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Boone: A Biography

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"Forget the coonskin cap; he never wore one." So starts this groundbreaking study of the life of one of America's best-known and least-understood heroes, Daniel Boone. Author Robert Morgan, a novelist by trade (Brave Enemies and Gap Creek) spent considerable time researching Boone's life, the result being a detailed biography that is well worth the reader's time.

Boone was born in rural Pennsylvania, moved to the Carolinas with his family as a boy, and then explored westwards from there. He wasn't the first person into Kentucky, as the author makes clear, but he wasn't far behind, and he established a good reputation for himself as a man who could find a way through the hills to good land, and would be honest with pioneers who were looking for a place to settle. He spent most of the American Revolution in Kentucky, participated only briefly in the fighting (in Virginia) and mainly was involved in conflicts in Kentucky with Indians, whether they were inspired by the British or were more opportunistic.

Morgan emphasizes Boone's naturalist instincts, and contrasts his expressed opinions with his actions--he and his cohorts often "hunted out" a region, then moved elsewhere once the game was depleted--and makes it clear that he was a contradiction, a man who understood the Indians but didn't care to live with them, who enjoyed the wilderness and wildlife but did a great deal to destroy or transform both. Legend has it that he would guide people to an area, and when enough had settled there, he would tell his wife they had to move further west to escape the press of civilization.

This is a well-written, intelligent biography, and I enjoyed it a great deal. I would recommend it to anyone interested in early American history, exploring, or the wilderness.

At 538 pages Boone: A Biography is a terrific read. Robert Morgan, better known for his insightful and sensitive novels proves that he can turn his masterful storytelling ability to the nonfiction realm as well.

Boone: A Biography isn't easy to put down. If I called Boone a page turner it would be as much a statement about the life of the subject as it would be about Robert Morgans writing ability. Lets face it, Daniel Boone lived a life full of risk taking. He pushed the boundaries of the civilized world back and in doing so lived on the edge.

Born with a wondering spirit, Daniel showed his love of the woods around his Pennsylvania home at a very early age. Disappearing for long stretches at a time he explored, observed, and learned the ways of nature. He learned the ways of wild things, a gift that would later save his life many times.

One of the things a good biography does is tell the back story....the times the main character lived in. Morgan does a terrific job in letting us see Daniel Boone and the culture he came from. It was a rough time. The people on the frontier were beat up by life in general. Only the strong survived; the weak didn't make it. Cruel yes, but the country was better off for this reality. When James, Boone's son was tortured and killed by Indians, Daniel accepted the loss and then moved on. We of the twentyfirst century have a hard time dealing with that type of stoicism.

Wonderfully written, well researched, filled with copius notes, Boone: A Biography should be a sure read on your short list. Robert Morgan also includes wonderful pieces of trivia/folk lore. For example, where the term "buck" for a dollar came from.

Peace

Because he lived during the time before and after the American Revolution, the life of Daniel Boone encompasses one of the most important of historical periods. The story of Boone is the story of America, argues Robert Morgan, who is usually a poet and novelist, but has written a stirring biography of the frontiersman, _Boone: A Biography_ (Algonquin Books). There have been plenty of other biographies, starting while Boone was still alive, and all of them have either mythologized the subject or have had to attempt to clear the myths away from fact. The latter is not an easy task; for someone who was enormously famous and influential during his lifetime, there are surprising voids that we can know little about, apart from all the exaggerations and stories that have clung to the pioneer. Morgan has tried to make a chronological story, and it is a good one indeed, but it is not clouded by any undue admiration on the part of the author. Boone was a outdoors hero, but he was distinctly flawed when it came to the responsibilities of business dealings or legal documentation which he could not avoid. In fact, admired as he was during the time, Boone was during his life "accused of treason, fraud, and hypocrisy and was once court-martialed... He was blamed for dishonest and incompetent land surveying, and sued again and again for debt." Morgan shows eventually that Boone was not dishonest or incompetent, but merely careless. He only wanted to get more "elbow room" and get into the woods where he was supremely careful and capable, but one of the great paradoxes of his life was that he was drawn to people and they to him.

