A Daniel Boone Surprise

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Back in April when Ray and I were in Cincinnati for the homeschool convention there, we made a brief visit to the (free!) Cincinnati Art Museum with our son and his family. We learned while we were there that the museum was soon to host an exhibit called “Terracotta Army: Legacy of the First Emperor of China.” Disappointed that we were there just a few days too soon, we penciled in the dates on our calendars.

The exhibit closes this coming Sunday. The drive to Cincinnati is a bit too far for us to go there and back in one day, so we decided to take a couple of days off. We got tickets for Tuesday (though the museum is free, there is a charge for this exhibit) and made a leisurely drive to Cincinnati on Monday.

We decided to stay off the Interstate and follow our noses. We always enjoy the beautiful Kentucky landscapes, but the ones we saw on Monday were particularly beautiful. The skies were blue with giant puffy clouds that kept me exclaiming all day!

I was disappointed at first because our noses weren’t finding anything particularly interesting. That changed when a helpful filling station attendant along the way suggested we have lunch in Boone Tavern at Berea College in Berea, Kentucky. That suggestion changed our day into a history lover’s dream. It became the kind of day we would have planned if we had actually planned, but every stop was a surprise.

Dinner at Boone Tavern is pricey, but lunch in its pretty dining room was reasonable, and every bite of our sandwich and side was wonderful. After lunch, we strolled through some of the nearby craft shops that help make Berea College famous. Then we headed north.

Just because you write about history doesn’t mean you know everything about every place — not by a long shot. I noticed that the town of Berea had signs depicting Daniel Boone and figured Boone Tavern must have been named for that famous pioneer.

The selfie station inside the lobby was another obvious connection to the famous Kentucky frontiersman.

Soon after we resumed our journey, Ray noticed a sign for Boonesborough Road. “Hmmm,” we thought. “I guess we are near Fort Boonesborough.” We have read and written about Fort Boonesborough, the place where Daniel Boone, his family, and other pioneers built a settlement. We were excited about seeing it and happy when we learned that we were just minutes away.

When we got to an entrance to Fort Boonesborough State Park, we were disappointed to find that we were there on the wrong day to visit the reconstructed fort.

However, we drove on to another park entrance and found treasures — not the reconstructed fort, but the site of the actual fort.

This is not the original wall.

Rather, the Daughters of the American Revolution created a monument here in 1907.

The monument is inscribed with the names of the first settlers, including members of the Boone family.

Across from the fort site is Sycamore Hollow.

Daniel Boone and a small group of settlers arrived in the area first and began to build huts in this hollow.

However, when land speculator Colonel Richard Henderson, who had purchased the land from the Cherokee people, arrived a few days later, he was afraid that the adjacent Kentucky River might flood the low Sycamore Hollow. He had them move the fort to higher ground.

The settlers continued to make use of Sycamore Hollow. They found several springs of both sulphur and fresh water there. It was also the location of a salt lick where animals came to find salt.

I was especially happy to learn about what happened at “Divine Elm.” located a few feet from both Sycamore Hollow and Fort Boonesborough. The elm is gone now, but on May 28, 1775, just two months after Daniel Boone and the first settlers arrived, Anglican minister John Lyth conducted the “first official Christian worship service in Kentucky” under that elm tree. The tree was so large that one hundred people could sit beneath it.

Late in his life Daniel Boone wrote about his own Christian faith in a letter to his sister-in-law. In his poor spelling and grammar, he wrote:

I am as ignerant as a Child all the Religan I have to Love and fear God believe in Jesus Christ. Dowall the good to my Neighbors and my Self  that I can and Do as Little harm as I can help and trust in God’s mercy for rest.

Let us trust God too and teach our children to do the same.

But now apart from the Law
the righteousness of God has been manifested,
being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets,
even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ
for all those who believe; for there is no distinction;
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
being justified as a gift by His grace
through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus;
whom God displayed publicly
as a propitiation in His blood through faith.
This was to demonstrate His righteousness,
because in the forbearance of God
He passed over the sins previously committed;
for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time,
so that He would be just and the justifier
of the one who has faith in Jesus.
Romans 3:21

 

 

 

 

 

 

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