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Crockett & Boone: Lessons from History

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(This blog is part of series on famous people in Church history.  It is written as if the person himself were telling you about their life.  Paul says “These things happened as our examples” 1 Corinthians 10:6,11.)

DAVEY CROCKETT  Born in Tennessee in 1786, Davey Crockett became a legend while still alive.  He was a poor farmer but a skillful hunter.  He had a family and many children but was seldom at home.  Moving and exploring were more for him.  He was even in the Tennessee legislature for 8 years.  As to his spiritual life, not much is know.  He did hear the gospel preached and shared often.  He understood he needed to accept Jesus as his Savior to have his sins forgiven and to go to heaven, but there is no record of any spiritual interest or acceptance of it.  He was a very nice man, but there is no historical evidence he ever committed his life to Jesus before he died in the Alamo in 1836.

DANIEL BOONE  Daniel Boone was born in 1734 near Reading, Pa.  He grew up in a Quaker family.  Daniel’s father, Squire, was a prominent man in their local Meeting, as Quaker assemblies were called.  He was an “overseer,” and also a trustee of their little burial ground.  The Quaker Meeting turned against the Boones when Daniel’s older sister married someone who wasn’t a Quaker (and later was found to be pregnant before the marriage).  Then things got worse when his older brother, Israel, also married outside the church.  Squire insisted on his son’s right to marry whomever he wanted.  He was “disowned” – a kind of Quaker excommunication because of the ‘sins’ of his children.  The rest of the family were still members in good standing, but the local Quakers could, and did, make life very difficult for the Boones.  Daniel was a very impressionable 13 years old at this time.    It was soon after this that they sold all they had and moved to better farmland where there were less people in the Shenandoah Valley.  John Lincoln, the great-grandfather of Abraham, also left this area for the Shenandoah Valley about the same time.  Squire took his 13 children (the 3 married ones brought their families) and moved first to the Shenandoah Valley, then to North Carolina.

            When he was 22 Daniel got married.  Since he was living in Missouri the ceremony was Roman Catholic.  In order to have land there he had to prove his orthodox faith by stating he believed in God Almighty, the Trinity, Jesus Christ as Savior, and such things as these.  Daniel stayed Protestant and never joined the Roman Catholic Church.  There were many Methodists and Baptists in the area, too.  Many of his family became Baptists.  He went to Baptist preaching himself sometimes.  One of his future biographers, Rev. John M. Peck, preached to him often.  Sometimes this missionary parson talked with him about his soul and making a “profession of faith,” but the Baptist theology never impressed Daniel Boone very much.

            “He never made a profession of religion,” said one of them, “but still was what the world calls a very moral man.  I asked him if he thought he loved God?  He replied, ‘I hope so.’  I aksed again, ‘Do you remember the time when you experienced a change in your feelings towards the Savior?  He replied, ‘No, Sir, I always loved God ever since I could recollect.’  He listened to preaching with apparent interest, but never make a public commitment.  Had he accepted Jesus as his Savior when very young in his Quaker church?  Had that poor experience with the Quakers turned him against organized religion from then on (he never joined another church)?  Or was he just outwardly religious without any personal relationship with Jesus?

            Toward the end of his life, when he had little enforced leisure as his hunting and trapping grew less arduous, he read a great deal in his Bible.  He had an interest in life after death and once agreed with a friend that the one who died first should try to communicate from beyond the grave.  Nothing came of it.  Squire made his sons promise to wait at the mouth of the limestone cave he had chosen for him tomb the night after they buried him.  The sons waited, but nothing happened.

            Daniel once wrote out a few of his thoughts on matters theological for the benefit of a sister-in-law: “Relating to our family and how we Live in this World and what Chance we Shall have in the next we know Not for my part I am as ignurant as a Child all the Relegan I have to Love and feer god beleve in Jeses Christ Dow all the good to my Nighbour and my Self that I Can and Do as Little harm as I Can help and trust in gods marcy for the Rest and I beleve god neve made a man of my prisepel to be Lost and I flater my Self Deer Sister that you are wll on your way in Christianaty.”

            The life of Daniel Boone on earth is well known and there are many sources where you can fill in all the earthly details.  As to his life in heaven or hell, there is no way of knowing.  I won’t be surprised if I see him there, though.  We’ll just have to wait and see.


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