Daniel Boone

Early America was a time of great explorations, first by European oceangoing explorers such as Hernan Cortes, Fransisco Pizarro, Samuel De Champlain, John Cabot, and Christopher Columbus. After the British, French, and Spanish established colonies in the New World, various explorers began to explore the inland wilderness of the New World. These explorers included men such as Lewis and Clark, Zebulon Pike, Kit Carson, Davy Crockett, and Jim Bowie. One such explorer was a man by the name of Daniel Boone, a native Pennsylvanian who would play a key role in the opening of Kentucky and the lands to the west of the Appalachian mountains.
Boone made several trips into Kentucky through the Cumberland Gap between what is now northern Tennessee and southern Kentucky, the first in 1767, the second in 1769, and a third in 1773. The 1773 expedition was one of the first notable expeditions into the Kentucky wilderness. It was different from other expeditions by various explorers because this expedition included several families possessing intents of colonizing Kentucky. However, soon before crossing into Kentucky, they were attacked by local Indians, resulting in the death of two of the members of the party, including James Boone, Daniel's son. The party turned back before making it through the gap.
In 1775, Boone and several companions were hired by the Transylvania Company to construct a road through the Cumberland Gap to allow easier passage into the wilderness. After they constructed the road and families and settlers began to flow into Kentucky, Boone established several towns in Kentucky, the most famous of which is the fort at Boonesborough. Several months later, Boone brought his family to Kentucky to live. Kentucky became a territory of Virginia, and Boone became a leader in the local militia. In 1778, he was captured by a local Indian tribe and was held for 5 months before he escaped to warn Boonesborough of an impending attack by British soldiers and their Indian allies; one of the many skirmishes during the Revolutionary War.
Boone spent the rest of his life traveling through the wilderness, hunting and trapping wherever he went. He later died in 1820, in Missouri.

Photo: Wikipedia, "Wilderness Road"