In a cabin in the Kaw Valley, a few miles northwest of what is now Lawrence, the first baby boy of white parents was born in Kansas. His name was Napoleon Boone (yes, of the famous Boone family and yes, named after that Napoleon) and he arrived Friday, Aug. 22, 1828.
Napoleon’s entry into the world is notable mostly because, well, it was noted. It’s one of the first recorded births to white parents in the confines of the present state that historians can date. We know because it was written down, that he was the 12th child of Daniel M. and Sarah Boone, was a grandson of the Daniel Boone. One of Napoleon’s brothers remembered in a letter decades later that the cabin was on the north bank of the Kansas River, where the government had by treaty directed their father to instruct members of the Kaw nation in the art and science of agriculture.
