Daniel Boone didn't actually wear a raccoon-skin cap.

U.S. History

I f you know one thing about Daniel Boone, it's probably that he wore a raccoon-skin fur cap. But alas, it turns out you might know zero things about the legendary frontiersman, as Boone never wore such a head covering at all. "My father, Daniel Boone, always despised the raccoon fur caps and did not wear one himself," his son Nathan Boone said in an 1851 interview with historian Lyman Draper. The elder Boone instead preferred a wide-brimmed, Quaker-style hat made of felt or beaver fur, which would have offered better protection from the elements and shielded his eyes from the sun during his many long hunting trips.

We may have an actor named Noah Ludlow (1795–1886) to thank for the myth of Boone's raccoon-skin cap. He was hired to make frames for prints of a portrait of Boone first painted by artist Chester Harding in 1820. Later, he played a character in a performance called "The Hunters of Kentucky" and drew inspiration from Boone to create his look, which included the cap we now associate with the storied frontiersman. The performances were a hit, which was good for Ludlow, but not so much for historical accuracy.

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By the Numbers

Times Boone was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates

Boone's age when he died in 1820

Did you know?

Daniel Boone may not be buried in his own grave.

Perhaps fittingly for a folk hero, another key aspect of Boone's life (and, in this case, death) might not be accurate: his final resting place. After passing away in Defiance, Missouri, Boone was interred next to his wife Rebecca Boone in a cemetery in Marthasville, Missouri. Then, 25 years later, the couple's descendants were persuaded to have the remains exhumed and reinterred in a cemetery in Frankfort, Kentucky. The descendants were promised that the site's owners would erect a monument to Boone, who was especially beloved in the Bluegrass State. The reinterment has been described as "perhaps the largest celebration event in Kentucky history," with just one problem: It's possible that the wrong graves were dug up and thus someone else's remains were transferred to the new cemetery. Two forensics experts have examined Boone's supposed skull, but neither offered conclusive evidence either way.