Daniel Boone — Cryptid Hunter?
Well, sure. Any hunter who spends as much time in the woods as Boone is gonna run across some weird critters, right? Now, hunters have also been known to tell a tall tale or two, as well, so I guess we takes our choice.
Boone’s fine biographer, John Mack Faragher recounts a tale from late in the Long Hunter’s storied life:
“…Tradition said that Boone visited Limestone about that time, staying with his cousin Jacob Boone, a prominent merchant in that town. Boone had supposedly come downriver after visiting his son Jesse at Greenupsburg and was honored at a gala dinner that included all of the distinguished local citizenry.
After the meal one of the men asks Boone for a story, and he begins a tale but is interrupted by a man who claims that his story is “impossible.” With this remark Boone shuts up and despite urgings that he continue, he refuses to speak further.
Later that evening, when he has retired to the room he shares with the son of the tavern keeper, the boy asks him about his silence. “I dislike to be in a crowd” Boone explains, and “would not have opened my lips had that man remained.” Well, we are alone now, says the boy, and he presses the old man to tell the story.
“You shall have it, honey” says Boone, who has taken a fancy to him, and proceeds to tell of killing a ten foot, hairy giant he called a “Yahoo.” The Yahoos were giant beasts in human shape from Boone’s favorite book, Gulliver’s Travels. It was a tall tale that Boone repeated to a number of people during his last year, one such as he would have told in a winter camp.”
Gulliver meets a Yahoo.
Deciding that Station Camp was too close to the Warrior’s Path, they moved their base camp to a location near the junction of the Red River with the Kentucky on a small stream which they later named the Lulbegrud Creek.
The naming of this creek came about in this manner. Among the items brought from the settlement by Squire Boone (Daniel’s brother) was a copy of the book, Gulliver’s Travels. After establishing camp on this small creek near the mouth of the Red River, one of the party was reading aloud about the inhabitants of some mythical land whose town was known as Lulbegrud. At this point, Indians were observed approaching, and the hunters took to cover driving them off.
As they settled down again around the campfire, Neeley remarked, “We have disposed of the Lulbegruds.” This remark seemed to strike the fancy of the other two hunters, and it was agreed that this creek on which they were camped would be named Lulbegrud Creek, and was so posted on their map.
This creek, which runs under the Mountain Parkway a few miles east of Winchester, Kentucky, is still known as Lulbegrud Creek.
The Ozark Howler, also known as the Ozark Black Howler, the Hoo-Hoo, the Nightshade Bear, and the Devil Cat, is a legendary creature that is purported to live in remote areas in Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Texas. It is typically described as being bear sized, with a thick body, stocky legs, black shaggy hair, glowing red eyes, and prominent horns. Its cry is often described as being a combination of a wolf’s howl, an elk’s bugle, and the laugh of a hyena.
An early American adage proclaimed, “The frontier was heaven for men and dogs―hell for women and mules.” Since the 1700s, when his name first appeared in print, Daniel Boone has been synonymous with America’s westward expansion and life on the frontier. Traces is a retelling of Boone’s saga through the eyes of his wife, Rebecca, and her two oldest daughters, Susannah and Jemima.Daniel became a mythic figure during his lifetime, but his fame fueled backwoods gossip that bedeviled the Boone women throughout their lives―most notably the widespread suspicion that one of Rebecca’s children was fathered by Daniel’s younger brother. Traces explores the origins of these rumors, exposes the harsh realities of frontier life, and gives voice to the women whose vibrant lives have been reduced to little more than scattered footnotes within the historical record.Along the path of Daniel’s restless wandering, the women were eyewitnesses to the clash of cultures between the settlers and the indigenous tribes who fought to retain control of their native lands, which made life on the frontier an ongoing struggle for survival.Patricia Hudson gives voice to these women, all of whom were pioneers in their own right. The Boone women’s joys and sorrows, as well as those of countless other forgotten women who braved the frontier, are invisibly woven into the fabric of America’s early years and the story of this country’s westward expansion.