The demythologizing starts with the very first sentence of the book: "Forget the coonskin cap; he never wore one. Daniel Boone thought coonskin caps uncouth, heavy, and uncomfortable." Boone also would have been dismayed with his reputation as an Indian fighter. He admired the outdoor skills of the Indians, and he frankly sought friendly relationships with the Indians, an astonishing magnanimity since they repeatedly robbed him and killed members of his family. Boone's great problem was that though he loved being one against the wilderness (he often went out on long hunts by himself), he was a social being. Not only did his large family follow him in his westward advance through North Carolina, Kentucky, and Missouri, but so did other settlers, some deliberately following him and some just taking part in the general move west. He had enough of an ecological awareness to realize that the forces that drove the Indians away also drove away the deer, mink, beavers, and otter upon which he made his living as a woodsman, necessitating the next push westward. He also came to be aware at the end of his life that his way of living on the wilderness caused the very destruction of the wilderness he loved. On a more prosaic level, Boone had to take up shopkeeping or trade, and he became a surveyor. He was as good a surveyor as most surveyors around him, but the challenges of laying out tracts of land for sale within the wilderness called for more exact tools, and more exact documentation, than he was able to put to use. The unpleasantness of lawsuits over his surveys was bitter, and he had constant bad luck in taking political sides with those who claimed property in which he was to have a share but whose claims turned out to be invalid.

Remembering Boone for his life as a businessman would simply be silly; remembering that he was a genius in the woods, and a loving and fondly-remembered family man, but unlucky and unskillful in his financial affairs, makes Morgan's account well-rounded and believable. The legends, though, have to be confronted, and Morgan takes them from the first published stories about Boone's life all the way up to the influence of that life on Cooper, Whitman, and Thoreau. Boone's place in literature took off when schoolteacher John Filson came west to write about Kentucky and make his fortune from the book and from more settlers coming to the region. In 1784 he published _The Discovery, Settlement and Present State of Kentucke_, and included a chapter "The Adventures of Col. Daniel Boon." Boone had cooperated with the book, and the chapter is in his voice. He comes across as a well-read, resilient model of a republican citizen, just the image his fellow citizens liked at the time. Boone also had an endearing dry humor and modesty that people loved. He really did say, when asked if he were ever lost in the wilderness, "No, I can't say I was ever lost, but I was _bewildered_ once for three days." Confronted with a tall tale of his hunting capability, he exclaimed, "I would not believe that tale if I told it myself." The figure of the hero, Morgan remembers, "is mostly a name to which the deeds and exploits, qualities of character, can be attached." The tales as best they can be confirmed are in this beautifully written account of a life that was important for itself as well as for the legends that grew from it.

Robert Morgan's "Boone" reads like a very well-researched biography. Further, it gives a tremendous feel of life on the frontier during the Colonial Period and the first decades of our nation. When it sticks to Boone and the times, "Boone" is very informative and highly enjoyable.

On the other hand, a frontiersman like Boone obviously didn't leave a ton of biographical data behind. As a result, the author should have condensed his treatment. Instead he repeats himself a lot and at other time blathers nonsensically: running on about the beauty of the word 'Kentucky' or giving air time to a feminist critic who labels Boone's love of the woods as some kind of Freudian desire to deflower a woman. Sorry, sweetie, no sale. Sometimes a guy who likes to go hunting is just a guy who likes to go hunting.

The worst example of this is during the period where Boone explored the wilderness of Kentucky. Obviously there can be little to no documentation about this period of his life as he was in the middle of the wilderness, sometimes all alone. However, the author writes pages of stomach churning purple prose about what Boone thought and felt. Unless Morgan's telepathic or can communicate with the dead, these sections are coming completely out of his...ahem...coon skin cap.

Unfortunately, the flaws tend to make this book overlong and a chore to read in places. Further, the instances where one must question the validity of the writing tends to call the entire effort into question. As such, I cannot really recommend "Boone" despite some of its strengths.

What strikes me as the greatest accomplishment of Robert Morgan in this biography of Daniel Boone is stripping away the myth and describing the person. I read a recent biography of Kit Carson that did the same thing. As such, both authors have done readers a great service.

