Winston-Salem Sentinel Boone ClippingsThursday Af+ernoon • July 28, 1983
First of two parts
Daniel Boone:
The Tar Heel Years By TOM SIEG
Sentinel Staff RepaMer
Cabin of Daniel and
Rebecca Boone * m't,
Ore
DAVIE COUNTY
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Squire Boon
and Daniel Boone Squire Boone
John B e* Joppa
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Jonathan Boone t
Sentinel Map by Jim Stanley
Mop shows Boone family land holdings in Davie Counfy and fhe site of
Daniel and Rebecca Boone's cabin.
DAVIE CO. PUBLIC LIBRARv
MOCKSVILLE,, NC
In Search of Daniel
He's Shedding Light on Boone Lore
MOCKSVILLE — Along the Yadkin Riv-
er and its feeder creeks in this part of
Davie County, a visitor can walk through
some of the fields and forests where Daniel
Boone honed the hunting skills that would
make him a legend.
Most of the three Boone sites near here
are private property and would require the
owners' permission for an extensive visit.
But this, along and off what is now Inter-
state 40, is where Boone grew from a teen-
ager to a mature young man of about 31. It
is where he' married Rebecca Bryan and
fathered sons James and Israel, both of
whom would later be killed by Indians.
It is also where he incurred the first of
the debts and debtor's warrants that would
make him, at least technically, a wanted
man for much of his life.
In recent years, through the efforts of
county historian James W. Wall and Flos-
sie Martin of the Davie County Library,
much has become known — or at least
strongly believed — about the Boones of
Davie. Essential parts of the knowledge
came after a stroke of luck five years ago,
when Howell Boone retired from his job as
an industrial filmmaker in New York City
and moved here to pursue his lifelong in-
terest in family history.
Howell Boone had long been curious
about the area.
"In the late 1930s," he said, "we were
visiting in Chicago — my father and moth-
er and brother and I — and we decided to
go back (to New York) by way of the site of
Boonesborough (Ky.) . We came on
through the Cumberland Gap, and we came
through Mocksville because my dad had
heard that the early Boones were buried
there.
"Both my brother and I were teenagers
then. I was aware that there was a Boone
connection in what is now Davie County."
The family was already interested in
establishing the existence of John Boone,
Howell Boone's "five times great-grandfa-
ther." John Boone, a cousin of Daniel, had
been confused in story -telling and in print
with Daniel's brother Jonathan, and the
real John had been "lost."
The visiting Boone family knew that
Squire and Sarah Boone, Daniel's parents,
See Descendant, Page 13
DAVIE CO. PUBLIC LIBRARK
MOCKS.VILLE, NG
Descendant Shedding Light on Boone Lore,.
Continued. from Page 1
were buried in Joppa Cemetery
here.
"We stopped at a gas station,"
said Howell Boone, "and nobody
knew where Joppa Cemetery was.
As my dad was talking tothese
people, some old fellow got up from
a bench and said, 'Let me tell you
how to get mere.'
"So we did get to Joppa Ceme-
tery, and Squire and Sarah Boone's
tombstones were there in a con-
crete encasement ...- My. father
was really thrilled, but thought
there should be. more Boone tomb-
stones. We didn't find any."
Through the years, Howell
Boone's father insisted that he was
descended from John Boone, the
cousin — not the brother — ofDan-
iel, but there was no proof. When
Howell Boone decided to pass up
retirement in a Florida condomini-
um and, come here instead, confir-
'matiomofthe line of descent was a.
Priority item on his research agen-
da.
He has traced about 100 mem-
bers of the Squire and John Boone
families, but it was in Raleigh, in
the state archives, that he made
perhaps his most thrilling find.
"I discovered a 1773 (Lord) Gran-
ville grant to John Boone, with his
signature on it," said Boone. "It was
proof of John Boone's rexistence. I
then found some land warrants ty-
ing him to this property."
Today, Howell Boone and his
thousands of books and documents
reside in a white -frame cottage
along the .original Boone Farm
Road, on the original John Boone
farm. His curiosity has never
waned, and he continues to work
the Boone puzzle, fitting bits of his
own work and even family lore into
the findings of others such as Ly-
man C. Draper, whose exhaustive
19th -century research was done
with benefit of conversations with
Nathan Boone, Daniel's youngest
son.
In discussing Daniel, Howell
Boone blends theory — but well
founded and thought-out theory —
with established' fact. And, as do
many history and genealogy, buffs,
he often mixes the present and past.
tenses.
Howell Boone does not believe
that Daniel's father Squire (his giv-
en name, not a title) was the first of
the Burnes to come to the area.
