THE CENTRE
By ELMO SCOTT WATSON
N NOVEMBER 2, 1734, there was
born to a Quaker weaver and
blacksmith In Exeter township,
near the present city of Reading,
Pa, a son to whom was given the
name of Daniel. And now, 200
years later, that boy's name still
has the power to stir the imagina-
tion of his fellow-Americans, For
he was Daniel Boone,
Last month the magic of his name drew to a
little town In Kentucky all the high officials of
that commonwealth, representatives of the gov-
ernors of eight states and a great crowd of
people from every part of the country. They had
gathered there to participate in the opening cer-
emonies of the Boone bicentennial which is be-
ing observed this year and which will come to
a climax late this month,
Although the celebration at Boonesboro on
September 83 was primarily a Kentucky affair,
since Kentucky regards Dan’) Boone as essen-
tially her own, a dozen other states have some
claim upon him. Among them are Pennsylvania,
where he was born; Virginia, North Carolina
-
w—.
— pe tr
A” 7 5
and Tenaessee, where his youth was spent and
where he started upon his career as a hunter
and frootlersman; West Virginia (then a part
of the Old Dominion) where he made his home
after the loss of his lands in Kentucky: Ohio,
where he had some of his most thrilling adven-
tures; and Missouri, where he spent his declin.
ing years and where he was buried when death
claimed him in 1820. Even Kansas, Nebraska,
North and South Dakota, Wyoming and Mon-
tana have more than a casual interest In him,
For in his old age, still the keen hunter and
trapper, he made long trips into the western
wilderness and it is possible that he trod the
soll of all those states,
But In a larger sense Daniel Boone belongs to
the whole nation. Symbolical of that fact was
the authorization by the last congress of a spe-
cial haif-dollar for the Boone bicentennial this
year. Designed by one of America's most dis
tinguished sculptors, Augustus Lukeman, the
coin bears on the obverse side Boone's likeness
and on the reverse the figures of a frontiersman
and an Indian and the designation of 1934 as
Pioneer Year. These coins will be sold at a
premium and the proceeds will go to the Boone
bicéntennial commission of Kentucky to be used
in acquiring the sites of three ploneer forts
Fort Boonesborough, Boone's Station and Bry
an's Station, These three, together with the site
of the Battle of Blue Licks, will comprise the
Pioneer national monument with a memorial
highway connecting the four shrines.
Even without these material reminders of the
fame of Dan'l Boone, his is a deathless name in
the American consciousness. He is the eternal
symbol of the ploneer, of a land where there
were frontiers to be pushed ever westward and
a wilderness to be won. In the America of today
there are no more frontiers where venturesome
souls may escape the humdrum of everyday af-
fairs: there is no wilderness to be conquered;
and pioneer life exists only in the fading memo-
ries of a few aging men and women facing the
sunset of their days,
So this nation, still youthful but realizing how
quickly it spent its youthful heritage of high
adventure and brave enterprise, looks back
somewhat longingly to those glamorous days and
seeks some figure In which is embodied the spirit
of its lusty youth. In Daniel Boone it finds such
a figure. Americans of today, reading of him
and associating themselves In their minds with
him, can experience vicariously the adventures
which befell kim In real life,
Such is the magie of the name of Daniel
Boone and to 99 out of a hundred Americans
he is the pioneer par exceilence, His apotheosis
began long ago, for just as George Washington
had his Parson Weems to make him more of a
myth than a8 man, so did Daniel Boone have his
John Filson to make him a frontier demigod,
The result has been many a misconception about
Boone's part In the settlement of Kentucky
and many a “popular belief” about his impor
tance as a frontier leader which are partially, if
not entirely, erroneous. :
Modern historical scholarship paints a some
what different pleture of him from the one which
our schoothook histories have presented, Sclen-
tific historians, devoted to seeking the truth and
making the truth known, have gone back to the
source material and out of thelr findings has
Pw
5
emerged a new Danlel Boone who bears little
resemblance to the Boone of the myth-makers,
One of the first of these was the late Clarence
Walworth Alvord of the University of Illinois
and the University of Minnesota, whose reputa-
tion, gained In his researches into the early his
tory of the Mississippl valley, Is too secure for
him to be regarded as an idle “debunker” of the
great. Writing in the American Mercury pearly
a decade ago, he declared:
“The facts of the life of the man Boone, in-
deed, have little In common with those of the
superman so universuily exalted. He is
idolized as the most heroic of western explor-
rs, a8 the first to make known to settlers the
fertility of the ‘dark and bloody country’ of Ken-
tucky, and as the first to plant in the West a
permanent settlement of Americans,
“Bat it requires only the most superficial re-
search to knock the story into a cocked hat. A
study of the historical sources proves that thou.
