Boone, Daniel, 1734–1820. 2. Pioneers—Kentucky—Biography.
3. Explorers—Kentucky—Biography. 4. Frontier and pioneer life—Kentucky.
5. Kentucky—Biography. 6. Kentucky—Discovery and exploration. I. Title.
F454.B66M67 2007
976.9'02092—dc22

[B]                                                                       2007014204

ISBN-13: 978-1-56512-615-2 (PB)

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
First Paperback Edition

Brief Chronology of Daniel Boone’s Life

Introduction

      
One
:      The Mother World of the Forest

 
People of the Forest

      
Two
:      The Hills beyond the Yadkin

    
Three
:      The Yadkin Was the Wild West

 
Domestic Arts

     
Four
:      In Search of the Real West

     
Five
:       Visions of Eden

 
Regulators

        
Six
:      Return to the Bluegrass Island

    
Seven
:     Where There Was No Forbidden Fruit

    
Eight
:      Kentucky Was the Key

     
Nine
:      The Trace and the River

 
Freemasonry

       
Ten
:      Light and Shadow

   
Eleven
:    Sheltowee, Son of Blackfish

   
Twelve
:    Farthest Outpost of Rebellion

 
Thirteen
:    With Chain and Compass

 
Fourteen
:   Father, I Won’t Leave You

  
Fifteen
:     Filson, Fame, and Failure

  
Sixteen
:     A Deale of Sine Is Seen

Boating in the West

Seventeen
:  Going East to Go West

 
Eighteen
:   To the Farther West

 
Nineteen
:   Done All the Good That I Can

   
Twenty
:    Across the River into Legend

   
Acknowledgments