Part of his reasoning is based an
the fact that Jonathan and Mary
-
Carter Boone's first child was born
in Anson County about 1751. With
the courtship and marriage pat-
terns that existed in those days,
Howell Boone believes, that would
have placed Jonathan there before
1750.
"I believe that Jonathan and per-
haps Daniel's brother Israel came
to what was Anson and soon to
become Rowan (and later Davie) in
1746-7-8, along in there," said
Boone."I feel that they persuaded
their dad. to move down here be-
cause the land had the same water
as they had in'Pennsylvania. It had
the same woods — lots of woods.
And there was a feeling then that
you didn't need barns for the cows
because thewinter months were
warmer."
In any case, the Squire Boone
property in Exeter Township,
Berks County, Pa., was sold in 1750.
The entire family — including John
and possibly some other cousins or
nephews — left in May of 1750,
when Daniel was 1542 years old.
Howell Boone believes that Dan-
iel was especially close to his moth-
er, perhaps already the "favorite
child," and that he had begun devel-
oping his marksmanship in Penn-
sylvania with a makeshift spear.
"Daniel, as a youth of 8 or 10
years of age,herds cows about
eight to a dozen miles from their
home," said Boone. "They would
take the cows (to that property) in
the spring and bring them back in
the fall. Daniel and his mother slept
in a lean-to in the pasture and
looked after the cows together.
They were very close, I believe ...
"'As a small boy; Daniel of course
had one of those large switches that
you use for cows... He became
skilled throwing that switch, killing
an occasional rabbit ... He used it
as a spear. He was a born hunter.
He had the eye ... It is thought that
his mother was instrumental in get-
ting him a rifle. Very early, he be-
comes the best marksman of all the
Boones. When he leaves at 151h, he
has had a gun for four and a half
years."
Boone also believes thefamily
made the move in two stages.
"Some members of the Boone
family wintered in the Winchester,
Va., area," he said. "I feel Squire
and his older boys came on horse.
back ahead of the family and in-
spected the property they were lat-
er to get a land grant for."
In September of 1750,a land war-
rant — an agreement to buy and
letter of instruction for property to
be surveyed — was issued to Squire
Boone. The warrant had to betaken
to Wilmington and sent by ship to
England for approval by the Earl of
Granville and then he returned, so
it was to be 1753 before Squire re-
ceived the approved. grant,
In the meantime, Howell Boone
believes, with the land not yet sur-
veyed, Squire and the others re-
turned to Virginia and wintered
with the rest of the family.
"I feel that they. brought their
families in the spring of 1751 and
camped on the land they had
agreed to purchase," said Boone. "I
feel that they started building log
cabins, which were usable struc.
tures but ... not permanent ...
"So Daniel arrives in the Forks of
the Yadkin, a youth with great skill
as a hunter. The property that he
lived on with HIS mother and father,
I feel, is the Bear Creek property
(which Daniel later acquired from
his father), and not the Dutchman's
Creek property. (The John Boone
farm is on Hunting Creek.)
"The familytradition is that
when they first came to Bear
Creek, they killed over 100 bears
that first season. And Daniel is de-
scribed in family tradition as hav-
ing killed as many as 30 deer a
day."
Daniel is said to have been ex-
cused from some of the book -learn.
ing that other family members had
to undertake, gaining a special sta-
tus because of his special skills. But
.Sarahand Squire were very much
English and very much Quakers;
members of their family had to
learn not only to speak the lan-
guage well, but to read and write.
None of them spoke in the frontier
manner of movies and television —
or looked or dressed anything like.
Fess Parker.
From the beginning, the hunting
pursued by Daniel entailed a great
deal of waste; people in the sparse-
ly settled area could not consume
all those deer and bear and the
buffalo, or bison, that still roamed
the area and werealso targets of
Boone's rifle.
But not everything went to
waste: `
"I think the bearskin was used
for rugs," said Boone. "More impor-
tant than the skin, they used the
bear grease in sort of an open dish
for light. They also used bear
grease to cook.
"The early settlers here pre-
ferred not to eat their cattle and
hogs, but to think of them as cur-
rency and live off the wildlife. This
was a paradise for a youth like
Daniel Boone." -
(In tomorrow's Sentinel: Boone's
own success as a hunter makes it
necessary for him and his family to
move on.)
Well, Who Is That in Boone's
Who is buried in Daniel Boone's grave in
Frankfort, Ky.?
Whoever he is, his initials may not be D. B.
For years, people in Defiance, Mo. — where
Boone last lived — have been snickering and
telling tourists that when Kentucky's gravedig-
gers came to fetch Daniel and Rebecca Boone,
they dug up a slave instead of Daniel. Some
Missouri historians have believed the story.