Boone himself was a complex figure. He was a great success as a trapper and explorer. He routinely failed as a businessman and land speculator. He was lucky and he made his own luck. Despite being so well known to Americans, he died in Missouri at 86 and pretty much broke. His story was such that he was mentioned in the works of poets and writers. James Fennimore Cooper based a number of novels on his life and exploits, Natty Bumppo, "la longue carabine," the Pathfinder, Hawkeye [in Last of the Mohicans], and so on.

The book does a nice job of relating his family background, his childhood, and his increasing interest in trapping, hunting, and exploring. He fought in the French and Indian War (serving with Braddock on this ill-starred campaign) and the Revolutionary War. He was instrumental in helping the process of development of American interests in Kentucky. His relationship with Native Americans was complex. He respected them and developed some friendships and was even adopted after his capture at one point. But he also fought against them.

His business efforts, designed to provide security for his family, routinely ended in failure. Land that he thought had been given him in Kentucky was lost through court action; he once lost $20,000 as he was going back to Virginia to deposit this and finalize land claims; and so on.

And, a stunning realization. . . . He went with a group of explorers and visited the Yellowstone area while he was in his mid 70s! How many 70 year olds would be able to cross half a continent in 1809 and return?

This book is a wonderfully balanced view of the life of Boone. For those who want to know the man more than the myth, this is most rewarding. Some nice features: a genealogy at the outset, a brief chronology of Boone's life. More maps would have been useful, to place his travels and life in a broader geographic perspective. Nonetheless, a fine work.

When a strong and evocative novelist like Robert Morgan (GAP CREEK) writes about a near-legendary figure from American history like Daniel Boone, the result can only be extraordinary. So it is with this book. Morgan's research is impeccable and his presentation will delight even those of us who have shied away from history and biography because of its traditional aridity and overly "scholarly" (in the absolute most horrific sense of the word) tenor and style. In many ways, the book reads like a novel, but one of the most welcome aspects is the frequent referencing to Boone's earlier biographers. The author pointedly and with spot-on accuracy (not unlike Boone's own marksmanship) portrays his subject as not only the huge figure of American expansionism and frontier heroics, but also as an inspiration, if not the progenitor of romanticism, admired by the likes of Wordsworth, Byron, Bartram, and Whitman. Readers who enjoy the historical work of David McCullough or Steven Ambrose or Nathaniel Philbrick or the fiction of William Martin, Allan Eckert, or James Fenimore Cooper, will find a lot to like here as well. A great reading experience.

You could make a pretty good argument that Daniel Boone is the most noted American historical figure at this time, and probably throughout our history. There have been hundreds upon hundreds of books, articles, poems, songs, movies, plays and stories featuring him as the central subject since even before his death in 1820. It is possible that more people have heard of George Washington, but I doubt it. Few men or women have captured the imagination of an entire people as this one individual. In many ways, he has become, and been used as a symbol of the young American Republic, and indeed rightfully so, both the good, and to a lesser extent the bad. Quite a lot of information that most of know of Boone is pure legend, or at worse, pure myth. With all the material out there, why on earth did Robert Morgan choose to write another biography? The reasons here may be multiple, and actually have little to do with this review, but lets all be grateful that this author did choose this particular man as the subject of his first biography.

Boone: A Biography, by Robert Morgan is a well crafted and certainly, as far as I can tell, well researched bit of work. The author has gone to great lengths to clear up and separate myth from reality. This was no easy task. There are great gaps in Boone's life, where so much is actually unknown or has been clouded by well meaning biographers, movie makers and the public in general. Morgan has been very quick to point this out, and when he does delve into the area of speculation, something all or most biographers must do from time to time, he lets us know. What is so absolutely fascinating, for me, is the fact that the truth, in this case, is so very much better than fiction when it comes to Daniel Boone. What the man actually accomplished in his life is so much more impressive than all the "tall tales" we have all heard since childhood. The "real" Boone is much more exciting and much more dynamic than the "fairy tale" Boone.

