Friday, November 2, 2012

Happy Birthday, Daniel Boone (b. November 2, 1734)

In Winning of the West, Volume 1, Theodore Roosevelt writes:

“With Boon, hunting and exploration were passions, and the lonely life of the wilderness, with its bold, wild freedom, the only existence for which he really cared. He was a tall, spare, sinewy man, with eyes like an eagle’s, and muscles that never tired; the toil and hardship of his life made no impress on his frame, unhurt by intemperance of any kind, and he lived for eighty-six years, a backwoods hunter to the end of his days.  His thoughtful, quiet, pleasant face, so often portrayed, is familiar to everyone; it was the face of a man who never blustered or bullied, who would neither inflict nor suffer any wrong, and who had a limitless fund of fortitude, endurance, and indomitable resolution upon which to draw when fortune proved adverse.  His self-command and patience, his daring, restless love of adventure, and, in time of danger, his absolute trust in his own powers and resources, all combined to render him peculiarly fitted to follow the career of which he was so fond.”
TR wrote that Boone’s Birthday was August 22nd, Britannica notes October 22nd, and my history book and Wikipedia put the date as November 2.  I await a note back from the Boone Society.
In any case, TR named his fair hunting and conservation organization Boone & Crockett, after the two intrepid frontiersman.  It’s a good thing to know more about real American heroes of bygone days.