Young Rebecca Bryan and Her Marriage to Daniel Boone
Rebecca Boone inscription on her grave monument in Frankfort Cemetery, Frankfort, Kentucky (Photo by Robert Alvin Crum). More images shown below.
Robert Alvin Crum copyright 29 January 2024
There are literally volumes written about Daniel Boone, but what about his bride Rebecca Bryan? This is the story about her young life and her marriage to Daniel Boone.
Rebecca Bryan was born on January 9, 1739, and her parents were Joseph Bryan and Hester Simpson. She was born in Opequon, Frederick County, Virginia. Rebecca’s sister, Martha Bryan, was also a daughter of Hester Simpson who died about 1740. After his wife, Hester, died, Joseph married Alice Linville about 1740 or 41, and family tradition says that, at an early age, Martha and Rebecca went to live with and were raised by their grandparents Morgan and Martha Strode Bryan.
Rebecca’s father, Joseph Bryan (1720-1805), was the oldest son out of nine children born to Morgan and Martha Strode Bryan. Just like his father, Joseph’s life-long profession was to become a land speculator.
In 1747, Morgan Bryan and his wife, Martha, decided to move with their large extended family to North Carolina. They, along with most of their children and grandchildren, left their lands in Virginia to settle in the backcountry of North Carolina in the Forks of the Yadkin. Their oldest son, Joseph Bryan, and his second wife, Alice Linville, along with their children, stayed behind in Virginia until 1756, so they could tie up the loose ends of the family’s land speculating business. Joseph’s two daughters by his first wife, Martha and Rebecca, were being raised by their grandparents, Morgan and Martha Bryan, so they accompanied their grandparents in 1747 on their first trek into North Carolina. Morgan and Martha also had a daughter, Mary Bryan, who married Thomas Curtis. Since they both died in Virginia before this 1747 migration, their daughter, Mary Curtis, also accompanied her grandparents into North Carolina. It’s believed that Morgan Bryan, Jr. (1728-1804) also stayed in Virginia for a few more years until he settled affairs and later moved south to North Carolina.
When Rebecca arrived in North Carolina at age eight, she and her sister, Martha, lived with their grandparents, Morgan and Martha Bryan, and it was probably at their “mansion house” on the 550-acre tract located at “the Bend” on the Yadkin River. Once her grandmother died in 1762, and her grandfather in 1763, this tract of land was split between her uncles William and Thomas Bryan.
Daniel Boone’s sister, Mary, and William Bryan (Rebecca Bryan’s uncle and son of Morgan Bryan, Sr.) were married in 1755. It was at their wedding that Daniel Boone and Rebecca Bryan first met one another. Olive Boone confirmed this, when Lyman Draper interviewed Nathan and Olive Boone in October 1851, and she added, “… I suppose if there was any ‘shining of eyes,’ it must have been there.” Olive Boone continued her recollection by saying,
“The second time they met was at some place where several young people met to eat cherries. They sat upon a ridge of green turf under the cherry trees, and Daniel Boone was beside Rebecca Bryan and doubtless turning over in his own mind whether she would make him a good companion. At that time, he took out his knife and, taking up one corner of her white apron, began to cut and stab holes through it, to which she said nothing nor offered any resistance. Daniel Boone afterward used to say he did it to try her temper, thinking if it was fiery, she would fly into a passion.”
When Daniel and Rebecca married, it wasn’t in a church where many wedding ceremonies are performed today. Part of that was due to a shortage of churches and clergy in the North Carolina backcountry. Tradition says that they were married in a civil service by Daniel’s father, Squire, who was a Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, and he was able to do so based on the law that follows:
“For want of men in Holy Orders, both the Members of the Council and Justices of the Peace are empower’d by the Laws of that County to marry all those who will not take One another’s Word; but for the ceremony of Christening their children, they trust that to chance. In 1669, because of the absence of clergymen in the colony, marriage was made a civil contract. By the vestry law of 1715, magistrates were permitted to perform the marriage ceremony, ‘in such parishes where no minister shall be resident,’ and in 1741 the right was confined to the clergy of the Church of England and magistrates.” (See History of the Dividing Line, page 72 and note 39, and Colonial Records, Vol. XXIII, p. 3.)
