Davy Crockett was born near Virginia as well.............just into Tennesse..........



Daniel Boone was of English and Welsh ancestry. Because the Gregorian calendar was adopted during his lifetime, Boone's birth date is sometimes given as November 2, 1734 (the "New Style" date), although Boone used the October date.[4] The Boone family belonged to the Religious Society of Friends, called "Quakers", and were persecuted in England for their dissenting beliefs. Daniel's father, Squire (his first name, not a title) Boone (1696–1765) emigrated from the small town of Bradninch, Devon (near Exeter, England) to Pennsylvania in 1713, to join William Penn's colony of dissenters. Squire Boone's parents, George and Mary Boone, followed their son to Pennsylvania in 1717, and in 1720 built a log cabin at Boonecroft.[5]

In 1720, Squire Boone, who worked primarily as a weaver and a blacksmith, married Sarah Morgan (1700–77). Sarah's family were Quakers from Wales, and had settled in Towamencin Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania in 1708. In 1731, the Boones moved to the Oley Valley, near the modern city of Reading. There they built a log cabin, partially preserved today as the Daniel Boone Homestead. Daniel Boone was born there, the sixth of eleven children.[6]

Daniel Boone spent his early years on what was then the edge of the Pennsylvania frontier. Several Lenape Indian villages were nearby. The pacifist Pennsylvania Quakers had good relations with the Indians, but the steady growth of the white population compelled many Indians to move further west. Boone was given his first rifle at the age of 12, as families depended on hunting for much of their food. He learned to hunt from both local settlers and the Lenape. Folk tales have often emphasized Boone's skills as a hunter. In one story, the young Boone was hunting in the woods with some other boys, when the howl of a panther scattered all but Boone. He calmly cocked his rifle and shot the predator through the heart just as it leaped at him. The validity of this claim is contested, but the story was told so often that it became part of his popular image.[7]

In Boone's youth, his family became a source of controversy in the local Quaker community when two of the oldest children married outside the endogamous community, in present-day Lower Gwynedd Township, Pennsylvania. In 1742, Boone's parents were compelled to publicly apologize after their eldest child, Sarah, married John Willcockson, a "worldling" (non-Quaker). Because the young couple had "kept company", they were considered "married without benefit of clergy". When the Boones' oldest son Israel married a "worldling" in 1747, Squire Boone stood by him. Both men were expelled from the Quakers; Boone's wife continued to attend monthly meetings with their younger children.

Yadkin Valley, North Carolina[edit]
In 1750, Squire Boone sold his land and moved the family to North Carolina. Daniel Boone did not attend church again. He identified as a Christian and had all of his children baptized. The Boones eventually settled on the Yadkin River, in what is now Davie County,[8] about two miles (3 km) west of Mocksville. This was in the western backwoods area.[9] From then on, Daniel Boone was commonly known as The Backwoods Master.

Because he grew up on the frontier, Boone had little formal education but deep knowledge of the woods. According to one family tradition, a schoolteacher once expressed concern over Boone's education, but Boone's father said, "Let the girls do the spelling and Dan will do the shooting…." Boone received some tutoring from family members, though his spelling remained unorthodox. The historian John Mack Faragher cautions that the folk image of Boone as semi-literate is misleading, and argues that he "acquired a level of literacy that was the equal of most men of his times." Boone regularly took reading material with him on his hunting expeditions—the Bible and Gulliver's Travels were favorites. He was often the only literate person in groups of frontiersmen. Boone would sometimes entertain his hunting companions by reading to them around the evening campfire.[10]

French and Indian War[edit]
After the French and Indian War (1754–1763) broke out between the French and British, and their respective Indian allies, North Carolina Governor Matthew Rowan called up a militia, into whose service Daniel volunteered. He served under Captain Hugh Waddell on the North Carolina frontier. Waddell's unit was assigned to serve in the command of General Edward Braddock in 1755, and Boone acted as a wagoner, along with his cousin Daniel Morgan, who would later be a key general in the American Revolution.[11] In the Battle of the Monongahela, the denouement of the campaign and a bitter defeat for the British, Boone narrowly escaped death when the baggage wagons were assaulted by Indian troops. Boone remained critical of Braddock's blunders for the rest of his life.

While on the campaign, Boone met John Findley, a packer who worked for George Croghan in the trans-Appalachian fur trade. Findley first interested Boone in the abundance of game and other natural wonders of the Ohio Valley. It was Findley who took Boone on his first fateful hunting trip to Kentucky twelve years later.[12]

Marriage and family[edit]
Boone returned home and on August 14, 1756, he married Rebecca Bryan, a neighbor in the Yadkin Valley whose brother married one of Boone's sisters. The couple initially lived in a cabin on his father's farm. They eventually had ten children.[13] His grandson, Enoch Boone, became the first white man born in Kentucky.[14]