Now a forensic anthropologist, Kentucky's
own Dr. David Wolf, says the story could well be
true.
Wolf recently studied a plaster cast made of
Boone's skull before his reburial on Sept. 13, 1845.
The findings weren't absolutely conclusive, but
*The forehead doesn't slope as much as the
usual male Caucasian skull.
*"The general shape of the brow ridges is
more black than white."
• "The occipital (rear) bone is more pro-
nounced ... which is a black feature."
• An indentation of the frontal bone "tends to
be more of a black feature than a white."
• And besides, the body buried in the grave is a
large one that probably belonged to "somebody
you wouldn't want to meet alone in an alley."
Boone stood about 5 feet 8 inches tall.
The new findings, reported last month, delight
Howell Boone. After all, they fit in with the lore
of his branch of the family, which lived in New
York City.
"What my daddy told my brother and me as a
boy," said Boone, "was that Rebecca died at her
daughter Jemima's house while she was making
J am over a cauldron after picking berries... She
was buried in a Bryan family cemetery ... out-
side Marthasville, Mo.
"Sometime shortly after she died, her lifelong
black slave died. He was buried at her side,
where he had been serving his entire life. When
Daniel was buried (seven years later), he was
buried, according to his wishes, at her feet."
Howell Boone thinks the mixup — if there was
one — was intentional on the part of a Boone
relative. Daniel had returned to Kentucky rather
late in life (he lived to be 86 years old) and repaid
Grave?
many very old debts. He came back to Missouri
saying he had only 50 cents left to his name and
vowing never to return to Kentucky.
"When the state of Kentucky petitioned the
state of Missouri to be allowed to move Daniel
and Rebecca Boone," said Howell Boone, "the
state of Missouri consented. One of our maiden -
aunt cousins several times removed was in-
volved. She told them, 'There's Rebecca."'
She also told them, "There's Daniel."
But this time she lied. She pointed to the grave
of the slave, which was located where a person
might expect a woman's husband to be buried.
There was a question at the time why Daniel's
coffin showed much more deterioration than Re-
becca's, since he died seven years after she did.
(The slave died just after she did, and his coffin
was of far lesser quality than hers.)
Without ever figuring out the puzzle, the Ken-
tucky gravediggers went off with the two coffins.
"And that," said Howell Boone, "is what they
have buried in Kentucky."
— TOM SIEC
Second of two parts .
U
By TOM SIEG v Z
Sentinel Photo by Tom Si"
HOWELL SOONE. "I'm living on land that my five -times great-grandfather owned ... before the
American Revolution."
He Was a Hunter ter in a Derby
MOCKSVILLE — In the 1750s and
'60s, when Daniel Boone lived in what
is now Davie County, he and others in
his family relied on his deer hides as
their only real currency.
Boone took the hides to Salisbury to
trade them for shot and powder — and
for cash, which was very scarce. The
hides were made into buckskin trou-
sers.
"There was a tradition of using
leather trousers in Europe and Eng-
land;" said Howell Boone, a descen.
dant of Daniel Boone's cousin
John:'The trousers were highly prized
and most men wore them if they could
afford them, and Daniel became one
of the -major suppliers."
"It's my feeling that Daniel was a
pretty good catch for Rebecca Bry-
an.,.
Rebecca was the daughter of Jo-
seph and Alice (Aylee) Linville Bryan
and thus became a member of three of
the families that came South to popu-
late the area: the Linvilles, the Bryans
and the Boones. (One of the Linvilles
later lent his name to the famed sce-
nic waterfall in the Blue Ridge.)
According to family legend, when
Daniel was courting Rebecca, the cus-
tom was for the man to cast a slain
deer on the threshold of the home of
the woman whose hand he was seek-
ing and then dress out the deer. When
Daniel did this, Rebecca is said to
have commented that he had been
sloppy in preparing the deer. Later,
when Rebecca served the traditional
meal she had cooked from the deer
meat, Daniel picked up a wooden bowl
and said something like "This, too, is
not as clean as it might be."
At any rate, the two were married
Aug. 14, 1756, most likely in Joseph
and Aylee Bryan's cabin. Squire
Boone, who was a justice of the peace,
conducted the Quaker -style ceremo-
ny, with the bride and groom facing
the guests.
All of Daniel Boone's brothers and
sisters — Sarah, Israel, Jonathan,
Samuel, Elizabeth, Mary, George, Ed-
ward, Squire Jr. and Hannah — also
married, and most of them reared
their children in the area, swelling the
See The Real Daniel, Page 9
C.as
The Rea/ Daniel.*CooW—s_irinNo
Continued from Page 1
Boone population.
