Boone, Daniel, hunter, trapper, Indian fighter and pioneer, was one of the first white men of American birth to visit the Kansas Valley. This fact is not generally known, because the many biographies of this noted character make but slight mention of his 25 years' residence west of the Mississippi river. His grandfather, George Boone, was born in Devonshire, England, 1666, and came to America in 1717, locating in Berks county, Pa. Squire Boone, the father of Daniel, was born in 1698, before the family left England, and Daniel was born in Bucks county, Pa., Feb. 11, 1735. In 1749 he went to North Carolina with his parents, and in 1772 to Kentucky. In 1796, through defective titles and the work of unscrupulous attorneys, he lost his land in Kentucky, renounced his allegiance to the government of the United States, and became a resident of the Spanish province of Louisiana, in what is now St. Charles county, Mo. Two years later, upon his declaring his intention of becoming a Spanish subject, he was appointed commandant of the Femme Osage district, which position he held until Louisiana passed into the hands of the United States in 1803. For his services the Spanish government gave him a grant of 2,000 acres of land in St. Charles county, Mo. Boone was in the habit of taking long hunting trips, never losing his love for nor his skill in the use of the rifle. Between the years 1805 and 1815 he hunted up the valley of the Kansas river for a distance of 100 miles from its mouth, and in the spring of 1818, when 83 years of age, he wrote to his son: "I intend by next autumn to take two or three whites and a party of Osage Indians and visit the salt mountains, lakes and ponds and see these natural curiosities. They are about five or six hundred miles west of here."

The "natural curiosities" referred to were probably the Rock Saline and its surroundings, in the Indian Territory just south of Harper county, Kan., but there is no positive evidence that Boone carried out his intention of visiting the place.

By the treaty of June 3, 1825, with the Kanzas Indians, the government agreed to furnish these Indians with certain live stock, utensils, etc., and Daniel Morgan Boone, a son of Daniel Boone, was appointed to instruct the members of the tribe in the arts of agriculture. Under date of Feb. 8, 1879, a son of this Daniel Morgan Boone wrote to W. W. Cone of Topeka: "My brother, Napoleon Boone, son of Maj. Daniel Morgan Boone, and a direct grandson of the old Kentucky pioneer, was the first white child born in the territory of Kansas—at least such is the history in our family. My father was appointed farmer for the Kaw Indians early in the year 1827. On his appointment he moved with his family into a house he built, seven miles up the Kaw river from where Lawrence was afterward built, on the north bank. Here my brother, Napoleon, was born Aug. 22, 1828."

Daniel Boone died on Sept. 26, 1820, and at the time the above letter was written the writer was the only survivor of the family. The place mentioned in the letter is not far from the present station of Lake View on the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe R. R.