Back Home - Missouri - Massachusetts - Day 13 & 14

 

 

 

 

 

 

 As Daniel Boone looking back was heard to remark that he was, “an instrument ordained of God to settle the wilderness,” Kris and I were ordained to see this wilderness for ourselves, and are now grateful to be back home with our family and friends.

Gateway to the West, Nathan Boone homestead, and Original gravesite - St. Charles, Defiance, and Marthasville, MO - Day 12

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We began Day 12 with a visit to Frontier Park in St. Charles just inside the Gateway. This third oldest city west of the Mississippi was the last American town Lewis and Clark saw for the next 2 1/2 years in 1804 and lies on the Missouri River, and served as the first capital of Missouri from 1821-1826. Daniel Boone went through St Charles on his way to his first stop living with his son Daniel Morgan 25 miles inland in 1800.

After some travel into the hinterlands--Daniel and his extended family did not choose very populated areas to settle in, we arrived in Defiance at the Nathan Boone homestead. Nathan was Daniel and Rebecca's youngest son, and incidentally was later quite crucial in providing and confirming a lot of the information we have on Daniel through personal interviews he and his wife Olive gave to Lyman Draper, a Wisconsin librarian and historian who wanted to document some of the history of the early legendary frontier settlers before the knowledge was lost.

At this site we saw Nathan's house where Daniel died in 1820, and also their daughter Jemima's house where Rebecca died in 1813--brought to the site from Marthasville later. Here we saw the bedroom where Daniel died, another group of period structures brought to the site by Lindenwood University, the curator, and one of the typical three sided lean twos that Daniel and other frontiersmen would sometimes spend a winter in during their hunts.

Next, we moved on to Matson where six months after Daniel arrived and moved in with his son Daniel Morgan, he was appointed by the Spanish officials as a "syndic" of the area, with administrative powers over civil affairs, which in essence made him sheriff, judge, and jury. He administered justice from beneath the "judgment tree" which no longer stands, but I photographed another of the large Elm trees in the area to give you an idea of what they would have looked like.

Finally, we searched out the original gravesites of Daniel and Rebecca in Marthasville, even though the GPS had no idea where we were. It was later around 1845 that citizens from Frankfurt, KY came to dig up the couple and bring their bones back to Kentucky.

This was as far west as we would go on our trip, and it was well worth it!

Filson Historical Society to Squire Boone Caverns - Louisville KY to Mauckport, IN - Day 11

 

 

 

 

 

Day 11 began with a flagrant violation of the rules at the locks, which we went back to after noticing a tug pushing a group of ore barges towards the locks. We were able to see the operation of the locks and watch this tug push about 12 barges of ore through the locks, and narrowly avoid prosecution.

We then proceeded to the Filson Historical Society in the old section of Louisville, named for the first historian of Kentucky. It was John Filson's biography of Boone in 1784 when Daniel was 50 years old that launched him into prominence in America and around the world. It famously began with these words of Boone,

"It was the first of May, in the year of 1769, that I resigned my domestic happiness for a time, and left my family and peaceable habitation on the Yadkin River in North Carolina, to wander through the wilderness of America, in quest of the country of Kentucky."

Daniel's humble response to all of his new found fame was reported as this,

“Many heroic actions and chivalrous adventures are related of me which exist only in the regions of fancy….With me the world has taken great liberties, and yet I have been but a common man.”

Here, we were able to see Chester Harding's portrait of Daniel Boone done weeks before he died at the age of 86 in Defiance, MO. But we were disappointed to find out that the piece of bark preserved from the tree with this carving, "D. Boon Kilt a Bar, 1803" was not on display. (It was a typical practice for many frontiersman to mark nearby trees and cave walls with some of their exploits) We were able to see a civil war display which described the many Kentucky connections of the war--most notably that both presidents in the North (Lincoln) and the South (Davis) were born Kentuckians.

