From headwater to headwater, among these rugged hills, from one valley into another, ever and ever westward, the early American had won his way, until he struck the waters running into the lower Gulf by way of that great highway of the interior floods, the Mississippi River. We have seen that for a space the early population did not head directly westward, but dropped down from Pennsylvania into Maryland and Virginia, and from Maryland and Virginia into the Carolinas.
Many of the early adventurers seem to have made their halting and rallying ground in North Carolina. Here were some of the men of Watauga, men who were to people Tennessee, men who were to discover and settle the grand state of Kentucky, that steadfast portion of our Western empire whose fidelity was to thwart all of those early efforts at Western sedition and secession that once threatened the unity of the American people.
Having thus dealt in generalizations, we shall perhaps now do well to study some type, some product, of this early civilization, some character that shall indicate the general characteristics of the land and people of that early time. In this desire we fall naturally on the romantic yet pertinent story of that typical and historical frontiersman, Daniel Boone.
Among the great sayings of great men there is one that rings like a trumpet voice through all the press of years. “Here stand I,” said Martin Luther. “Here I stand. I can not otherwise. God help me!” If we should come to comparisons, we might perhaps call Daniel Boone the Luther of frontiering, the evangel of adventure, the prophet of early west-bound daring. Certainly he was the most forward, the most present, the most instant man of his place and time.
If we endeavor to see Daniel Boone, the man, as he actually was, we find ourselves at the outset dealing with a character already approaching the mythical in quality. Thus, in regard to his personality, certain folk imagine him as tall, thin, angular, uncouth. Others will portray to you a man with voice like thunder in the hills, with gore ever in his eye, in his voice perpetually the breathings of insatiate hate and rage. They will insist that Boone was bloody minded, overbearing, a man delighting in slaughters and riotings. Such pictures are utterly wrong; so much we may discover to be absolutely sure from the scant record of Boone’s real life.
He was Quaker-bred, as we have seen. A sweeter soul than his we shall not find though we search all the pages of history. Meeting every species of danger, he remained undaunted. Meeting every manner of adversity, he remained unsoured. With every reason for conceit, he remained unbitten of any personal vanity. To the end of his life it was his belief that he was “an instrument ordained by Providence to settle the wilderness;” yet he lost no time in posing himself in any supposititious sainthood. Nor must we imagine him crude or ignorant in his simplicity, for those who knew him best state that he was “a man of ambition, shrewdness and energy, as well as of fine social qualities and an extreme sagacity.”
He was learned in the knowledge useful at his time, although of books he wist not at all. Deeply religious in the true sense of religion, a worshiper of the Great Maker as evidenced in His works, he was not a church member. There was no vaunting in his soul of his own righteousness; yet never was he irritable even in old age, when the blood grows cold, and the thwarted ambitions come trooping home to roost in the lives of most of us. “God gave me a work to perform,” said he, “and I have done my best.” With this feeling he lived and died content.
Regarding the Boone of early years, we find it difficult to frame a clear picture, but there is more information obtainable regarding his later life, and we can see him then clearly. A man reaching the ripe age of eighty-six, with five generations of his family living at the same time; a man snowy haired, yet still of ruddy complexion, of frame still unbent, with kindly and gentle personal habits—this is the real Daniel Boone: no swearer of oaths, no swashbuckler, no roisterer, but a self-respecting, fearless gentleman, steadfast, immovable from his fixed purpose, inalienable from the mission which he conceived to be his own.
A writer who knew him late in life says that on his introduction to Colonel Boone his impressions were those of “surprise, admiration and delight.” In boyhood he had read of Daniel Boone, the pioneer of Kentucky, the celebrated hunter and Indian fighter, and in imagination he portrayed a “rough, uncouth looking specimen of humanity, and, of course, at this period of life, an irritable and intractable old man. But in every respect,” says this biographer, “the reverse appeared. His high bold forehead was slightly bald, and his silver locks were combed smooth. His countenance was ruddy and fair, and exhibited the simplicity of a child. His voice was soft and melodious, and a smile frequently played over his face in conversation. His clothing was of the plain, coarse manufacture of the family. Everything about him indicated that kind of comfort that was congenial to his habits and feelings, and he evinced a happy old age. Boone was a fair specimen of the better class of Western pioneers, honest of heart and liberal—in short, one of nature’s noblemen. He abhorred a mean action and delighted in honesty and truth. He never delighted in the shedding of human blood, even that of his enemies in war. His remarkable quality was an unwavering and invincible fortitude.”
As to personal description, Boone was neither a tall nor a thin man. He was not angular nor bony. His frame was covered not with cloying fat but with firm and easily playing muscles, and he carried none of the useless tissue of the man of civilization. His weight was “about one hundred and seventy-five pounds.” Audubon, who met him late in his life, says: “He approached the gigantic in stature. His chest was broad and prominent, and his muscular powers were visible in every limb. His countenance gave indication of his great courage, enterprise and perseverance.”