Daniel Morgan Boone
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- Hunter
- soldier
- surveyor
- merchant
- agriculturalist
- farmer
Daniel Morgan Boone | |
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| Born | December 23, 1769 South Carolina, U.S. |
| Died | July 13, 1839 (aged 69) |
| Resting place | Boone Hays Graveyard |
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| Known for | Son and namesake of Daniel Boone, hunting, scouting, and exploration on the United States frontier, establishing Boone's Lick and the Boonslick Road |
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Daniel Morgan Boone (December 23, 1769 – July 13, 1839) was the son of Daniel Boone and a significant American pioneer, explorer, and frontiersman in his own right. He was a particularly key player in the early American exploration and settlement of Missouri.
Daniel Morgan Boone was born to Daniel and Rebecca Boone in 1769 in South Carolina. He spent most of his early years in Kentucky.
At the age of 18, he struck out on a solitary journey of 30 days for St. Louis, during which it is said he did not see another human being. He spent the subsequent decade trapping and hunting in eastern Missouri and along the Missouri River, preceding Lewis and Clark, who would not depart west from St. Louis until 1804.[1]
If these sources are correct, that means Boone was exploring and trapping in present-day Missouri as early as 1787:
Probably the first white man who came into the territory of Jackson county was Col. Daniel Morgan Boone, a son of old Daniel Boone. He came to St. Louis in 1787, where he was warmly received by the trappers and traders. In a memoir of him written by the late Dr. Johnson Lykins, of this city, it is stated that he spent twelve winters trapping beavers on the Blue, spending his summers in St. Louis. He was married in the year 1800, when he abandoned trapping.[2]
Leading the Boone Family to settle in French Missouri
At the behest of his father, Boone visited Missouri in 1797, arranged Spanish Land Grants for himself, his father, and other family members and settlers in the area near present-day Matson, Missouri. Along with his brother Nathan, he expanded the existing Native American trace into the Boon's Lick Road from the Boone settlement in eastern Missouri, along the Missouri River near present-day Matson, Missouri, to a salt spring in central Missouri. This became the primary road used by American settlers as they moved west into central Missouri - the only available road through this area until after the War of 1812. Starting in 1821, the Boon's Lick Road became the conduit from St Louis to the Santa Fe Trail, which ran 900 miles from Boon's Lick Country to Santa Fe, Mexico.[3]
Later he pioneered another road, with a slightly different alignment from Boone settlement that went further west to Fort Osage.
Boone's marriage record, to Sara Griffin Lewis, was discovered in 2015. The marriage took place March 2, 1800, and was conducted by a Spanish priest in St. Charles, Missouri. (At the time, Missouri was Spanish territory.) Both Boone's and Lewis's parents lived in the area and were present for the ceremony.[4]
On the American frontier, Boone participated in a wide variety of ventures - many of them with his brother, Nathan - from the salt refining operation at Boon's Lick to market hunting to an operating large-scale a pine plank lumber, sawmill, and transport operation in the northern Ozarks. The pine planks were a valuable commodity if they could be transported from the Ozarks to the waiting markets along the Mississippi River.[5]
Boone fought in the War of 1812, participating in the fortification-building and general build-up preceding the war. During the war he patrolled the frontier and worked as a spy.[6]
