Ken Kamper has spent thirty years tracking down the real Daniel Boone, and what he has found is so interesting that he and his son Kevin felt that they had to share his findings with everyone else.
It may be hard to believe but many important facts about Daniel Boone and his family have been overlooked or misrepresented or under represented by all of his biographers, and what has been left out of his story is quite amazing. What has been found is a treasure that should have never been lost.
Ken Kamper is the founder and Historian for the "Daniel Boone and Frontier Families Research Association", his son Kevin Kamper, a computer wizard, tracks down archived Internet information that Ken identifies.
Our venture into Boone history started in 1981, when Ken by some unusual circumstance came across the original 1817 Government Survey Plat showing the location of Daniel Boone's 1799 Spanish Land Grant in what is now Missouri. He soon realized that only a few persons knew of the land or its location. A natural curiosity for learning more about the real Daniel Boone led Ken to seek such information from library books, only to find that each account about Daniel Boone differed considerably from the others. From that point an intense search for information began and has continued through the years.
Ken has searched for, obtained, studied, and assembled, all of the information that he could find regarding Daniel Boone, Daniel's family, the Bryan family of Daniel's wife Rebecca Bryan, and their involvement in the frontier westward movement. The search has included the Boone related history in what are now the states of Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, and Missouri. In the latter mentioned state, it was found that the Missouri Boone history had been overlooked by previous researchers even though Daniel had lived in Missouri for nearly 21 years versus 20 years in Kentucky. Yet Missouri was very important as Daniel's chosen final home, and as the home state for five of Daniel and Rebecca's children and 68 grandchildren. To further illustrate the point, Ken has found and defined a number of important Boone history items including the stone house of Daniel's brother Squire, the stone oxen-driven mill building of Jonathan Bryan (Rebecca's first cousin), three previously unknown, extremely important American trails blazed by the Boones, a number of Boone family house sites, cemeteries, and War of 1812 fort locations where Daniel’s sons were involved, and so forth.
Included in the research has been essentially all of the main Boone related history books, including all of the thirty Boone biographies and partial biographies, family genealogy books, government documents with Boone information, state histories, county histories, and official records such as Court of Quarter Sessions, Circuit Court, Deeds, Taxes, Marriages, etc., and many other books and documents that offer information about the Boone and Bryan frontier history from the 1680s until Missouri Statehood in 1821. Ken now has over one-thousand books, and several thousand file folders, in addition to maps, rolls of microfilm and CDs, and other such information.
A separate Daniel Boone Research Group, formed by a number of Boone researchers, is also being created into a Web Site to offer much of the factual information for public knowledge, some without charge and in some cases for purchase.
Our primary research period is 1700-1820
THE OBJECTIVES ARE TO RESEARCH, ASSEMBLE, RECORD, AND PRESENT
1- The complete and factual story of Daniel Boone, his ancestry, and his family.
2- The history and genealogy of all of the frontier families who lived in Missouri prior to 1820. Almost all of them came from Kentucky, Virginia, and Tennessee.
3- The true (overlooked) American frontier history, as it moved along (with Daniel Boone) through what is now Virginia and North Carolina, Tennessee and Kentucky, West Virginia, and on to and through Missouri.
4- All of the Boone related frontier sites on maps, including all known property locations, houses, mills, historic events, and frontier family cemeteries.
5- Photocopies of Boone and associated families official documents: marriage licenses, deeds, wills, probate records, etc., plus family letters.
6- The location of reference sources for our subjects, including available books and archived records.
7- Information to generate public support for preserving the remaining Boone era sites.
It is hoped that through finding, assembling, and presenting our important history subjects, that we will stimulate public awareness in the previously overlooked early American history, and thereby gain support for carrying out our goals, ...our main goal being to establish a Daniel Boone History Museum and a Frontier Families Genealogy Research Center within the "Boone Settlement" of Missouri. The Boone Settlement in Missouri was the location chosen by Daniel Boone, five of his children, and sixty-eight of his grandchildren as their "home". It is where Daniel Boone lived during the last 20 years of his life. There has never been a museum built for presenting the complete accurate story of Daniel Boone, for recognizing his important role in American history, despite the fact that he has been one of America's most recognized legends for over 200 years.
The above was written a number of years ago, when the goals were only a dream of our Historian Ken Kamper. At the time only he knew that that there was a wealth of untapped information to fill in many important aspects of Daniel Boone’s life, showing that while there were many leaders who performed important roles during the frontier period that led to America’s “Westward Expansion”, Daniel Boone and his family just happened to be at the right places at the time to play enough of the leading role, to where the history of their lives tells the story of the events during America’s westward migration from the Atlantic Coast to west of the Mississippi River. That period in history and those events are what set the stage for the development of America into becoming the Greatest Nation on Earth.
During the past several years Ken’s vast storage of knowledge in the form of books and files and his “Research Papers” has been recognized by a number of individuals, to where the proposed a Daniel Boone History Museum and a Boone/Early American History Research Center, and his many other findings, such as three important but previously forgotten Boone trails, Boone family homes and home sites, and still remaining Boone places such as Daniel Boone’s 1000 Arpent (850 acre) Spanish Land Grant in Missouri. Compared to some years ago, the information is now available through Ken’s research. Other persons are now becoming interested in making the important dream come true, where the general public will be able to see and appreciate the frontier part of our tremendous early American history. If all happens as hoped, this history will stimulate a reborn interest by students of all ages in they history that tells who we are and what our country is, and why.
If all can happen as hoped, this history will stimulate a reborn interest by students of all ages in the history that tells the very interesting aspects of who we are and why. Ken has reached an age where some of these things have to happen. If you have an interest in seeing them happen also, feel free to contact us and let us know your interest. We have some ideas of what it takes, and mainly it takes people who are interested.