"on the shoulders of yesterdays heroes we look beyond the horizons of tomorrow"
Which one of these images is supposed to be Daniel Boone and which one is Davy Crockett?
If you picked the picture on the left as Daniel Boone you are correct. This is Fess Parker as he portrayed Boone on NBC's television series Daniel Boone. On the right is Fess Parker playing Davy Crockett in the Walt Disney version of Crockett's life. People get Boone and Crockett mixed up. Boone was born in 1734, Crockett in 1786. Notice that both men are sporting coonskin caps and leather outfits. These two men are often confused as the same person, but they are very different and they represent two distinct eras of our westward expansion. However, both received notoriety in their lifetimes. Boone was not so excited about his!
I bet you thought that Daniel Boone dwelled in log cabins all of his life. Not so! This is the actual house that Daniel Boone lived in before he died. However he did not own the house, it belonged to his youngest son Nathan and wife Olive. At its completion it was considered the grandest house west of the Mississippi. The house is located west of Saint Louis, Missouri near a town called Defiance. There is much to see at this historic site, including the home of Daniel's younger brother Squire. Thanks to the research of Ken Kamper, Squire's house was located and moved on site. In fact there is practically a whole frontier village at this location. This is a definite must see for those wanting to learn about Daniel Boone and American history circa 1800 to 1820.
Here is the kitchen under the house. Notice the butter churn on the floor, the long rifle, powder horn and cooking utensils hanging around the fireplace. The floor joists are made of hand-hewn walnut. The walls are around a foot and a half thick and are made of stone indigenous to the area.
- Did you know that at times, during the early years that Kentucky and Tennessee were being settled (1770-1790) the threat of attack from Native Americans was so great that when people met for public worship, riflemen would be set as lookouts to protect in case of Indian attack? The same was true at times when planting, gathering firewood or water; armed guards were set around the field for protection.
Who is this man?
As the writing under the picture says, this is Simon Kenton. Though he was born almost 21 years later than Boone, he and Boone were close friends. Kenton was a superb woodsman and had some of the most exciting adventures of anyone in any time period. Once, an Indian tried to hit Kenton over the head from behind with his tomahawk. He overshot his mark and only the handle hit its mark. But in doing so, the top and forward part of Kenton's head became slightly caved in. In his old age Simon would show his grandchildren this injury by taking their hands and placing them on the indented area. The exact spot is right under where his air is parted in the front.
Kenton's Station
In 1775 Simon Kenton found a good access place into northern Kentucky with a nice inlet for boats and built a station camp with his friend Thomas Williams, but could not permanently settle there at the time do to Indian raids. It was located on the Ohio River with a very defined buffalo trace coming up to it from the south. A buffalo trace is a road pounded down by buffalo over a period of time. Some of these traces could be fifty yards wide and many modern highways are build right over these natural "buffalo" trails. Frontiersmen and early pioneers found these roads easy to travel on. Highway 68 from Lexington Kentucky to Maysville is built over a major buffalo trace. The Wilderness Road into Kentucky that Boone first marked utilized a number of buffalo traces. Kenton returned to the area about nine years later and built what was first called Kenton's Station, then Limestone, then Washington and today Maysville. In 1796 Simon Kenton's first wife Martha was horribly burned when their log house caught on fire there. She died a few agonizing days later, but not before aborting an infant daughter. The sign pictured here commemorates the site of the cabin. Kenton was so grief stricken that he never rebuilt his home.
 
The picture on the right shows an old buffalo trace that runs through Blue Licks State Park. In Kenton's time, it ran right past his home, which is located some twenty miles north where Maysville, Kentucky is today.
Religion comes to the frontier!
The Second Great Awakening
The Red River Meeting house
Here lies the footprint of God!
Located in Logan County, Kentucky by the town of Franklin, this is the Red River Meeting House, the very spot that the Second Great Awakening started in 1799. The number of people that gathered here was large for its day (500), but by 1801 the estimated numbers that were attending a place called Cane Ridge a few miles away had grown much, much larger. The face of American Christianity was forever changed here. This is where the idea of camp (revival) meetings began. Folks would travel from all over the frontier and camp with family and friends to hear the Word of God preached. People from all races and ethnic backgrounds were affected and many people both great and small professed a experiential faith in Christ. I have had the privilege of speaking here two years in a row.
On to Cane Ridge
 
The Cane Ridge Meeting House was built by a Presbyterian minister named Robert Finley in 1791. Daniel Boone is supposed to have recommended the beautiful 12-15 miles of high ground covered with native cane as an ideal place for a house of worship. In the beginning, the logs for the meeting house were laid up, but not all of them were chinked for the simple reason that the worshipers wanted to have a place to shoot their rifles out of in case raiding Shawnee and Cherokees might try to attack. The Second Great Awakening fairly exploded here in 1801 with estimates of participants ranging from 10 to 20,000. With Barton W. Stone in the forefront, the Disciples Of Christ Church was eventually founded. Later, Stone combined with Thomas and Alexander Campbell and the Church Of Christ was born. Today, the old sanctuary is protected from the elements by a beautiful, stone building. People still hold services here today. It is very near Paris, Kentucky and I visited this historic site in September of 2008.
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