Daniel Boone opened the way for the Ricks Family

I just finished this biography of Daniel Boone. Well researched and well written, the book tells the story of the real Daniel Boone as well as the story of the legend written about him during his lifetime and published in the United States as well as Europe. It was even more interesting having traveled over some of the topography during our trip back east a year ago. As I read, I began to better understand the migration of the Ricks family from Virginia and North Carolina to Trigg Co., Kentucky during the presidency of George Washington. Daniel Boone was the trail blazer who opened a way through the Cumberland Gap leading to a migration west into what would become Kentucky. Joel Ricks along with other members of the extended family moved to Donaldson Creek, Trigg County, Kentucky where his son, Thomas E. Ricks was born in 1828. As a toddler, he moved with his family north to Olive, Madison County, Illinois. When 16, his family joined the church and moved to Nauvoo, Illinois.

Interestingly, Daniel Boone and several of his children moved on west of the Mississippi to what would become Missouri before the Louisiana Purchase and about the time the Ricks family was moving to Kentucky (which was made a state in 1792). Kentucky was becoming much too crowded and "civilized" for Daniel's taste. He is known to have hunted and explored as far as the Rocky Mountains before his death in 1820 in his youngest son Nathan's home in Missouri. The Ricks family eventually outdid Daniel migrating to the Salt Lake Valley and then Idaho where Thomas was one of the original founders of Madison County, Idaho.

I always love it when I read historical things and then am able to make connections to our family history providing a frame work to better understand ancestors and their reality.