Around Reading: The Daniel Boone Homestead

As noted yesterday, our first stop with Kerri and Shannon on the Saturday morning of Memorial weekend was the Daniel Boone Homestead. Although it is only about five miles from our house and we've driven past it numerous times, Billie and I had never been there. Daniel Boone was born and grew up on this land from 1734 until 1750, when he moved to North Carolina and eventually Kentucky (Kerri actually lives in Boone County, KY!). Our guide told us that young Daniel would go out into the woods for weeks at a time to hunt, which is quite a bit different from the activities of kids today. Here are some pictures from our visit:

The right end of this house is where Daniel Boone was born and lived. The rest was added by later owners.

Here we are standing outside of the house. The door behind us is directly opposite the door on the front porch. Both doors lead into the kitchen. To our left is the entrance to the cellar under the newer section of the house. Also with us is our guide, who volunteered here for years before being hired. He was incredibly patient with the thousands of questions Shannon asked.

Under the original house is a spring cellar, which has slowly flowing water from an underground spring all year around. This served as a natural refrigerator during Daniel Boone's time and is still used today when reenactments take place on the property.

This is the main living room of the house. The furniture that wasn't being used was pushed up against the walls until it was needed.

This is the hearth in the kitchen where cooking was done. Hopefully the doors on both ends of the room provided a breeze when cooking during the summer!

There was also a dining room and bedroom on the main floor. In this picture Billie and Shannon are climbing the stairs to the second floor. They straighten out after going around this tight curve but I wonder how many people injured themselves on stairs like these.

This is the view from the back of the house.

These are some other buildings that were on the property. Kerri and Shannon tried unsuccessfully to break into the house on the left.

Having visited the Daniel Boone Homestead, we headed off to the Pagoda and Albright, which we showed you yesterday. Our day didn't end there, though. On Wednesday, we'll have some pictures from our afternoon in Intercourse, PA.