Rebecca married Daniel on August 14,1756 in Rowan County, North Carolina. The wedding was probably at either Daniel’s parents at what’s referred to as Dutchman’s Creek or at the Bryan’s “mansion house,” but it’s not documented. Olive Boone advised Draper in 1851 that, “When they were married, two other couples were married at the same time.”
At the time of their marriage, there were no images or paintings of the young couple, and photography did not yet exist. In Draper’s “The Life of Daniel Boone,” one can find a physical description of Daniel Boone as follows:
“Behold that young man exhibiting such unusual firmness and energy of character, five feet eight inches in height, with broad chest and shoulders, his form gradually tapering downwards to his extremities; his hair moderately black; blue eyes arched with yellowish eyebrows; his lips thin with a mouth particularly wide; a countenance fair and ruddy with a nose a little bordering on the Roman order.”
There’s also a physical description of Rebecca as follows:
“Rebecca Bryan, whose brow had been fanned by the breezes of seventeen summers, was like Rebecca of old, ‘very fair to look upon,’ with jet Black hair and eyes, complexion rather dark, and something over the common size of her sex, her whole demeanor expressive of her child-like alertness, pleasing in her address, and unaffectedly kind in all her deportment. Never was there a more gentle, affectionate, forbearing creature than this same fair youthful bride of the Yadkin.”
In his interview with Lyman Draper in 1851, Nathan Boone (youngest child of Daniel and Rebecca Boone) advised that, “After he was married, Father lived for a while in a house in my grandfather’s [Squire Boone’s] yard and then settled on a place of his own. Daniel Bryan (nephew of Daniel Boone and first cousin to Rebecca) wrote in a letter to Lyman Draper on February 17, 1843 that, “At about 21 years old he [Daniel] Married Rebecka Bryan Daughter of Joseph Bryan in the Neighborhood of Bryans Settlement & settled himself on a small Creek Called Sugartree four miles from My father where he cleared a small farm on which he lived until they had five Children.”
The farm on which they settled at Sugartree Creek was six miles north of where Daniel’s parents lived on what was known as Dutchman’s Creek. This Sugartree Creek location was only four miles from Rebecca’s grandparents, Morgan and Martha Bryan, and many of her Bryan uncles, aunts and cousins. At the time of their marriage, Daniel and Rebecca “adopted” his brother Israel’s two sons, Jesse and Jonathan, and they lived with them at Sugartree Creek. Daniel and Rebecca enjoyed a long marriage of fifty-seven years, and she gave birth to their ten children.
While living at Sugartree Creek from 1756 to 1767, their first five children were born. However, Susannah, their third child, was born in Virginia in 1760, when the family fled there during the Anglo-Cherokee War. Their fifth child, and my direct ancestor, Lavina, was born at Sugartree Creek in 1766, and then the Boone clan migrated to the Upper Yadkin in 1767. This is confirmed during Reverend John Shane’s interview in 1842 with Daniel Bryan when he said, “Daniel Boone settled within four miles of my father William Bryan’s, where he remained until the growth of his family (having several children in his family) and the scarcity of game, lead him to remove to the head of the Adkin,….” In addition to all the work required to care for her home and family, stories told by her children mention that Rebecca also worked as a midwife, linen maker, leather tanner and sharpshooter.
Sources:
Belue, Ted Franklin, Editor, The Life of Daniel Boone by Lyman C. Draper, Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, 1998.
Boyd, William K., William Byrd’s Histories of the Dividing Line Betwixt Virginia and North Carolina, The North Carolina Historical Commission, Edwards & Broughton Company, Raleigh, North Carolina, 1929.
Draper, Lyman Copeland, Draper Manuscripts, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin.
Hammond, Neil O., My Father Daniel Boone: The Draper Interviews with Nathan Boone, The University of Kentucky Press, Lexington, Kentucky, 1999.
Kamper, Ken, An Accurate Summary of the Life of Daniel Boone, Daniel Boone History Research – Newsletter No. 6, December 2021.
Kamper, Ken, A Researcher’s Understanding on the Boone Family Move to North Carolina, No. PK17.0211, February 2017.
Manuscript Collection, The State Historical Society of Missouri, St. Louis, Missouri,
Martin-Wall History Room, Davie County Public Library, Mocksville, North Carolina.