Traces has a prestige publisher in the University Press of Kentucky, and got a strong notice from Publishers Weekly. This is a tale worthy of the telling, and I have it on hold at the library.
Matthew says
The Last Wooly Mammoth by Manly Wade Wellman had a cameo by Boone. (Actually, I think he speaks the first dialogue in the book.) The story is about a young frontiersman who helps a Cherokee tribe deal with, as the title says, The Last Woolly Mammoth. The idea that Mammoths still existed on the American frontier was speculated by the likes of Thomas Jefferson. It’s not a must-read (like Wellman’s Silver John stories), but it is a fun boys adventure.
Cryptids are always fascinating to read about. There’s part of human nature that really wishes that we find out its true. It’s unlikely Bigfoot for example exist, but we do discover new species every once and while. Hell, gorillas were once thought to be myths.
NattyBumpo says
Some of the megafauna like mastadons went extinct around 10,000 years ago or less. It’s not entirely out of the realm of possibility that maybe something survived longer in the dense forests of Appalachia like WV or eastern Kentucky. After the 9/11 attacks I’ll never forget a general stating that catching Bin Laden would be like trying to go rabbit hunting for one specific rabbit in West Virginia. I believe that both the last Elk and Bison killed east of the Mississippi were both in WV as well so who knows maybe something could have been encountered by Boone that was already extinct everywhere else. It still blows my mind to think that elephant relatives, giant lions and sloths were once roaming around in North America not that long ago. Kind of wish they were still here but not sure how it would work out with so many cars and people.
JimC says
Wooly Mammoth De-Extinction
AS A RAPIDLY ADVANCING climate emergency turns the planet ever hotter, the Dallas-based biotechnology company Colossal Biosciences has a vision: “To see the Woolly Mammoth thunder upon the tundra once again.” Founders George Church and Ben Lamm have already racked up an impressive list of high-profile funders and investors, including Peter Thiel, Tony Robbins, Paris Hilton, Winklevoss Capital — and, according to the public portfolio its venture capital arm released this month, the CIA.
Colossal says it hopes to use advanced genetic sequencing to resurrect two extinct mammals — not just the giant, ice age mammoth, but also a mid-sized marsupial known as the thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger, that died out less than a century ago. On its website, the company vows: “Combining the science of genetics with the business of discovery, we endeavor to jumpstart nature’s ancestral heartbeat.”
In-Q-Tel, its new investor, is registered as a nonprofit venture capital firm funded by the CIA. On its surface, the group funds technology startups with the potential to safeguard national security. In addition to its long-standing pursuit of intelligence and weapons technologies, the CIA outfit has lately displayed an increased interest in biotechnology and particularly DNA sequencing.
“Why the interest in a company like Colossal, which was founded with a mission to “de-extinct” the wooly mammoth and other species?” reads an In-Q-Tel blog post published on September 22. “Strategically, it’s less about the mammoths and more about the capability.”
It’s fine. I’m sure it’s fine…
Matthew says
Okay, the CIA wants to breed supersoldiers.
NattyBumpo says
Sounds like another movie should be in the works:
Pleistocene Park. Probably should have already done that one since the last couple Jurrasic films have been pretty bad. The last one should have killed off the franchise and made it extinct.
JimC says
I haven’t seen any since the first, but I often invoke the quote:
An this on’s on point, too:
Quixotic Mainer says
I won’t say I believe until I see some hard evidence for myself, but with so many accounts and eye witnesses; I can only say that they are seeing something. That being said, you know that these folks saw *something*, but it could be only vaguely like what they ultimately verbalize to you. Assuming Boone wasn’t kidding this fella, he’s definitely an SME, and knows when a beast doesn’t belong amongst the normal critters.
Growing up, the old folks around town would tell stories about the “Dun Garven Whooper”, which was reportedly a black panther of sorts, who used to be the terror of the town. The debate over whether or not pumas, melanistic or otherwise exist up here is pretty contentious.
