Daniel Boone at this time was still a comparatively young man; but already his intrepid soul had drank deeply of the cup of adventure; and he felt within him the yearning of a true explorer.
He had, some years before, given up his comfortable home in the Yadkin valley, away back in North Carolina, because the country there was becoming "too thickly settled" to please his ideas of comfort. When it became necessary to mark the boundaries of his fields, and he could actually see the smoke of another cabin not over half a mile away, he resolved to put into action the designs for a westward move which in secret he had long been cherishing.
His faithful wife gave herself heart and soul to his ambition to settle in that mysterious Golden West that seemed to be beckoning Boone on. They made a first step by crossing the Cumberland Mountains, and starting a new home to the west of this range.
But Boone had already been further in Kentucky, and there was that in the rich plains of the interior to draw him like a magnet. When one has seen the region long known as the "Blue Grass country," around Lexington, and realized what a paradise on earth it has ever been, it is not so hard to understand why Daniel Boone refused to content himself with a home in a safer locality, less favored by Nature.
In history Boone will always stand at the head of the brave pioneers who opened up the grand country south of the Ohio. All his later life he was engaged in trying to defend the infant settlements against the assaults of the red men. These Indians learned to respect him as a man more than any other "paleface" known to the times.
Kentucky was known for many years as the "debatable ground," simply because of the tremendous efforts of the Shawanees, allied with other Indian tribes, to burn the new settlements, and drive out the pioneers. But by slow degrees they found themselves obliged to sue for peace, and cede their glorious lands to their conquerors in exchange for certain valuable commodities.
To show what this remarkable man endured for the sake of the principle which he had made a part of his life, his own words, when speaking of Kentucky, may be given as evidence of his sincerity of purpose:
"My footsteps have often been marked by blood, and therefore I can truly subscribe to its title of the 'dark and bloody ground.' Two darling sons and a brother have I lost by savage hands. Many dark and sleepless nights have I been a companion for owls, separated from the cheerful society of men, scorched by the summer's sun, and pinched by the winter's cold—an instrument ordained to settle the wilderness. But now the scene is changed; peace crowns the sylvan shade!"
Note 6 ([page 113])
Simon Kenton was very young at this time; but already in Boone he seems to have found the type of man whom he aspired to imitate. Brave to a stage of rashness, he lacked many of the most admirable qualities that stamped that peerless pioneer, but he had a personality that inspired the respect and admiration of all.