Daniel Boone was born in Pennsylvania in 1734, learned hunting, marksmanship, and wilderness survival at an early age, moved with his family to North Carolina in 1750, served as a wagon driver in General Edward Braddock's campaign during the French and Indian War, married Rebecca Bryan in 1756, and over the following decades hunted, explored, fought in frontier conflicts, attempted settlement in Kentucky, helped cut Boone's Wilderness Trail, aided in the building and defense of Fort Boonesborough, held militia and civil offices in Virginia and Kentucky, and was repeatedly active on the advancing frontier. In 1799, after an invitation from the Spanish lieutenant governor at St. Louis, Boone and his family moved from Kentucky to Spanish Upper Louisiana, with some traveling by boat and others overland with livestock, and settled along the Missouri River and Femme Osage Creek. In 1800 he was appointed Spanish commandant of the Femme Osage District, serving as civil administrator, military leader, and judge, and he held court under the elm later remembered as the Boone Judgment Tree. After the Louisiana Territory passed from Spain to France and then to the United States, Boone remained for a time in public service, continued hunting in Missouri, and died in 1820 after twenty-one years in Missouri, which the account presents as his chosen home. The broader Boone family also played important roles in early Missouri, including blazing western trails, producing salt, serving as rangers and public officials, and helping open routes that became major paths of migration west of the Mississippi River.
