A History of the Daniel Boone National Forest 1770 - 1970

While living on the Yadkin, the Boone family was acquainted with many of the prominent men of that area. Daniel Boone frequently traveled to the market town of Salisbury on routine business and for legal business with the courts. Here he became acquainted with Richard Henderson, an eminent lawyer of the area who was, for some years, a justice of the Colonial Courts, and Henderson's close friend, Thomas Hart, Sheriff of Orange County. These two men, together with Sheriff Hart's brother, Nathaniel, were to become life-long friends and business associates of Daniel Boone in the years ahead. In fact, these friendships may well have altered the pattern of Daniel Boone's future life.

During this period an idea of great magnitude was developing in the mind of Henderson. He knew that a steady stream of families from Europe were pouring into the East Coast, each looking for land on which to build a home and a new life in America. The coastal area was already filled with these people, and many were turning their eyes westward for a fresh start in the new country. Good land was already scarce and, with the increasing demand, it was obvious to every businessman in the colony that a man who could establish title to large tracts of desirable land could, someday, sell this land to new settlers at an enormous profit.

Henderson realized fully that many obstacles must be overcome in a venture of this kind. Large areas of good land must be located. Title to this land must be secured. Trails must be located and marked over terrain which could be traveled by settlers with saddle horses and packhorses, and possibly later with jolt wagons. Suitable town sites must be located and forts built for the protection of the settlers from the Indians. If Henderson was a man of vision, he was also a man of action. He must find a man who could scout the wilderness beyond the mountains, a frontiersman familiar with wilderness travel who understood Indian country, who could recognize desirable farm land, and who could be trusted. Henderson believed that man to be Daniel Boone.

A study of historical records and the actions of Boone indicates that Henderson and Boone probably arrived at an understanding for such an undertaking by 1760, or shortly thereafter. From that time on the pattern of Boone's travels, the country which he explored and the type of information which he gathered, supports this theory.

By 1764, there was no doubt as to Boone's purpose. He stated frequently that he was employed by Henderson and his associates to explore the wilderness country. In that year, he and Rebecca sold their farm on the Yadkin and moved westward closer to the mountains and to the land of Kentucky, which was to make him famous in future years. From this time forward hunting and exploring in distant forests occupied much of Boone's life. He farmed but little and hunted more. Since his marriage he had hunted not only the valley of the Yadkin but also the valleys of the Clinch, the Watauga, and the Holston, as well. His hunts were taking him ever farther and farther westward. His hunt with Nathaniel Gist in 1760 had taken him deep into Eastern Tennessee. Wherever he traveled, he questioned hunters he met as to the geography of the area which they had traveled, the character of the land and the forest, the stream pattern, and the abundance of game found. He well knew that settlers in the new country must depend on game for food, clothing, and skins and furs to trade for necessities, such as rifles, powder, lead, axes, etc.

Travel in the wilderness was a hard life. Boone had a family to support. True, his wife and growing family could raise much of their food on the home farm, but many other things were needed. A frontier farmer depended on his fall and winter hunting and trapping for most of his cash income. Deer skins were a valuable article of trade, bringing from fifty cents to five dollars each, according to their size and quality and the local market. At the trading post, where deer skins were marketed, they were classified as bucks and does — the bucks being larger, heavier and more valuable. It is from this classification that we get the term buck, meaning a dollar, in our present-day language.

It was not unusual for a frontier hunter to accumulate as many as 500 deer skins during a winter's hunt, in addition to a quantity of fur of beaver, otter and mink. A successful winter's hunting and trapping expedition might gross as much as $1,000 by modern standards but this was far from being all profit. Such a hunt would require several pack and riding horses (a pack horse could carry up to 100 deer skins, which weighed about 250 pounds), a quantity of steel traps, several rifles, as they could become inoperative in the wilderness, and powder and lead for bullets. On the longer hunts, basic gun repair tools, such as a vise, bellows, files and screwdrivers, as well as a supply of rifle flints and tools to chip more as needed, were required. All of these things cost money, which was a scarce commodity on the frontier. On these Wilderness hunts there was always a chance or robbery by the Indians. Many a frontier hunter worked hard all winter only to lose all he had, skins, furs, horses, guns, traps and other gear, to Indians who claimed the wilderness belonged to them, as well as the game and fur in it. In these cases, the hunter was usually fortunate to escape with his life. The business of wilderness hunting and trapping had its hazards like any other.

Following the French and Indian War, Florida had become a British colony. As a means of encouraging English settlers, the British Governor issued a proclamation in 1763 offering 100 acres of land to each Protestant settler. With the interest he always displayed for new country, and tempted by the offer of free land, Daniel Boone appears to have been unable to resist the temptation to investigate the situation and possibly to consider a change in his way of life. At any rate, in October of 1763, accompanied by his brother Squire who had just turned 21 years old and was newly married, Daniel left for Florida to look over the country, promising his family that he would return in time for Christmas dinner.

Florida proved a disappointment to Daniel and Squire. The land was flat, wet and swampy. Game was scarce. They reached St. Augustine, explored along the St. John's River where it is rumored, Daniel purchased a house with the idea of moving his family there. On the return trip, he and Squire paused frequently to hunt. Remembering his promise to Rebecca, however, Daniel Boone walked into the home cabin exactly at noon on Christmas Day.

On Daniel's return from Florida that Christmas of 1763, his proposal to move the family to Florida was met by a flat veto on the part of Rebecca. For once, she put her foot down firmly and refused to leave family and friends, and that was the end of that. This firmness on the part of Rebecca was, most certainly, a contribution to the settlement of Kentucky, for, had Daniel and his family moved to Florida, the early settlement of Kentucky might have taken a radically different turn and the name of Daniel Boone might be unknown today.

Following his return from Florida at Christmas of 1763, Daniel Boone resumed his previous pattern of extended hunting trips into the western wilderness beyond the Blue Ridge. In 1767, we find him on a greatly extended hunting trip into the Watauga country, now a part of Eastern Tennessee, with Benjamin Cutbirth, the husband of a niece. His association with Cutbirth certainly revived his interest in Kentucky, as Cutbirth had been a part of a group of hunters who had penetrated the western wilderness to the Mississippi River, probably one of the first to make that trip from North Carolina. We can be sure that Boone overlooked no opportunity throughout this hunt to learn the details of the country through which Cutbirth and his companions had passed and the routes which they had followed.

It is logical to assume that throughout this period of travel and exploration, Daniel Boone still retained a subconscious desire to visit the country of Kentucky, the wonders of which he had heard extolled around the campfires during his days with Braddock's ill-fated expedition in the summer of 1755. This desire, stimulated by Benjamine Cutbirth's descriptions of his trip to the Mississippi, apparently inspired Daniel Boone to attempt to do likewise. In the fall of 1767, Daniel Boone, with two companions, pushed across the Blue Ridge and reached the headwaters of a branch of the Big Sandy River on the eastern border of what today is Kentucky. Believing that this stream would lead them to the Ohio they pushed on, following buffalo traces and game trails through the thick cane patches. As may be expected, these game trails led them to a salt spring near where Prestonsburg, Kentucky is located today. While there a snowstorm overtook the party and forced them to camp near the salt springs for an extended period. Here they learned the strategic value of a salt spring as an attraction for game. While located near this salt spring, they found that hunting was unnecessary, as all species of game came to the salt spring and were available for the taking. It was here that Daniel Boone saw and killed his first buffalo.

In view of the lateness of the season and the rough topography of the area, Daniel and his companions decided to return to their homes in North Carolina. It is doubtful that they realized, until many years later, that they had actually visited the fabled land of Kentucky.