On 14 August 1756, twenty-one-year-old Daniel Boone married seventeen-year-old Rebecca Bryan. By this time, Daniel had already served in Braddock’s Campaign during the French and Indian War, retreated from the Battle of the Monongahela, and listened to many tales of the Cumberland Gap and the land called Caintuck. He also had killed his first Indian, according to his own tales, by pushing the drunken man who threatened to scalp him, off a bridge into Pennsylvania’s Juniata River, while traveling home to the Yadkin Valley.
Some stories relate Daniel had met Rebecca Bryan two years, before his military service. Several other stories are told of their meeting and courtship. One tale reports how Daniel and a friend were fire hunting. This nighttime practice consisted of the hunters carrying a lit torch to mesmerize deer. While the deer stood staring at the flame, the hunter would see the glow of their eyes, creating an excellent target. Meanwhile, that same night, young Rebecca wandered about hunting for a cow that had strayed. Coming upon the torch light, her eyes glowed in the darkness, but Daniel held his fire. Rebecca realized what the torch signified and ran. Daniel followed her to the Bryan cabin and promptly fell in love. One of Rebecca’s own nieces pointed out when this story was relayed that human eyes do not reflect the way animal eyes do.
The story often told by the Bryan and Boone families describes Daniel and Rebecca’s meeting at a cherry picking in the summer of 1756. The event, a gathering for the young folks, found Rebecca dressed in her best gown and fine, white cambric apron. While sitting with Daniel, who is playing with his knife, Rebecca’s apron was cut several times. She ignores the damage. Years later, Daniel always told that he meant “to try her temper.”
It does not matter how they met. Their families lived as neighbors in the North Carolina backwoods. Both came from large God-fearing families. Daniel was known as a good hunter – a provider. Rebecca, a tall, buxom, black-haired comely woman, was an excellent housekeeper. She also was a good shot. The couple was married, by Daniel’s father, Squire Boone, the local justice of the peace. Throughout their marriage he called her “my little girl.” She bore him ten children, raised them mostly on her own, and moved west with him time and time again. Their marriage lasted fifty-six years and seven months, until her death on 18 March 1813, in Missouri.