With this book, we not only get the benefit of a well written biography, we also get another chance to savor the prose of the author of Gap Creek and eight other wonderful novels, as well as twelve volumes of poetry. Folks, this man can write! His description of the country which Boone explored is absolutely worth the read alone. Another aspect that separates Morgan's work from many other biographers is his attention to the women of that era, not only Boone's immediate family, but many of those women around him. This is an aspect of frontier life often overlooked. The author has also given quite a bit of attention, and given a good account, of his subject's relationship with the Native Americans, who played a major role in his life. I also appreciated the way the author has included the names of many of the common people he dealt with on a daily bases. He has not only included the famous of the time, but the not so famous. This, to me, is quite refreshing. If I want to read a book on the life of say, George Washington, then I will pick up a biography on him. Truthfully, I am much more interested in Joe Nobody, who happened to live up the hollow, and helped Daniel skin a deer once, on such and such a day.

What I did not realize, was the tremendous influence that Boone had upon our literature of the time, and consequently the literature of our time. Thoreau, Cooper, Whitmen, Emerson, Lord Byron, Faulkner, Guthrie, and many, many others were influenced by Boone the man and his deeds. His life also had a major impact over one of our first major schools of art, the Hudson River School. (Being a bit on the romantic side, this is one of my personal favorites).

I have read quite a number of biographies and stories about Boone over the years, and will quite likely read more, given the time. This work though, stands at the top of my list of informative and enjoyable reads on the life of a very unique American and indeed, is one of the better biographies I have read over the past couple of years.

Boone: A Biography by Robert Morgan should be required reading for all History students. I cannot give this book a higher recommendation. It's been a while since a book has captured my imagination so completely and "Boone" did that and then some. Daniel Boone was fearless as he blazed a trail over the "dark & bloody ground" and his legend is well deserved. I have never given a lot of thought, if any, about the Cumberland Gap but now after reading "Boone" I would really like to visit and feel the energy of a place that I feel is sacrosanct.

Extremely well written and researched life of Daniel Boone. Interested in America's early history than this is it! Facts brought to life of not only Boone but our settling beyond the Appalachians.

As much as I relished reading this biography of Daniel Boone bsed on its warm reviews, I found it disappointing. Surprisingly, from a novelist/poet, Boone never "comes up off the page" - I never had a sense of Boone the living man versus Boone the legend. Of course the most intriguing parts of Boone's life were spent in the wilderness, alone, with no one to record the events. Working from the written record of Boone's life, we get a more complex look at the whole man - including his mostly unsuccessful life after 1772 - but we don't get a deeper view of the man, of how the days were spent, how the hunts were pursued.

To Boone the wilderness seemed infinite, and in helping to settle Kentucky, he had a huge role in the consumption of natural resources - prairie, forest, animal. Morgaqn reminds us throughout that Boone was one the of the first and last men ever to encounter Kentucky in its natural state.

In my view, this book would have been better had Morgan approached it more as Allan Eckart approached his narrative of Simon Kenton in "The Frontersman." By comparison to Eckart's work, this comes off flat. Morgan is primarily a novelist/poet, and not compelling as a historian. For example, we get endless lists of the names of men who accompanied Boone on this expedition or that raid - but very few become "characters" in their own light. Eckart, by comparison makes hte Shawnee chief Blue jacket a living character with Kenton.

I also found myself balking at Morgan's tendency to speculate on what actual events may have occurred, or at Boone's motivations/character in numerous instances. Right or wrong, effective biography takes the "This is my story and I'm sticking to it" approach. As a non-historian, Morgan seems to go out of his way to dodge criticism from a "true scholar" on the topic than to create a real, living character.

Perhaps the most telling chapter of the book is the last, after Boone is dead. In this chapter, Morgan tells us how the legend of Boone influenced 19th century American Romanticism, including Emerdon, Thoreau and Whitman. My takeaway here is that Morgan is presenting Boone through that looking glass, and never getting back to the man himself.

Worth reading for its details on the challenges of frontier life, but if you're after a first-rate yarn with these details, Eckart is a better choice in my opinion. If, on the other hand, it's first-rate history you're after, read real history.