Daniel Boone? Chester Harding? Margaret Eliot White? Gene Tunney? Apocryphal?
Question for Quote Investigator: Daniel Boone was a famous U.S. pioneer and frontiersman. Boone’s hunting and tracking skills were celebrated. Boone has been credited with the following humorous response to a question about his adventures:
“During your long hunts have you ever been lost?”
“No, I have never been lost, but once I was bewildered for three days.”
I do not know the precise phrasing of this dialogue, and I have not seen a solid citation. Would you please explore this topic?
Reply from Quote Investigator: Daniel Boone died in 1820.The U.S. portrait painter Chester Harding met with Boone when the latter was approaching the end of his life. Boone posed for Harding who created the only known portrait of the frontiersman painted from life.
Chester Harding died in 1866, and near the end of his life, he gave his autobiographical notes to his daughter Margaret Eliot White. She arranged the notes and weaved them together to yield a work playfully titled “My Egotistigraphy” by Chester Harding.
In this 1866 book Harding described his encounter with Boone. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:1
He was ninety years old, and rather infirm; his memory of passing events was much impaired, yet he would amuse me every day by his anecdotes of his earlier life. I asked him one day, just after his description of one of his long hunts, if he never got lost, having no compass. “No,” said he, “I can’t say as ever I was lost, but I was bewildered once for three days.”
Harding’s estimate of Boone’s age was somewhat inaccurate. Boone died when he was 85 years old. The passage above is the primary citation supporting the ascription of the quotation to Boone. The accuracy is dependent on the trustworthiness and fidelity of Harding.
Interestingly, Boone’s use of the word “bewildered” fit the original literal definition of the word as presented in the Oxford English Dictionary:2
bewildered adjective:
Lost in pathless places, at a loss for one’s way; figurative confused mentally.
Readers have found the quotation ascribed to Boone comical because the figurative definition has largely displaced the original literal definition of bewildered in modern times.
Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.
In 1847 “The Spectator” of London published an article titled “Dr. Leichhardt’s Expedition from Moreton Bay to Port Essington” which employed the word “bewildered” using a denotation that matched the original definition:3
In exploring on one occasion, he and the Native Brown, in their haste to get back at a canter, lost their track, and were bewildered for three days; their food dependent upon what they could shoot, which was two pigeons.
In 1866 “My Egotistigraphy” by Chester Harding appeared. The book was reviewed in “Lippincott’s Magazine” of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The reviewer reprinted the passage containing the quotation:4
I asked him one day, just after his description of one of his long hunts, if he never got lost, having no compass. ‘No,’ said he, ‘I can’t say as ever I was lost, but I was bewildered once for three days.’
In 1912 the book “A History of Kentucky and Kentuckians” by E. Polk Johnson printed a version of the Daniel Boone anecdote:5
Some one has said of him that he was once asked if he was never lost in the wilderness, to which he replied that he was never lost but “was once bewildered for three days”.
In 1933 “Esquire” magazine printed a piece by heavyweight boxing champion Gene Tunney which began with a version of the quotation:6
Someone once asked Daniel Boone whether he had ever been lost. “No,” he drawled, cuffing his coonskin cap back from his forehead, “no, not exactly lost, but once I was bewildered for three days.”
In 1951 the novel “Kentucky Stand” by Jere Wheelwright contained a version of the quotation:7
Boone! Who was it had said in that soft voice, “Don’t know that I ever was lost but I do recall bein’ bewildered for three days”?
In 1965 “Quote: The Weekly Digest” printed a version using the word “confused” instead of “bewildered”:8
According to an old frontier story someone once asked Daniel Boone if he had ever been lost. Daniel thought a moment, then replied, “No, but once I was a mite confused for five days.” — “Lost!” Family Safety.
In 2004 a short biography for children titled “Daniel Boone” by Rick Burke contained the following:9
Daniel once said of his journeys, “I have never been lost, but I will admit to being confused for several weeks.”
In conclusion, painter Chester Harding met with frontiersman Daniel Boone in 1820. Harding wrote autobiographical notes which included a description of his conversation with Boone. Ultimately, the notes were used to construct the 1866 book “My Egotistigraphy”. This book is the primary source for the quotation attributed to Boone by Harding. Variants of the quotation have proliferated during subsequent decades.
Image Notes: Oil sketch of Daniel Boone by Chester Harding in 1820. The image has been cropped and resized.
Acknowledgement: Great thanks to Richard Babyak whose inquiry led QI to formulate this question and perform this exploration.
- 1866, My Egotistigraphy by Chester Harding, Prepared for His Family and Friends by One of His Children (daughter Margaret Eliot White), Chapter 2, Quote Page 36, Press of John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, Massachusetts. (Google Books Full View) link ↩︎
- Website: Oxford English Dictionary, Word entry: bewildered, Word type: adjective, Website description: Dictionary entries. (Accessed oed.com on June 14, 2025) link ↩︎
- 1847 September 25, The Spectator, Dr. Leichhardt’s Expedition from Moreton Bay to Port Essington, Start Page 927, Quote Page 927 and 928, Joseph Clayton, London. (Google Books Full View) link ↩︎
- 1874 January, Lippincott’s Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 13, Chester Harding, The Self-Made Artist by Osmond Tiffany, Start Page 65, Quote Page 67, Column 2, J. B. Lippincott and Company, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Google Books Full View) link ↩︎
- 1912, A History of Kentucky and Kentuckians by E. Polk Johnson, Volume 1, Chapter 3: Boone and Stewart Go Forth, Quote Page 11, The Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago, Illinois. (Internet Archive) link ↩︎
- 1933 Autumn, Esquire, Volume 1, Number 1, Overture: Poet and Pug by Gene Tunney, Start Page 95, Quote Page 95, Column 1, Esquire Publishing Company, Chicago, Illinois. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 1951, Kentucky Stand by Jere Wheelwright, Chapter 20, Quote Page 216, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 1965 August 29, Quote: The Weekly Digest, Volume 50, Number 9, Light Armour by Richard Armour, Quote Page 18, Column 2, Published by Droke House, Anderson, South Carolina. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 2004, Daniel Boone by Rick Burke, Chapter: Wandering, Quote Page 16, Heinemann Library: A Division of Reed Elsevier, Chicago, Illinois. (Verified with scans) ↩︎