sands of men explored Kentucky before Boone,
and the region was well known to multitudes
who needed no superhuman herald either to
tell them of the fertility of the soil or to summon
them to action. Finally, in this whole complex
movement across the mountains Boone played
a subordinate part: he wns little more than an
employee of an empire bullder, Richard Hen-
derson, a North Carolina speculator and the
founder of the Transylvania company. Daniel
Boone was one of many pawns in the magnifi-
cent game of chess being played on Kentucky
territory. Of the superman there is no trace.”
Another distinguished historian, who Is prob
ably the leading authority today on the history
of the Old Southwest (Kentucky and Tennessee)
and who is now writing a definitive blography
of Boone, in an article which appeared in the
New York Times Magazine in 1927, corroborated
Alvord’'s statements in regard to the priority of
other men as “Kentucky ploneers” but dealt
somewhat more kindly with the superman myth,
He 8 Dr. Archibald Henderson who is, incl
dentally, a greatgreat-grandson of Boone's em-
ployer. Writing of Boone's activities as agent
for the Transylvania company, he says:
“While these are the revelations of modern
historical investigation they do not detract from
the distinctive qualities of Boone's real fame.
Boone was probably the most skiliful hunter of
big game who ever lived upon the American con-
tinent. He was a peerless explorer, a supreme
scout. Unsuccessful as a leader—even the lead.
ership in the defense of Booneshorough seems to
have falien not to Boone but to Richard Calla
why—Boone was unsurpassed as an individual
Indian fighter, who on countless occasions
proved himself more than a match for the erafti-
est and subtiest of his Indian opponents,
“Seen through the glorifying halo of a century
and three-quarters of time, Daniel Boone still
rises before us as a romantic figure, poised and
resolute, simple, benign—as naive and shy as
some wild thing of the primeval forest—five feet
eight Inches In height, with hroad chest and
shoulders, dark locks, genial blue eyes arched
with fair eyebrows, thin lips and wide mouth,
nose of slightly Roman cast and fair ruddy coun
tenance. In suit of buckskin, Indian moccasing
and eoonskin enp, with rifle, knife and toma
hawk, alternating with the axe and the survey.
or's compass, he Is the true Leatherstocking of
8 Cooper romance”
Here, perhaps, Is a clew to the reason why
than it is to take into account individual differ.
ences in arriving at an estimate of some one
person. Ro, when Cooper symbolized the Amer.
fcan pioneer In the romantic figure of
totype of all frontiersmen.
acter In real life came as close to fitting the
name would be stamped indelibly on the Amer.
ican consclousness,
|
of racial and national pride—and also personal
vanity, We Americans like to consider ourselves
superior to other peoples, especially those whose
we are, perhaps, no different from the British,
the French, the Germans or the citizens of any
other country.
inal owner, the red man, He was wily and dar
ing; he was skilled In wooderaft: he was a first
class fighting man. In order to survive, the plo.
neers who invaded his hunting grounds had to
outwit and outfight him. Those who didn't, soon
lost their scalps. Those who did, were able to
maintain their precarious hold on their new
homes in the wilderness until the overwhelming
numbers of the white man made certain the
subjugation of the red man and the acquisition
of his lands.
Outstanding among the pioneers who were
able fo survive was Daniel Boone who, as Hen-
derson has said, was “unsurpassed as an ind
vidual Indian fighter.” So when we read of one
of his victories over the “wily redskins” It con-
firms our feeling of racial superiority, just as
reading of Washington's victories In the Revolu.
tion and those of Scott and Taylor in the Mex.
lean war confirmn our feelings of national superi-
ority.
