It is an odd fact that those who accomplish the most often spend years fumbling and stumbling to find what it is they can achieve. The first half of a life may be given to experiment, trial and error, failure after failure. If Boone had a sense of his destiny at the time, it was frustrated again and again by false starts, dead ends, detours, and digressions. While his fame as a hunter grew, his debts also grew. Though he seemed to have had a sense of his calling from his youth, he must have suffered serious doubts about the exact nature of the call, his purpose, his future. The decade of the 1760s could be called a time of wandering in the wilderness for Boone, in a metaphoric as well as a literal sense. It might be said he was auditioning for parts in the unfolding story of his life and times. In Rowan County’s Minutes, Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions the following entry can be found: “A Deed of Gift from Squire Boone and Sarah his wife to Daniel Boone his son for 640 acres of Land 18th Day of October 1759.
