Sons of Daniel Boone

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The American Boy's Handy Book, by Daniel Beard

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The Sons of Daniel Boone (sometimes called the Society of the Sons of Daniel Boone) was a youth program developed by Daniel Carter Beard in 1905 based on the American Frontiersman. When Dan Beard joined the Boy Scouts of America in 1910 as one of their National Scout Commissioners, he merged his group into the fledging BSA.

Boys were organized into "Forts". The officers of the Fort took on names of frontiersman and had specific insignia:

Daniel Boone's (President) is a powder-horn
Simon Kenton's (Vice-president) is a tomahawk
Kit Carson's (Treasurer) is a flint arrowhead
John James Audubon's (Librarian) is a bird
Johnny Appleseed (Forester) has a tree
David Crockett (Secretary) has a coonskin
George Catlin, the totem painter, wears a buffalo head on sleeve

The "uniform" of the boys was based on the fringed buckskin outfit of the frontiersman.

There were no ranks or advancement, but boys could earn notches and top notches for achievements in different areas.

Beard first promoted the program in his column in Recreation Magazine starting in March, 1905. Due to issues, he then moved over to Womans' Home Companion in April, 1906. When he left that magazine in 1909 and moved to Pictorial Review, he was apparently forced to rename the program Boy Pioneers of America because WHC felt they owned the name. Most Scouting historians ignore this fact, and refer to the group as "Sons of Daniel Boone".

A handbook for the program wasn't published until 1909, as Boy Pioneers: Sons of Daniel Boone.

In 2006 Great Rivers Council in Missouri established a summer camp honor society at Hohn Scout Reservation and Camp Thunderbird named Sons of Daniel Boone, following some of the original writings of Daniel Carter Beard. The honor society has been gaining attention from Scout troops outside of Missouri from Iowa, Arkansas, Illinois and Texas. Since its inception over 400 Scouts have become honor members. [1]