Danlel Boone was an American; we are Amer
feans; ergo, we, too, would have been able to
have ontwitted those “wily redskinge” He was a
erack shot with the long rifle of that period;
he was “the most skillful hunter of big gue
who ever lived upon the American continent”;
he was “a peerless explorer, a supreme scout”
Therefore, by the same process of reasoning, we
are all of those things. In other words he was
a champion in his field of endeavol. And how
we Americans do love champions and love to
be champions!
The scientific historians may take away our
popular belief that Daniel Boone was the first
explorer of Kentucky and the outstanding plo
neer leader in a romantic pioneering era. But
#0 long as we can cherish our belief in him as
the symbol of something which we consider es
sentially American, his name will be a lving
memory during the centuries to come as It has
during the two centuries that have passed since
he was born.
& he Western Newspaper Union,
FOR OLD TIMES’ SAK
Teacher asked a seven-year-old |
girl what a bridegroom was. |
i
“Please, teacher,” was the reply, |
~Portland Oregonian,
Averting War
“If women had the they
would avert war,” sald the idealist,
“Would they?’ innocently inquired
Miss Cayenne,
“Of course.”
“Then why was the war
not averted? All that have
been necessary was for Helen to put |
on an ugly make-up.
power,
Trolan
would
“ i
Trouble
My son might have been |
the United States,
Flatfoot-
President of
Yesman-— What
vent it?
Flatfoot-—He got
wife wouldn't let him go int
happened to pre
and his
0 politics, |
married
Pleasure of Imagination
“iN ha
3
for asl
is your reason
Migher prices?”
“1 get a
gwered F
ing about
certain enjoyment.™ an
wer Corntossel, “in think
» wealth I'd be
had left me anyti
An Expert
Silas—My new
that he kn
than I do
Hiram-—He mu
One of them
farmhand
ows more abou
NOT FOR HIM
tot engaged or
iooks as |
or a breach-o
No Friend of Lady Luck
unks—80 you think yon
ICKY A% a man can |
paid for tr
on my hou i¢ thirty years i
out ever having a fi
let the darn policy lapse
would burn up two minutes af
policy had expired,
ire and decided
the
Plenty of Time
A boy remarked at the dinner table |
that his class at school was to have |
“A clean-up contest!” exclaimed |
his mother. “And you come to the |
table with those hands?” i
“1 know, mother, but the
doesn’t start until next week."—Pa- |
cific Methodist Advocate
i
contest |
Reducing
Two of the comrades were discuss
ing their big fat buddr.
“lI saw Ben the other day, and he is
not as big a fool as he used to be”
“What's the matter—lias he re
formed 7
“No, he's dieting.”
glon Monthly,
Said one:
"-~American Le
Explained
Little Mae—Mother, 1 know why
little people langh up their sleeves,
Mother—Why, dear?
Little Mas—Because that's where
their funnybone Is Toronto Globe.
"Twas Ever Thus
“You look worried. What's
matter?’
“Ding it, my doctor just told me
I've got to quit worrying or else.”—
Macon Telegraph,
the
Usually the Reason
“He has a path worn to his door:
did he Invent a better mouse trap?”
“No, he Is slow pay, and that path
was worn by the bill collectors.”
Cape Ensemble
That Has Chic
PATTERN 1827
wing Circle
} West Seven.
rk City.
CALLING THE DOCTOR
Miss Cay-
not to
nerves
vole
enne. “They always tell you
worty. And Gothe your
in order to avold anxiety.”
FAIR WARNING
Yolce Upstairs—Mary!
“Yes, father.”
“If you're thinking of keeping
that young men there for
breakfast, don’t do it. Ma says
there isn’t an egg in the house”
down
———— RAR
Sunny Jim
Minks—He always takes a cheers
ful view of things
Jinks— Yes, when our boat tipped
over and be fell in the water, he
laughed and sald it was O, K. by him,’
as he intended to take a bath when
he got home anyway,
Obstacle Race
“Is your son still pursuing his
studies at college?
“Yes, but he doesn't seem able to
catch up with them.”
It Goes to Your Head
“Yes, I know fish is brain food, bat
I don't care so much for fish. Hain't
there some other brain food?”
“Well, there's noodle soup.”