Daniel and Rebecca's first two chil-
dren also were born here, James in
1757 and Israel in 1759.
Daniel and his first-born son,
James, were said to have been very
close. Daniel would take him hunting
and it was not unusual, in the cold,
misty light of dawn, to find the father
warming the son by wrapping his coat
around them both as they waited for
their game along a deer trail.
But by this time, Daniel had begun
to fall on somewhat harder times.
"There came a day," said Howell
Boone, "when there weren't as many
deer and bear. This was a year or two
after Daniel and Rebecca married. He.
then becomes what they call a long
hunter ... He is hunting on the Upper
Yadkin, in Wilkes County. He has to go
farther and farther ... The deer, the
buffalo, the bears have all been killed
here."
Daniel could have joined the rest of
the Boones, who did quite well in
farming, but that wouldn't do.
"He was a hunter with a capital H;'
said Boone. "He could plant crops. He
helped with that. But he was a hunter
. Now his hunting trips take longer,
he needs more equipment ...
"He gets to Nesbitt's Store in Salis-
bury (a town that Jonathan helped
survey and lay out) and instead of a
large number of hides, he has maybe a
half or a third ... He gets less for the
hides and winds up having to borrow
against his future hunting."
This was the beginning of Boone's
indebtedness, and although most of his
debts were small, some were bother-
some. Years later, in 1771, one Eben-
ezer Frost, who was owed 14 pounds
five shillings, was among those issuing
warrants for Daniel Boone.
The warrant said in part, "We
therefore command that you attach
the estate of said Daniel Boone if
found to be in your bailiwick (and)
compel the said Daniel Boone to ap-
pear and answer the above com-
plaint."
It was too late. Boone had acquired
the 640 -acre Bear Creek tract from his
father on Oct. 12, 1759, but he had sold
it to Aaron Vancleave on Feb. 21, 1764,
just before another attempt to collect
a debt — this one, at 50 pounds, one of
Daniel's largest. Besides, by the time
of the 1771 debt -collection effort, Dan-
iel had moved his family to Wilkes
County.
The move undoubtedly was caused
by the shortage of game — a shortage
created mostly by Daniel himself —
but it may also have been motivated
at least partly by the lure of unincor-
porated territory, where debts were
not normally collected, and where the
sheriff couldn't come by and conscript
a resident for tasks ranging from
road -building to militia duty. (Daniel
had helped build a road through the
Brushy Mountains, and he was proud
of the "instinct" he possessed for put-
ting roads just where they should go,
but he didn't relish such interruptions
of his life's work.)
Before the move to Wilkes County,
Daniel had built a hunting cabin there
on land that is now under the waters of
Kerr Scott Lake, but his home had
continued to be in Davie.
He had also moved his family, along
with other Boones, to Culpeper, Va.,
when the French and Indian war
broke out. Davie was the outer edge,
the absolute frontier of the white man,
and most families stayed away from
late 1759 until 1762.
Before going to Virginia, Daniel and
Rebecca had spent some time in a
cabin on the Squire Boone property,
where they went after the marriage
ceremony. "They stayed there for
what is best described as 'a while,"'
said Boone. "They then moved to an
empty Bryan family cabin on Sugar
Tree (now Sugar) Creek in the Bryan
settlement.'
After the return to North Carolina,
said Howell Boone, "I feel they ...
didn't so much live as visit with the
Bryan group ... Daniel is hunting in
Wilkes County, and he brings the fam-
ily up as soon as he can."
"As soon as he can" wasn'tparticu-
larly soon — 1765 or 1766 — and the
"visit" apparently became a long one.
Finally, though, Daniel brought Re-
becca and their four children — Su-
sannah and Jemima had been born in
Culpeper in 1760 and 1762 — to Beaver
Creek, the site of the second Boone
cabin in Wilkes County. They were
squatters, living on land they didn't
own, but there was no law around to
tell them they couldn't stay. There,
and in still another cabin at Stony
Creek, near the town of Ferguson, four
more Boone children were born: Le-
vinia in 1766, Rebecca in 1768, Daniel
Morgan in 1769 and Jesse Bryan in
1773.
There, too, Boone hunted prolifical-
ly. And there, at Stony Creek, he began
to dream his dream of the new fron-
tier in Kentucky.
In 1773, Daniel, ever the charismat-
ic man who inspired trust because he
was known as a man who always did
his best to keep his word, brought
several families together and per-
suaded them to make the trip. The
effort, however, was abortive — and
tragic.
