Page 21 - Cousins - Celebrities, Saints & Sinners

Daniel Boone

8th Cousin

5 times removed

Common Ancestor

Father: John Bustard
Adderbury, Oxfordshire, England
1454 - 1534 Born: Died:
2 November 1734 26 September 1820
Mother: Elizabeth De Vaux Oley Valley, Berks County, Femme Osage Creek, St.
Northamptonshire, England Province of Pennsylvania Charles County, Missouri
1464 – 1517 Daniel Boone was an American pioneer, explorer, woodsman,
and frontiersman whose frontier exploits made him one of the
first folk heroes of the United States. Although he also became
a businessman, soldier and politician who represented three
different counties in the Virginia General Assembly following
the American Revolutionary War, Boone is most famous for his
exploration and settlement of what is now Kentucky. Although
on the western side of the Appalachian Mountains from
most European-American settlements, Kentucky remained part
of Virginia until it became a state in 1791.

As a young adult, Boone supplemented his farm income
by hunting and trapping game, and selling their pelts in the fur
market. Through this work, Boone first learned the easy routes
westward. Despite some resistance from Native American tribes such as the Shawnee, in 1775,
Boone blazed his Wilderness Road from North Carolina and Tennessee through Cumberland Gap in
the Cumberland Mountains into Kentucky. There, he founded the village of Boonesborough, Kentucky, one of
the first American settlements west of the Appalachians. Before the end of the 18th century, more than
200,000 Americans migrated to Kentucky/Virginia by following the route marked by Boone. Boone served as
a militia officer during the Revolutionary War (1775–83), which, in Kentucky, was fought primarily between the
American settlers and British-allied Native Americans, who hoped to expel the Americans. Shawnee warriors
captured Boone in 1778. He escaped and alerted Boonesborough that the Shawnee were planning an attack.
Although heavily outnumbered, Americans repelled the Shawnee warriors in the Siege of Boonesborough.
Boone was elected to the first of his three terms in the Virginia General Assembly during the Revolutionary
War, and he fought in the Battle of Blue Licks in 1782. Blue Licks, a Shawnee victory over the Patriots, was one
of the last battles of the Revolutionary War, coming after the main fighting ended in October 1781.
Following the war, Boone worked as a surveyor and merchant, but fell deeply into debt through failed
Kentucky land speculation. He briefly moved back to Virginia, in the newly formed Kanawha County, but
ultimately moved back to Kentucky. Once again frustrated with the legal problems resulting from his land
claims, in 1799, Boone emigrated to eastern Missouri, where he spent most of the last two decades of his life.

Boone remains an iconic figure in American history. He was a legend in his own lifetime, especially
after account of his adventures was published in 1784, framing him as the typical American frontiersman. After

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