Daniel boone spent his life traversing yet another mountain and crossing yet another river into the unknown wilderness. Through the Cumberland Gap and beyond, his explorations not only opened up the lands west of the Appalachian Mountains for settlement, they made Boone internationally famous during his lifetime. In The Adventures of Col. Daniel Boone, an autobiography written in 1781 with the help of his friend and fellow explorer, John Filson, Boone struck upon his wanderlust in the opening sentence: “Curiosity is natural to the soul of man...”
Filson’s study of Boone was the first in a spate of books that would relate the frontiersman’s exploits. While Boone would aver that every word written in Filson’s narrative was true, differentiating the real man from the often romantic idealizations is cautious going. Even Boone admitted that much of what others had written about him was malarkey. “I would not believe that tale if I had told it myself,” he remarked about one published story regarding his supposed hunting prowess.
Even now, when we conjure an image of Boone, what comes to mind is actor Fess Parker wearing a coonskin cap in Disney’s 1960s Daniel Boone television series. The show’s lyrics add to our misconceptions: Daniel Boone was a man, a big man! With an eye like an eagle and as tall as a mountain was he!
