Early September 1773, sixteen-year-old James Boone stood ready to follow his well-known father on yet another adventure. This time, he would go along—be part of an expedition into the wilderness they called Caintuck. Some forty individuals planned to make the trip including his immediate family, his father, Daniel, age 39, his 34-year-old mother, Rebecca, and…
Nathan Boone, Daniel and Rebecca’s youngest son, was born 3 March 1781, at Boone’s Station, Kentucky. Nathan came along almost six years after the loss of William, born in Virginia only days before the family made their fateful move to Kentucky in 1775. (William died days after his birth and his grave lies lost and…
In Caintuck Lies Within My Soul, I wrote a scene where Jemima cares for her older, pregnant sister, Suzy, after her husband beat her. Like most every incident in the book, this one is based upon fact. Susannah Boone, born 2 November 1760, suffered abuse at the hands of her husband William Hays throughout their marriage….
Rebecca Boone welcomed her second daughter, her fourth child, into the world on 4 October 1762. Daniel had removed his family from their North Carolina Yadkin Valley home in 1760, taking them all the way to Culpepper, Virginia, due to hostilities between the colonists and the Cherokee, During the next two years, Rebecca often lived alone…
Two hundred years ago on this date, 26 September, Daniel Boone, age 85, died in Missouri, in his son Nathan’s stone house. His Missouri family by his side. Daniel had been ill for several days and knew the end was near. One of Nathan’s servants shaved him, Jemima cut his hair, knowing well his favorite…
On 14 August 1756, twenty-one-year-old Daniel Boone married seventeen-year-old Rebecca Bryan. By this time, Daniel had already served in Braddock’s Campaign during the French and Indian War, retreated from the Battle of the Monongahela, and listened to many tales of the Cumberland Gap and the land called Caintuck. He also had killed his first Indian,…
“. . . the pattern of our lives remained the same. Sleep a little, eat a little, and guard the fort with our lives. For if we did not, our lives and those we held dearest would be forfeited to the enemy outside our walls.” Although I wrote these words in reference to the 1778…
Daddy’s second task required him to hire and lead men to hack and mark a trail into Caintuck. This newly marked trail over the mountains of western Virginia, through the Cumberland Gap, would break through canebrakes, across meadows, and ford streams and rivers to allow settlers, hunters, and traders alike easier movement into that promised…
“Let me tell you, the land is full and fruitful. It’s also a howlin’ wilderness full of savages and beast of all kinds,” John explained, waving his arms here and there. “I’ve seen buffalo herds at salt licks that could not be counted, for the good Lord didn’t create numbers to count that high. There…
In last season’s “Outlander” (the television series), Jamie and Claire briefly mentioned settling near or on a line established as the dividing line between the westernmost settlers and Native Americans. The show never presented its viewers with more information about this “line in the sand” or in this case the mountains. As I had recently…
