Daniel Boone Homestead

[scott]

Hi all -

My daughter and I went out today to shoot. Went to the nearby Daniel Boone homestead historical site. Was his childhood home. I think he was in his teens when he left. The house is still intact, and a number of other local historical buildings were moved onsite to conserve them.

We hadn't been to the site in, what, five years? The years have not been kind. I suspect it's all COVID related, though the site is open but no staff are manning it.

Today:
IMG_3807 by Scott, on Flickr

2011, for comparison:
Boone/DeTurk House Pano 01 by Scott, on Flickr

I'd brought my 4x5 but with FP4+ at close to $2/sheet, I opted for the 70D. With no maintenance activities going on, the place was largely in a shambles. Which led to a focus on detail shots:

IMG_3800 by Scott, on Flickr

IMG_3789 by Scott, on Flickr

IMG_3793 by Scott, on Flickr

IMG_3791 by Scott, on Flickr

One of the neater things there is the gravesite of the DeTurk families, brothers who owned the site after the Boones left. Both John and Samuel are Revolutionary veterans, their graves marked as such:
IMG_3803 by Scott, on Flickr

Definitely not something common where I grew up in the midwest.

I'm hopeful that the place will be cleaned up when the restrictions are lifted.

I still have the 4x5, lenses, holders, and meter all packed in my Mini Trekker nicely. Need to find somewhere to go now...

Thanks for looking.
Scott

[alexvaras]

Very nice photos, Scott, love those details.

[scott]

Thanks Alex! I may actually go back with the 4x5 and reshoot some of these.

[alexvaras]

That would be great, I was going to mention since you go by car why not load the camera.

[PFMcFarland]

You really hate to see a place like that abandoned, or at least not taken care of. Looks like someone took down the big sycamore before it could fall on the house. Very interesting to see the difference from 2011.

PF

[scott]

Yeah, it is sad. Very disappointing. There is a fair bit of construction gear stacked up behind the house, so I'm hopeful that they'll do something to bring the place back soon. That said, the visitor center is closed, so they're not bringing any money in, and this site had pretty severe cutbacks a couple years ago. There's a lot of history in this area (our township was settled in 1701), and people are kind of complacent about it. Valley Forge is 25 minutes away, and I think they're facing the same issues. Washington Crossing (yes, literally where Washington crossed the Delaware) faced really stiff cutbacks years ago - I think it's still completely unmanned.

[melek]

"Washington's Crossing" - I'm about 20 minutes from there. All around this area, places have noted where Washington stopped or slept or set up camp. I'm surprised that they haven't marked a spot where Gen. Washington relieved himself.

Anyway, Washington's Crossing is really beautiful in the fall, which is just a couple of weeks away.

[scott]

Mike, I used to work in Harleysville at a med device company. Out by the parking lot, under a bush, was a small marker that described how Washington had spent the night in a barn nearby directing troops. No one who worked there even knew about the marker. It's so commonplace here.

I had no idea you were as close as you are. My in-laws live in Washington Crossing, sis-in-law and bro-in-law are in New Hope.