The adults went ahead on the trail,
with their boys bringing the domestic
animals along two or three miles be-
hind. One night, as the boys camped
around a fire, they were discovered by
a group of Shawnee Indians armed
with muskets.
"They sneaked up and fired into the
group of boys, wounding James Boone
severely in the hip," said Howe
Boone. "A Russell boy also was se(.,o
verely wounded. James was captured'N
and tortured. His nails were ripped
out. His testicles most likely were cut'-'
. He was a bloody mess (when his,' -
father found him). His skin was just!.
hanging in ribbons from his body."
Both the wounded boys died. Daniel; -
had lost the first-born son to whom hej c::,
had been so close, but oddly it was he
and his brother Squire Jr. who wanted
to go on. The experience was too much
for the others, however, and the expe- is
dition was abandoned. The Boones set
up housekeeping in Castle's Woods
(now Castlewood), in the western cor-
ner of Virginia northwest of where
North Carolina's present Ashe County
butts up against Virginia and Tennes-
see. In Virginia, another child, Wil-
liam, was born in 1775 and died in
infancy.
During the two years at Castle's
Woods, Daniel continued his hunting
and roving. He also blazed the Wilder-
ness Road through the Cumberland
Gap into Kentucky — an achievement
that, in later life, he would regard as
perhaps his greatest.
Finally, in 1775, the family made its
successful trip to Kentucky, where
Boonesborough was founded — and
where Nathan was born March 2,1781,
and Israel died Aug. 19, 1782, in the
Battle of Blue Licks, Ky. There would
be many years in Kentucky and then a
move to Defiance, Mo., where Rebec-
ca died in 1813 and Daniel in 1820, at
age 86.
Daniel returned to North Carolina
at least occasionally after leaving, but
his branch of the family never lived
here again. There were others, howev-
er.
As Howell Boone put it, "John (his
great -great -great -great -great-grand-
father), along with George, Edward,
Squire Jr., Samuel, Jonathan ... are
the Boones no one has ever heard of."
Howell Boone, who retired here five
years ago to pursue his lifelong inter-
est in family history, has been busy
looking for and making discoveries
about the "unknown" Boones. He
found that John — and perhaps his
wife, who was also named Rebecca
Bryan Boone — was buried at Joppa
Cemetery beside Squire and Sarah
Boone.
He also believes that Daniel's broth-
er Israel, who died of consumption at
age 30, lies in the graveyard. Unfortu-
The SENTINEL, Winston-Salem, N. C.,• Friday, July 29, 1983—Pa9e 9
c.v
ii
V
O
Cti
nately, burials in those days often
were without benefit of marker, or
with a simple wooden cross, and it has
been impossible to make positive
identification of other graves.
Howell Boone has traced 100
Boones, most of whom had left the
area by the early 1800s, but one obsta-
cle to his progress has been an appar-
ent lack of interest in history by area
residents. If the Moravian, with their
meticulous record-keeping had set-
tled here, his problems probably
would be small. But even the Boone -
related cabins, some of which sur-
vived into the 20th century, were torn
down when they got in the way of
progress — one of them as late as
1948.
Still, Boone is making his discover-
ies and loving what he's doing and
where he's living. "I'm living on land
that my five -times great-grandfather
owned, on a. Granville grant, before
the American Revolution," he said
with a look of wonderment on his
round, somehow British -looking face.
He is also making plans, along with
James Wall, for a Davie County obser-
vance of Daniel Boone's 250th birth-
day on Oct. 22 — a date that is a
matter of some debate. Daniel de-
clined to observe the then -new Grego-
rian calendar when it was introduced
in 1852. Under that calendar, his actu-
al birth date would have become Nov.
2, but he insisted on observing Oct. 22
even after the change.
The celebration will be low-key,
with most details yet to be announced.
Boone will donate biographies of his
famous relative to area libraries — he
found to his chagrin that they had
none — and there may be a contest for
school children to build replicas of the
Daniel Boone cabin. (Dimensions and
a description were recorded and are
available.)
There will be some sort of ceremo-
ny, but the only thing that is definite
about it is that it will not take place in
Boone's Cave in nearby Davidson
County. ("I do not believe that any
Boone ever lived in Boone's Cave, or
around there.")
And if there is a turkey shoot, as is
hoped — well, Howell Boone also has
ideas about the prizes to be offered.
"God forbid that they be coonskin
caps," he said. "Do you know that
Daniel never wore them and regarded
them as useless? ... He wore a derby -
type hat, when he wore anything at all
on his head."
He also wore a wool greatcoat and
leather pants with an English cut and
That's one problem with studying
history. It ruins a lot of good legends.