and picturesque tradition, was the spot
where the traders stopped to take a solemn oath never to reveal
any unlawful proceedings that might occur during their sojourn
among the Indians. In his divertingly satirical "History of the
Dividing Line" William Byrd in 1728 thus speaks of this locality:
"The Soil is exceedingly rich on both sides the Yadkin, abounding
in rank Grass and prodigiously large Trees; and for plenty of
Fish, Fowl and Venison, is inferior to No Part of the Northern
Continent. There the Traders commonly lie Still for some days, to
recruit their Horses' Flesh as well as to recover their own
spirits." In this beautiful country happily chosen for settlement
by Squire Boone--who erected his cabin on the east side of the
Yadkin about a mile and a quarter from Alleman's, now Boone's,
Ford--wild game abounded. Buffaloes were encountered in eastern
North Carolina by Byrd while running the dividing line; and in
the upper country of South Carolina three or four men with their
dogs could kill fourteen to twenty buffaloes in a single day."
Deer and bears fell an easy prey to the hunter; wild turkeys
filled every thicket; the watercourses teemed with beaver, otter,
and muskrat, as well as with shad and other delicious fish.
Panthers, wildcats, and wolves overran the country; and the
veracious Brother Joseph, while near the present Wilkesboro,
amusingly records: "The wolves wh. are not like those in Germany,
Poland and Lifland (because they fear men and don't easily come
near) give us such music of six different cornets the like of wh.
I have never heard in my life." So plentiful was the game that
the wild deer mingled with the cattle grazing over the wide
stretches of luxuriant grass.

In the midst of this sylvan paradise grew up Squire Boone's son,
Daniel Boone, a Pennsylvania youth of English stock, Quaker
persuasion, and Baptist proclivities. Seen through a glorifying
halo after the lapse of a century and three quarters, he rises
before us a romantic figure, poised and resolute, simple,
benign--as naive and shy as some wild thing of the primeval
forest--five feet eight inches in height, with broad chest and
shoulders, dark locks, genial blue eyes arched with fair
eyebrows, thin lips and wide mouth, nose of slightly Roman cast,
and fair, ruddy countenance. Farming was irksome to this
restless, nomadic spirit, who on the slightest excuse would
exchange the plow and the grubbing hoe for the long rifle and
keen-e