Grave of Daniel Boone – Frankfort, Kentucky - Atlas Obscura
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Grave of Daniel Boone

Frankfort Cemetery
Frankfort, Kentucky

This grave marks the final resting place of a legendary frontiersman... unless it doesn't. 

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Grave of Daniel Boone PunkToad/CC BY 2.0
Grave of Daniel Boone PunkToad/CC BY 2.0
Grave of Daniel Boone Thomas Harper
Elison Williamson, friend and companion to Daniel Boone. PushingUpDaisies (Atlas Obscura User)
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One of the archetypal American frontiersmen, Daniel Boone is buried in Frankfort Cemetery with his wife Rebecca on a high bluff overlooking Kentucky’s capital city. However, people from Missouri, where Boone spent the last 20 years of his life, might have you believe otherwise.

Daniel Boone led one of the earliest waves of settlers into Kentucky County, then part of Virginia. His story was published by John Filson (with some embellishment) in 1784, then translated into various European languages, establishing his myth in the new United States and the world. Failures in land speculating would lead to Boone relocating to present-day West Virginia and later Missouri to continue hunting and trapping until his death in 1820.

He was buried near Marthasville, Missouri just west of St. Louis, but in 1845 both Daniel’s and Rebecca’s bodies were disinterred and moved to Frankfort Cemetery. There is disagreement to this day as to whether the Boones’ remains are the proper ones, or if some are in Kentucky and some in Missouri.

Know Before You Go

From the Frankfort Cemetery entrance on Glenns Creek Road, follow the yellow line in the road and the signs to the marker.

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