This rare land survey is signed “Daniel Boone, D.S.,” to denote that it was completed by Daniel Boone, the legendary Kentucky frontiersman, as a Deputy Surveyor. The document is one page at 8” x 5.5” and is dated June 9, 1787. This land survey was penned by Boone as deputy surveyor of the Kentucky area, which at the time of this survey was still a part of Virginia.

The Survey reads (spelling and grammar retained): “Survaid for John Baly 3000 acres by virtue of a treasury warrant No. Duly Entered—Situate lying and being in the county of Madison on Sturgon Crick the Waters of Cantucke a joining a survey made for Nathanel Hartt and not returned and bounded as follows viz beginning at A 3 White okes Harts NW Corner thence W1200 pos to B 2 Hickurys thence South 400 pos to C a Walnutt and shugar tree thence Este 1200 pos to D a popler and 2 hickurys thence N 400 pos to the beginning.”

In the upper left, Boone draws a diagram of the land in question, noting: “area 300 acres plated by a scale of 400 poles to the Inch.” Boone included a scale of an inch as well as a directional motif alongside the diagram. While the 300 acres noted in the diagram and the 3000 acres noted in the description do not match, the distances described do in fact describe a 3000 acre plot of land.

The document is signed very neatly at the conclusion by Boone, who adds the names of his chainmen, Septimus Davis and William Brukes, and his marker, William Hill. This was the typical size survey team working at the time.

As a pioneer and frontiersman, Daniel Boone was influential in extending the nation beyond the peaks of the Allegheny Mountains into America’s first west. With the company of his brother Squire, Daniel Boone explored the Kentucky wilderness from 1767 to 1769, and eventually settled his family in the territory in 1773. Two years later he extended the Wilderness Road over the Cumberland Gap through the Allegheny Mountains and erected three settlements, one of which was named Boonesborough. In the wake of the Revolutionary War, Boone resettled in Maysville, Kentucky, and was elected to the Virginia state assembly in 1787. His military pursuits over, Boone became a local celebrity and for a period earned a profitable living as a tavern keep, a surveyor, and  a horse trader.