complexity of Boone’s character, Brown was also drawn to “the major changes in America to which Boone contributed in his long career.” These changes include the quest for westward settlement, over-killing of precious game, the discontinuance of Indian power in the eastern US, and the development of a national identity for America.

Brown will speak about his new book on Saturday, October 17 at Fort Boonesborough at 1 p.m. as part of the Daniel Boone 275th Birthday Celebration. He will also be signing copies of Frontiersman, Daniel Boone and the Making of America throughout the day. The book is available at the fort at The 18th Century Transylvania Store.

Brown, 68, believes Boone was a study in contrasts. “He was capable of fighting and killing when he had to – but he was not an indiscriminate hater and killer of Indians.” Boone respected many Indians, Brown stated, a point that was proven when Boone was captured by Indians in 1778 and became good friends with Shawnee chief Blackfish and his family. Boone got along well with the Indians, but didn’t stay an Indian. He held an important position at Boonesborough and the future hope of becoming a large landowner in Kentucky. He certainly foresaw the fight between Indians and white settlers for control of Kentucky land, said Brown, and the ever increasing number of settlers to the area.

“Boone was a smart man, and a realist – not a mythical romantic. It was sensible – it was admirable – for him to escape from the Shawnees, who were planning to attack Boonesborough, and to run back to lead in Boonesborough’s defense.” 

Boone was also “a family man, married to Rebecca for over 50 years; father of ten children, but he sometimes was in the woods for months, maybe years, at a time – and he exposed his children to mortal peril,” said Brown. The latter idea of throwing his children in harm’s way is seen when Boone’s firstborn, James, was killed by Indians as Boone led settlers into Kentucky in 1773.

And finally Brown stated, “He was a hunter all his life – but he also was a surveyor, an investor in land, a trader, a tavern keeper. He was a woodsman, but he was not illiterate. He was a churchgoer, but he was a Quaker by upbringing, and the Bible was one of his two favorite books, the other being Gulliver’s Travels.”

The picture Brown paints of Boone is that of a far more complex, interesting man than legend has made him out to be. Brown recounts Boone’s life from his Pennsylvania upbringing, militia experiences, skilled woodsman and explorer experiences, personal life and final days in Missouri. Over the course of Boone’s lifetime, America evolved from a small group of colonies into an independent nation of people reaching well beyond the Mississippi River. Brown’s book explores Boone’s crucial role in this transformation, presenting Boone as he really was: stripped of the myths, but retaining all his complexities and strength of character.

The Idaho Statesman said of the book, “Frontiersman allows the reader to get an intimate and detailed glimpse of the legendary life of Daniel Boone and his true role in the nurturing of a young America. A superb biography of an American legend.”

A history major, Brown conducted his research from such primary sources as materials compiled by Lyman Draper and John Dabney Shane, the Filson Historical Society, and the Kentucky Historical Society. He also spent countless hours studying depositions given by Boone in land dispute suits. “You can almost hear Boone talking in those depositions,” he said.

“Anyone speaking of Boone after all that’s been expressed better have something new to say. Meredith Mason Brown does. If there’s a word that captures the originality of this volume, it’s sinewy,” wrote Thomas T. Noland, Jr. in the Louisville Courier-Journal.

Wading through a monumental amount of material to determine what is historical fact versus myth/legend when researching was “part of the fun – and the challenge,” for Brown. There are existing Boone-related documents from the time period he lived in, including letters written to and from Boone. There are also reminiscences of old frontiersmen told after Boone’s death, and what Brown called “even less reliable stories told by their children, and some biographies that wallow in myths.”

Brown takes a serious look at Boone’s life as a surveyor in Frontiersman. “Boone conducted more than 170 surveys, of about 400,000 acres,” he said. Of the other individuals that have written about Boone’s surveys, Neal O. Hammon of Shelbyville, Ky is probably the greatest expert, said Brown.

Hammon has been quoted as saying, “This is the best, most accurate and complete Boone book I have ever read.” Hammon is the author of Daniel Boone and the Defeat at Blue Licks and My Father, Daniel Boone. Hammon will speak on Sunday, October 18 at 2 p.m. at Fort Boonesborough.

“Opinions differ on Boone’s skills as a surveyor,” said Brown. “He was at least as good as most, and he had a fantastic eye and memory for locations and landmarks.”

Brown writes as if he knew Boone well. He certainly has the time period mastered as his father and forebears were from Kentucky and Virginia. He recalled that on the wall of his father’s study was the rifle of Col. John Floyd, “a relative of ours,” who helped Boone rescue Jemima and the Callaway girls after they were captured outside Fort Boonesborough in July 1776. This same John Floyd was a protégé of William Preston, headed surveyors from Fincastle County sent out in 1774 to survey tracts around the Falls of the Ohio, established St. Asaph’s Station in 1775, and took part in The Long Run Massacre in 1781. He was killed by Indians in 1783.

Brown’s father, who was born in Louisville, wrote a biography of Boone in 1951 for children aged 11 to 16. His father wrote over 20 books, but this was his only attempt at juvenile non-fiction. Brown was his father’s test audience. “He read me the book paragraph by paragraph as he wrote it. I loved it.!”

Brown has gone on since those early days to graduate from Harvard College and Harvard Law School. He was born and raised in New York City, where he practiced law for 40 years. He now lives in Stonington, Connecticut. 

**Note: Meredith Mason Brown will also appear on November 6-7 at the Southern Historical Association meeting in Louisville, KY. He will be part of a panel of Boone biographers.