Got a very nice note from Ted Franklin Belue a couple of days ago. He had some nice things to say about the work here, which is deeply pleasing to me, because Ted Franklin Belue is a kindred spirit and, in fact, one of the godfathers of Frontier Partisans.
Belue is the author of two essential frontier histories: The Hunters of Kentucky and The Long Hunt. I’ve referenced his work several times, because I think his analysis of the way the economics and culture of the early trans-Appalachian hunters worked is right in the x-ring.
Belue’s work, along with Winfred Blevins’ Rocky Mountain Fur Trade tribute, Give Your Heart to the Hawks, provided a model for what I seek to do — non-fiction historical storytelling that is accurate and authentic, but full of the rip-roaring vigor that the protagonists demand. This history is alive to him. I reckon he’s palavering with ghosts on a daily basis, just as I am.
His experience tracks with mine:
“Early in my life, at least by third grade, I became infatuated with the romance of America’s first ‘far west,’ that being frontier Kentucky, and woodland Indians, especially the Shawnee. In school I realized I had a knack for being able to express myself with a pen.”
Yep. The infatuation — and the compulsion to turn it into prose — is shared and apparently perpetual.
Reading this: “Great site … I love perusing through here… Again, keep up the great work. We need folks like you,” means a great deal to me. It’s like getting musical kudos from Waylon Jennings or Steve Earle. Seriously. That’s where Ted Franklin Belue stands in my estimation. My hat fits a little snugger than it did before I got that missive, and I might have to get out the stretcher… but I ain’t sorry.
Ted Franklin Belue’s work should be in every frontier history library, and I promise you’ll revisit it often. And if you enjoy this campfire, give him a nod and a tip of the hat, because he provided the char cloth and the flint and steel to make and catch the spark.
And he’s a musician, too.
Paul McNamee says
“Rapacious hunting” :/
Oh, to have seen those herds back in the day before the greed set in.
wayne says
I’m with you! Belue’s The Long Hunt is one of the best books on the subject, along with Robert John Holden’s lesser known The Hunting Pioneers: 1720-1840.
JimC says
First I’ve heard of the Holden book, which I will, of course, have to pick up. Some interesting parallels with the early trekboers, family groups who made their living entirely through hunting in southern Africa.
wayne says
It’s easy to imagine how that tradition of hunting as a way of life had boiled down to squirrel hunting, deer camp, trot line running, frog gigging, float fishing, box trapping rabbits, and quail and dove shoots in the south of my grandfather. Makes you wonder how much of that impulse to feed yourself from the wild will survive in the next few generations.
Padre says
I remember my dad and I enjoying his articles in Muzzleloader magazine and the late Dixie Gun Works Annual. Somehow I had forgotten about his books. They should be going on my to be read pile.
.lane batot says
Never heard of or come across his books before, but thanks to Frontier Partisans, I’ll be looking for copies……
JimC says
You’ll love his stuff.
Roger “Bigfoot” Cassady says
I’ve been a big fan of Mr. Belue’s writing for a long time. His Life of Daniel Boone from the Draper papers was great if you haven’t read it. For some reason I never bought The Hunters of Kentucky. Well my wife and I met him at Sharonville,Ohio a couple of weeks ago. I bought The Hunters of Kentucky and his newest book,Finding Daniel Boone from him. He was kind enough to write a note and sign both books. A fun man to talk with,too. Told him I enjoyed his sense of humor that came through in his last few articles in Muzzleloader Magazine. I was lucky enough to speak with David Wright & Jason Gatliff,too. A trifecta of talent!
JimC says
Oh, my. You were in the company of giants. That’s a fine day…
Ted Franklin Belue says
Jim, thank you for allowing the posting of all these kind words and for supporting my work in such a bold way; I’m much humbled and inspired. If you’d be willing to hit me up on my email with a mailing address I’d like to send you a review copy of my latest book, FINDING DANIEL BOONE: HIS LAST DAYS IN MISSOURI & THE STRANGE FATE OF HIS REMAINS and too, a copy of MUZZLELOADER featuring my AW Eckert article which contains your superlative blurb that you were so gracious to lend. Rather grim out there these days launching a new book so having you and your partisan cadre in my corner is much appreciated!
Brotherly, Ted Franklin Belue
JimC says
Welcome back to the campfire!
I ordered the book from my indie and picked it up yesterday. Already a third of the way in and finding it delightful. Will post on it very soon. I plan to encourage all to put it on their Christmas list. I’ll take that MUZZLELOADER mag though, with great pleasure. Thank you and congratulations on a genuinely groundbreaking piece of work.
Elizabeth Tucker Garner says
Mr Belue was my professor at Murray State in 1994. He was an amazing teacher. I’m going to order his books today. He made class fun as well as educational and made you excited to come back to the next class. I love history anyway. It was a passion my father and I shared together. I would go home and tell him what I had learned that day and wished he could have come with me. Thank you for letting us love class so much. You are one of the few I miss.
JimC says
Thanks for stopping by the campfire, Elizabeth. I will make sure that Mr. Belue sees this. I can promise you’ll enjoy the books.
Gary Peterson says
I’ve had a copy of “The Life of Daniel Boone” for well over a half dozen years, and one of my all time favorite little stories from any American history book I’ve read through the years (just turned 70 this month) comes from the Draper book that Mr. Belue made available to anyone interested in Dan’l. In 2015 my wife and I made a trip to Boone’s home place near Defiance, MO, and got to spend part of a day there; we want to go back, and needless to say, we’d like to spend more time there. On that same trip, my wife and I got to walk through Cumberland Gap, and explored the area fairly well. The visit to the Gap was a “bucket list” dream ever since I was a little kid back in the ’50’s, and that was before there even was such a term…Ha! Anyway, here’s the quote/story from Lyman Draper’s book, from times back in Dan’ls day, when the Brits and the Indians were a cause of deep concern to the settlers in the very early Western United States. And though this quote is from a man named Perkins (no doubt a Boone fan), who wrote it in 1846, I thought it still a very good personal glimpse of what the master woodsman, scout, and trusted friend of the folks back then was probably like in those troubled frontier times (think 1776). I like to think Mr. Perkins heard the real stories, from the real folks nearer to those contemporary, early settlement times.
“But there was one who sat at such times silent and seemingly unheeding, darning his hunting shirt, or mending his leggings, or preparing his rifle-balls for use; yet to him all eyes often turned. Two or three together, the other hunters started by day-light to reconnoitre; silently he sat working, until the day had drawn herself into the shadow of he earth, and the forest paths were wrapped in gloom. Then, noiselessly as the day had gone, he went; none saw him go,-he had been among them a moment before, and then was missing. ‘And now,’ said the loiterers by the smoldering logs, ‘we shall know something sure; for ol Daniel’s on track.’ And when, by and by, some one yet wakeful saw the shadow of Boone, as he reentered the cabin unheard as a shadow, he found, as usual, that the solitary scout had learned all that was to be known, and the watchful slept in peace. We know nothing more characteristic than this habit of his, so quietly, alone and in the darkness, to undertake the searching of the forest infested by Indians.” (“The Life of Daniel Boone,” by Lyman Draper, ed. Ted Franklin Belue, p. 408)
The book is full of this kind of stuff…Thanks, Mr. Belue, for making this great book available. I also have your book, “The Long Hunt.” Keep up the fine work. Hope to meet you at a rendezvous or rifle frolic at some point down the trail.
Thanks to you, too, JimC, for featuring Mr. Belue! It made me get out my Draper book to share the quote! Glad I perused the Partisan camp enough to find this great segment on T.F. Belue.
JimC says
That is most gratifying. Thank you.