Different authorities assign a different birth place to DANIEL BOONE.
One affirms that he was born in Maryland, another in North Carolina,
another in Virginia, and still another during the transit of his parents
across the Atlantic. But they are all equally in error. He was born in
the year 1746, in Bucks county, Pennsylvania, near Bristol, on the right
bank of the Delaware, about twenty miles from Philadelphia. His father
removed, when he was three years old, to the vicinity of Reading, on the
head waters of the Schuylkill. From thence, when his son was thirteen
years old, he migrated to North Carolina, and settled in one of the
valleys of South Yadkin.

The remotest of his ancestors, of whom there is any recorded notice, is
Joshua Boone, an English Catholic. He crossed the Atlantic to the
shores of the Chesapeake Bay, with those who planted the first germ of
the colony of Maryland. A leading motive to emigration with most of
these colonists, was to avoid that persecution on account of their
religion, which however pleasant to inflict, they found it uncomfortable
to endure. Whether this gentleman emigrated from this inducement, as has
been asserted, or not, it is neither possible, nor, as we deem,
important to settle; for we cannot find, that religious motives had any
direct influence in shaping the character and fortunes of the hero of
the woods. Those who love to note the formation of character, and
believe in the hereditary transmission of peculiar qualities, naturally
investigate the peculiarities of parents, to see if they can find there
the origin of those of the children. Many--and we are of the
number--consider transmitted endowment as the most important link in the
chain of circumstances, with which character is surrounded. The most
splendid endowments in innumerable instances, have never been brought to
light, in defect of circumstances to call them forth. The ancestors of