Daniel Boone's grave. Original plaque, before 2008 theft.

Daniel Boone's First Grave

Marthasville, Missouri

Everyone agrees that frontier folk here Daniel Boone died at his son's home near Defiance, Missouri, in 1820. Everyone also agrees that he was buried about 14 miles west in Marthasville, near the grave of his wife, Rebecca. But then the story gets muddled.

Frankfort, the state capital of Kentucky, exhumed Daniel and Rebecca 25 years later and reburied them in Frankfort Cemetery. But for years Marthasville claimed that Frankfort had dug up the wrong body. They said that the grave next to Rebecca's was already occupied when Daniel died, so he was buried at her feet. And since Daniel's relatives were angry at Frankfort for digging up Daniel, they didn't tell them about his true burial plot. They let Frankfort cart away the body next to Rebecca's, the body of a stranger.

Why would a frontiersman like Boone want to be buried in a fancy state capital cemetery anyway? The grave monument near Marthasville is out by itself, and it's worth remembering that Daniel Boone's own reason for leaving Kentucky was that it was "too crowded." Its remoteness, however, proved a disadvantage in June 2008, when its "lucky nose" bronze plaque was stolen and sold for scrap. The plaque was later replaced by one made of black granite.

In June 2010 an official document filed by the Friends of Daniel Boone's Burial Site in Missouri conceded that some of Boone's bones were dug up and moved to Kentucky, but only the "large" ones. "His heart and brain," the document said, "remain where he was buried." It also stated that Boone left Kentucky in 1799 on bad terms, and that he swore he'd rather die than set foot there again.

Since both towns now have Daniel Boone graves with worthy monuments, and since the monument is all that you get to see anyway, we say that Daniel Boone is buried in the spot easiest for you to get to.