The Adventures of Daniel Boone: The Kentucky Rifleman

Francis L. Hawks' mid-19th century account captures Daniel Boone at his legendary best: a man who became the very archetype of the American frontiersman. The narrative opens on Boone's Pennsylvania youth and follows his family's migration to North Carolina, where his obsession with the wilderness took root. But it is Kentucky that becomes his true domain , the untamed territory that would make him a legend. Here Hawks details Boone's extraordinary hunts, his narrow escapes, and his pivotal role as the man who literally blazed the Wilderness Road through the Cumberland Gap, making settlement of the West possible. The book includes Boone's own brief autobiography covering his Kentucky exploits from 1769 to 1784, followed by a full cradle-to-grave biographical chronicle. The most dramatic passages detail his capture by Shawnee warriors during the Revolutionary War, his adoption into the tribe, and his daring escapes. This is American mythology rendered in 19th-century prose , the story of a man who heard the wilderness calling and answered it so completely that he became inseparable from the land itself.