ings which never fail to vibrate to the touch.

But these inestimable data are wanting. Our materials are comparatively
few; and we have been often obliged to balance between doubtful
authorities, notwithstanding the most rigorous scrutiny of newspapers
and pamphlets, whose yellow and dingy pages gave out a cloud of dust at
every movement, and the equally rigid examination of clean modern books
and periodicals.

CHAPTER I.

Birth of Daniel Boone--His early propensities--His pranks at school--His
first hunting expedition--And his encounter with a panther. Removal of
the family to North Carolina--Boone becomes a hunter--Description of
fire hunting, in which he was near committing a sad mistake--Its
fortunate result--and his marriage.

Different authorities assign a different birth place to DANIEL BOONE.
One affirms that he was born in Maryland, another in North Carolina,
another in Virginia, and still another during the transit of his parents
across the Atlantic. But they are all equally in error. He was born in
the year 1746, in Bucks county, Pennsylvania, near Bristol, on the right
bank of the Delaware, about twenty miles from Philadelphia. His father
removed, when he was three years old, to the vicinity of Reading, on the
head waters of the Schuylkill. From thence, when his son was thirteen
years old, he migrated to North Carolina, and settled in one of the
valleys of South Yadkin.

The remotest of his ancestors, of whom there is any recorded notice, is
Joshua Boone, an English Catholic. He crossed the Atlantic to the
shores of the Chesapeake Bay, with those who planted the first germ of
the colony of Maryland. A leading motive to emigration with most of
these colonists, was to avoid that persecution on account of their
religion, which however pleasant to inflict, they found it uncomfortable
to endure. Whether this gentleman emigrated from this inducement, as has
been asserted, or not, it is neither possible, nor, as we deem,
important to settle; for we cannot find, that religious motives had any
direct influence in shaping the character and fortunes of the hero of
the woods. Those who love to note the formation of character, and
believe in the hereditary transmission of peculiar qualities, naturally
investigate the peculiarities of parents, to see if they can find there
the origin of those of the children. Many--and we are of the
number--consider transmitted endowment as the most important link in the
ch