The First White Man of the West | Page 3

the unerring aim
of his rifle--casting wistful looks in the direction of the Rocky

Mountains and the western sea; and sadly reminded that man has but
one short life, in which to wander.
No book can be imagined more interesting than would have been the
personal narrative of such a man, written by himself. What a new
pattern of the heart he might have presented! But, unfortunately, he
does not seem to have dreamed of the chance that his adventures would
go down to posterity in the form of recorded biography. We suspect
that he rather eschewed books, parchment deeds, and clerkly
contrivances, as forms of evil; and held the dead letter of little
consequence. His associates were as little likely to preserve any records,
but those of memory, of the daily incidents and exploits, which indicate
character and assume high interest, when they relate to a person like the
subject of this narrative. These hunters, unerring in their aim to
prostrate the buffalo on his plain, or to bring down the geese and swans
from the clouds, thought little of any other use of the gray goose quill,
than its market value.
Had it been otherwise, and had these men themselves furnished the
materials of this narrative, we have no fear that it would go down to
futurity, a more enduring monument to these pioneers and hunters, than
the granite columns reared by our eastern brethren, amidst assembled
thousands, with magnificent array, and oratory, and songs, to the
memory of their forefathers. Ours would be the record of human nature
speaking to human nature in simplicity and truth, in a language always
impressive, and always understood. Their pictures of their own felt
sufficiency to themselves, under the pressure of exposure and want; of
danger, wounds, and captivity; of reciprocal kindness, warm from the
heart; of noble forgetfulness of self, unshrinking firmness, calm
endurance, and reckless bravery, would be sure to move in the hearts of
their readers strings which never fail to vibrate to the touch.
But these inestimable data are wanting. Our materials are
comparatively few; and we have been often obliged to balance between
doubtful authorities, notwithstanding the most rigorous scrutiny of
newspapers and pamphlets, whose yellow and dingy pages gave out a
cloud of dust at every movement, and the equally rigid examination of
clean modern books and periodicals.

CHAPTER I.

Birth of Daniel Boone--His early propensities--His pranks at
school--His first hunting expedition--And his encounter with a panther.
Removal of the family to North Carolina--Boone becomes a
hunter--Description of fire hunting, in which he was near committing a
sad mistake--Its fortunate result--and his marriage.
Different authorities assign a different birth place to DANIEL BOONE.
One affirms that he was born in Maryland, another in North Carolina,
another in Virginia, and still another during the transit of his parents
across the Atlantic. But they are all equally in error. He was born in the
year 1746, in Bucks county, Pennsylvania, near Bristol, on the right
bank of the Delaware, about twenty miles from Philadelphia. His father
removed, when he was three years old, to the vicinity of Reading, on
the head waters of the Schuylkill. From thence, when his son was
thirteen years old, he migrated to North Carolina, and settled in one of
the valleys of South Yadkin.
The remotest of his ancestors, of whom there is any recorded notice, is
Joshua Boone, an English Catholic. He crossed the Atlantic to the
shores of the Chesapeake Bay, with those who planted the first germ of
the colony of Maryland. A leading motive to emigration with most of
these colonists, was to avoid that persecution on account of their
religion, which however pleasant to inflict, they found it uncomfortable
to endure. Whether this gentleman emigrated from this inducement, as
has been asserted, or not, it is neither possible, nor, as we deem,
important to settle; for we cannot find, that religious motives had any
direct influence in shaping the character and fortunes of the hero of the
woods. Those who love to note the formation of character, and believe
in the hereditary transmission of peculiar qualities, naturally investigate
the peculiarities of parents, to see if they can find there the origin of
those of the children. Many--and we are of the number--consider
transmitted endowment as the most important link in the chain of
circumstances, with which character is surrounded. The most splendid
endowments in innumerable instances, have never been brought to light,
in defect of circumstances to call them forth. The ancestors of Boone
were not placed in positions to prove, whether he did or did not receive
his peculiar aptitudes a legacy from his parents, or a direct gift from

nature. He presents himself to us as a new man, the author and artificer
of his own fortunes,