We ended the day by visiting Daniel's brother Squire's home area. We saw his grist mill, a hill pit cave where he hid from marauding Indians, and the tourist attraction of the living caverns (one of the few still wet and forming) which in all probability Squire never entered very far because of a waterfall in the way inside the entrance at the head of the creek by the grist mill. Squire's remains were eventually moved from the hillside pit cave to the caverns for preservation for prosperity. He wanted to be buried in that pit cave which he providentially found because it saved his life.

It was here in Indiana that Daniel visited his brother Squire in 1810 on his way to pay off some of his Kentucky debts, and allegedly met the famous bird painter John James Audubon--as in "Audubon Society" (above right) who later claimed to have painted a picture from memory of Daniel (above left). This portrait, which hangs in the Audubon museum in Kentucky, has a copy in the home of Daniel's youngest son, Nathan whose homestead we will see tomorrow, where Daniel died in 1820.

The Falls of the Ohio to Big Bone LIcks; Louisville to Union, KY - Day 10

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Day 10 began with a search for the Falls of the Ohio overlook by Daniel Boone during his exploration of Kentucky. And not only did we find it tucked away behind a run-down neighborhood, but we found the 1200 ft long by 110 ft wide McAlpine (Twin) Locks & Dam, a culmination since 1825 of trying to overcome the major obstruction to navigation of the entire Ohio River. Here, the river dropped 26 ft in a distance of 2.5 miles and navigation was treacherous and seasonal over the rapids.

In the Falls Interpretive Center we learned about how the retreat of the Ice Age glaciers in combination with the tectonic shifts that brought us the mountains also exposed the Devonian fossil beds plentiful here, from 390 million years ago. The rapids and falls are a natural stopover for many migrating birds and nearly 300 species have been observed here, so that even John James Audobon studied and painted birds here around the time of Daniel Boone's move to Missouri in 1800.

George Rogers Clark was a soldier from Virginia and the highest ranking American military officer on the northwestern frontier during the American Revolutionary War. He served as leader of the Kentucky militia throughout much of the war and by age 30 had severely weakened the British hold on the Northwest Territory via his capture of several important forts. He was one of the founders of Louisville and a friend of Daniel Boone. His younger brother, Captain William would eventually meet Captain Meriwether Lewis at the Falls in 1803 and agree to explore the Louisiana Territory down the Ohio and up the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers all the way to the Pacific Ocean for three years returning in 1806.

We were able to visit the home site of William Clark where his brother George also stayed, and then nearby photograph the mouth of Mill Creek where the famous Lewis and Clark epic 8000 mile expedition departed from. You can see the stone foundations of the buildings, a view of the Ohio River, and a little forest creature having lunch.

Finally, we traveled to the north of the state to Big Bone Licks, which Daniel had discovered during his solo exploration of the Kentucky wilderness back in 1770. There he came upon huge bones and tusks of Mammoths. We were able to hike the actual buffalo (bison) trace that led to the salt licks and see the park's own herd resting in the shade of the early evening.

"Here the prehistoric past is enshrined, containing the remains of some of America’s early animal inhabitants. Once covered with swamps, the land that makes up Big Bone Lick had a combination of minerals and water that animals found difficult to resist. For centuries great beasts of the Pleistocene era came to the swampy land in what is now known as northern Kentucky to feed. Animals that frequented Big Bone Lick included bison, both the ancient and modern variety, primitive horses, giant mammoths and mastodons, the enormous stag-moose, and the ground sloth.

Through the millenniums untold numbers of these great beasts came to Big Bone Lick. Carnivorous animals that fed off the flesh of these herbivores in turn followed them. Early man found a seemingly endless supply of food to hunt in and around these mineral and salt deposits. The lands at Big Bone Lick may have seemed inviting, but it had a deadly surprise in store for those animals that wandered onto the soft, unstable ground that made up the area. As they fed, many of the larger beasts began to sink into what the early pioneers to Kentucky called “jelly ground.” The bog-like soil could not support the weight of these enormous creatures and they sank helplessly into the quagmire beneath them."