JimC says
The woods can be distorting, too, as you know. Our brains are such pattern-seeking devices that we can turn stumps into all kinds of objects and convince ourselves that that is what we’re seeing. Just last week, I saw a log that, in odd light, looked like a giant duffle bag that somebody had left behind. I KNEW it was a log because this was on a regular trail of mine — and yet my mind kept making it into that giant duffle bag. My mind was telling my eyes what they saw.
There’s probably some technical term for it, which I should probably track down — but I bet this phenomenon is responsible for a LOT of cryptid sightings. People aren’t bullshitting — they actually SAW what they “saw,” it’s just that the mind is messing with them, desperately trying to establish a pattern and a category.
lane batot says
Accounts of Boone’s “Yahoo” is often used as a favorite story by Bigfoot Believers as more “evidence” of Bigfeets in our history, yet with all these Frontier marksmen, and wilderness skilled Natives by the thousands drawn into the frontier trade, never a single shred of physical evidence has EVER been presented–even though specimens of “new” species were being taken and studied and identified since the first European colonists waded ashore! I think Boone’s story is just a Frontiersman’s tale well told with one’s tongue firmly in the cheek! And Boone was known for that, of course. Who doesn’t enjoy pulling a greenhorn’s leg? And I am a set Bigfeet skeptic with perhaps a unique perspective on the subject, because yes, I KNOW of some Bigfoot sightings where some people absolutely DID see a Bigfoot of sorts–or rather, a facsimile–my teen-aged self in a handmade gorilla suit! And having later heard all manner of exaggerations from the eyewitnesses(And I KNOW they were exaggerations, because I had been there at the time!), I easily see how most “sightings” can get remembered all out of proportion with reality! Until a bonifide Bigfoot carcass is ACTUALLY produced, I will continue to be a doubter–unless, of course, one subscribes to the theories that Bigfeets are psychic, mind-reading, dimension-hopping beings. Which would be a whole ‘nuther kettle of fish, of course. THAT might explain why, in centuries of trigger happy incidents, a body, or part of a body has never been produced……
lane batot says
….And regarding the melanistic (black) pumas(cougars, mountain lions, panthers, painters, catamounts, etc. etc. etc.)–those that INSIST they are out there(I’ve had such discussions HUNDREDS of time with folks, having been a cougar keeper at a zoo for many years, not to mention a big cougar geek forever!) can never explain WHY, in several centuries of thousands and thousands of cougars hunted and shot, there has NEVER been a black one produced. Not EVER. Ditto for the THOUSANDS bred in captivity, for zoos and the exotic pet trade, where color morphs are eagerly bred for!(as in white tigers and lions–there HAVE been a very few white–leucistic and albino cougars seen/photographed/killed, however!) NEVER. A. BLACK. PUMA! LOTS of cats have black color phases, though, but alas, cougars just DON’T. A Black Leopard(panther) or jaguar escaped/released in the United States? NOT beyond the realm of possibility. A breeding population of large exotic black cats out there? Hardly, or we’d have PLENTY of hunter evidence of such–not to mention road kills on occasion! But the odd individual escaped cat might be responsible for this entrenched, plethora of stories that is immensely popular! There have rarely been black BOBCATS sighted/killed/photographed–usually in Florida. But a bobcat ain’t hardly a cougar! Unless, of course(again), these giant black “panthers” are also psychic, mind-reading, dimension-jumping critters like Bigfoot. I’m not about to argue basic critter logic with THOSE theories…..
lane batot says
….And about resurrecting extinct species–well heck yeah! I’m all for it! But then, I’d take up the Ghost Dance and roll up the entire Wasichu world and bring back the buffalo herds and all the old time Indians, too, did I have the power! The Thylacine(Tasmanian wolf or tiger)? Sure, not much threat or impact on humans in a few remote Tasmanian National Parks, or zoos, where they would be kept. Mammoths or Mastodons roaming the American West again? Or Sabertooths, even BIGGER bears, or Dire Wolves, when we have a hard time making any place for our present large carnivores? Yeah, I’d LOVE it, but it would NOT likely go well cohabiting with modern human society! Look how difficult it is in Africa for people living next to elephants and lions! We’d have to have a much larger percentage of our population that had a tree-hugging, incredibly critter tolerant philosophy!