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.