Although Allan Eckert’s books in the Winning of America Series continue to be our best sellers, we have other excellent books on our pioneer heritage. One of my favorites is “The Hunters of Kentucky: A Narrative History of America’s First Far West, 1750-1797” by Ted Franklin Belue, a senior lecturer in history at Murray State University.
Kante-Ke, the Indian name for Kentucky, still evokes images of buffalo, elk, and whitetail covering the landscape like vast game herds roving the Serengeti and remains a symbol of America’s first “Far West,” a New World Eden that sparked mass migration through Cumberland Gap and Down the Ohio, and ultimately, the creation of the Union’s fifteenth state.
Daniel Boone, forever linked with the “Island in the wilderness,” was not the first white man to behold Kentucky’s herds, tall timber, shimmering bluegrass, and lush soil. Boone—like other explorers, surveyors, and hunters—was a beneficiary of tantalizing tidbits gleaned from Indians, French trappers, English adventurers, and cadres of deerslayers looking westward whose stories have remained muted. At least, until now.
This is unlike any Kentucky book ever before written. Through a deftly woven tapestry of narratives, Belue conveys the sweep of humantide infiltrating the land that would become Kentucky. His focus rests upon common men–George Bedinger, Nicholas Cresswell, James Nourse, Daniel Trabue, Spencer Records, Monk Estill, James Smith—and a few famous ones, like Dr. Thomas Walker, Christopher Gist, Capt. Thomas Bullitt’s Fincastle surveyors, the infamous Simon Girty, and the legendary Boone. Belue depicts with exquisite detail the food, clothing, tools, weaponry, habits, skills, and customs of the day.
Belue, like Allan Eckert, writes history that reads like a novel. “The Hunters of Kentucky” combines wild exploits, murderous mayhem, humor, and high adventure with tragedy, heroism, and pathos. The result is a book that breathes new life into the history of a land and the lives of those well-known as well as those ordinary yet extraordinary men whose exploits and perseverance in the face of incredible perils and hardships shaped the destiny of Kentucky and the United States.
Ted Belue has been a friend to the Jesse Stuart Foundation for many years. Like Eckert, he is a versatile man who would have thrived as an eighteen-century frontiersman. In fact, when Hollywood did a remake of “The Last of the Mohicans” starring Daniel Day Lewis, Ted got a non-speaking part in the movie as an Indian.
Belue is a fine scholar who has written or edited several books on Daniel Boone and other Kentucky frontier topics. You may have seen him on TV. He is a consultant and on-air commentator for The History Channel. Ted is a member of the Kentucky Humanities Council Speakers’ Bureau and a true public intellectual with broad ranging accomplishments as an author, editor, lecturer, and historical consultant.
Belue’s books and dozens of others that comment on our pioneer heritage are available at the Jesse Stuart Foundation & Gift Shop at 4440 13th Street in Ashland. For more information, call 606-326-1667 or e-mail jsf@jsfbooks.com.
By James M. Gifford
JSF CEO & Senior Editor
Although Allan Eckert’s books in the Winning of America Series continue to be our best sellers, we have other excellent books on our pioneer heritage. One of my favorites is “The Hunters of Kentucky: A Narrative History of America’s First Far West, 1750-1797” by Ted Franklin Belue, a senior lecturer in history at Murray State University.
Kante-Ke, the Indian name for Kentucky, still evokes images of buffalo, elk, and whitetail covering the landscape like vast game herds roving the Serengeti and remains a symbol of America’s first “Far West,” a New World Eden that sparked mass migration through Cumberland Gap and Down the Ohio, and ultimately, the creation of the Union’s fifteenth state.
Daniel Boone, forever linked with the “Island in the wilderness,” was not the first white man to behold Kentucky’s herds, tall timber, shimmering bluegrass, and lush soil. Boone—like other explorers, surveyors, and hunters—was a beneficiary of tantalizing tidbits gleaned from Indians, French trappers, English adventurers, and cadres of deerslayers looking westward whose stories have remained muted. At least, until now.
This is unlike any Kentucky book ever before written. Through a deftly woven tapestry of narratives, Belue conveys the sweep of humantide infiltrating the land that would become Kentucky. His focus rests upon common men–George Bedinger, Nicholas Cresswell, James Nourse, Daniel Trabue, Spencer Records, Monk Estill, James Smith—and a few famous ones, like Dr. Thomas Walker, Christopher Gist, Capt. Thomas Bullitt’s Fincastle surveyors, the infamous Simon Girty, and the legendary Boone. Belue depicts with exquisite detail the food, clothing, tools, weaponry, habits, skills, and customs of the day.
Belue, like Allan Eckert, writes history that reads like a novel. “The Hunters of Kentucky” combines wild exploits, murderous mayhem, humor, and high adventure with tragedy, heroism, and pathos. The result is a book that breathes new life into the history of a land and the lives of those well-known as well as those ordinary yet extraordinary men whose exploits and perseverance in the face of incredible perils and hardships shaped the destiny of Kentucky and the United States.
Ted Belue has been a friend to the Jesse Stuart Foundation for many years. Like Eckert, he is a versatile man who would have thrived as an eighteen-century frontiersman. In fact, when Hollywood did a remake of “The Last of the Mohicans” starring Daniel Day Lewis, Ted got a non-speaking part in the movie as an Indian.
Belue is a fine scholar who has written or edited several books on Daniel Boone and other Kentucky frontier topics. You may have seen him on TV. He is a consultant and on-air commentator for The History Channel. Ted is a member of the Kentucky Humanities Council Speakers’ Bureau and a true public intellectual with broad ranging accomplishments as an author, editor, lecturer, and historical consultant.
Belue’s books and dozens of others that comment on our pioneer heritage are available at the Jesse Stuart Foundation & Gift Shop at 4440 13th Street in Ashland. For more information, call 606-326-1667 or e-mail jsf@jsfbooks.com.
By James M. Gifford
JSF CEO & Senior Editor