Rowan County Register of Deeds, Salisbury, North Carolina.
Spraker, Hazel Atterbury, The Boone Family, The Tuttle Company, Rutland, Vermont, 1922.
U.S. Quaker Meeting Records 1681-1935.
Weiss, Kathryn H., Daniel Bryan, Nephew of Daniel Boone: His Narrative and Other Stories, Self-published by Kathryn H. Weiss, Forbestown, California, 2008.
Weiss, Katherine, Morgan Bryan, Senior’s “Original Eleven” Anson (Rowan) County North Carolina Land Grants, Katherine Weiss, Forbestown, California, 2006.
Daniel Boone in the Militia During the Colonial North Carolina Wars
“Militia Fire” by Cherie Louise Turner copyright 2023. Left to right are Robert Alvin Crum, Larry Anderson, and Stephen P. McKee. More images below.
Robert Alvin Crum copyright 14 December 2024
Many of us have read about Daniel Boone serving as a Captain at the Siege of Boonesborough in 1778 and that he was a Lieutenant Colonel at the Battle of Blue Licks in 1782. This was only part of his militia service while he lived in the Commonwealth of Virginia. A few may also know that in 1799, when he moved to the Spanish Territory (now the State of Missouri), he was awarded the Spanish military title of Commandant. In addition to all that, Danile Boone also served in the militia in North Carolina.
Many, including historians, don’t realize that there was a militia in colonial North Carolina and that Daniel Boone was part of it. When Daniel moved in 1750 with his parents to the colony of North Carolina and turned 16 years of age, he became a member of the North Carolina Militia. How did this happen?
As mentioned in a previous article, Daniel and most of his siblings moved to North Carolina in 1750. It’s documented that Squire Boone’s earlier arrival in North Carolina is a land entry in 1750 showing a warrant to measure and lay out 640 acres for Squire Boone lying on Grant’s Creek (alias Lichon Creek) and now known as Elisha Creek. When this land was surveyed, Squire Boone is named as a “chainer” indicating that he was walking the land long before the deed was issued on April 13, 1753.
Additional evidence shows the Boones first settled on the east side of the Yadkin where they are shown as living on land adjacent to a survey completed by James Carter dated February 27, 1752. Carter knew the Boones, and his daughter Mary married Jonathan Boone (Squire Boone, Sr.’s son). There’s additional documentation in the Draper Manuscripts and the Rowan County Court of Common Pleas Records showing that Squire and Sarah Morgan Boone and their family first lived on the east side of the Yadkin River and near today’s Boone Cave Park.
To understand Daniel’s North Carolina militia service, one must examine and understand the law with respect to militia service in North Carolina. In colonial North Carolina, all free men between the ages of 16 and 60 were considered members of the militia. Shortly after Daniel Boone arrived with his family in North Carolina in 1750, he celebrated his sixteenth birthday on October 22, so at that time he was legally considered a member of the Rowan County Militia where he was living.
There was a series of Militia Acts passed by the colonial legislature. In addition to freemen, the Militia Act of 1746 added servants to the rolls and exempted millers and ferrymen. Regiments were required to muster annually. Their smaller companies were to muster four times a year. The North Carolina militia could act with the militias in the colonies of Virginia and South Carolina, but no others. Officers were to explain to their men the Militia Act requirements and report to the governor annually. This Act also authorized the first mounted militia. The Militia Act of 1749 reduced the number of militia musters to two each year, but when the French & Indian War began in 1754, the colony returned to requiring more militia musters. For those not familiar with the term “muster,” it was the act of calling together members to assess the availability of the local militias that might function as a defensive force and to also conduct training.
The French & Indian War, which began in North America, was known in Europe as the Seven Years War, when it started there two years later. It became a War for Empire between the British and French. As far as the Carolinas were concerned, the French & Indian War began in 1753 and ended in 1761. In 1753, North Carolina Governor Matthew Rowan wrote in a letter to the Earl of Holdernesse as follows:
“three French and five Northward Indians came down to kill some of the Catawba Indians but were met by 13 of the Catawbas who killed two French and three of the northward Indians... this action was within less than two miles of Rowan County Court House during the sitting of the court.”
Arthur Dobbs became the Royal Governor in 1754 and brought direction and money, when he arrived in the colony of North Carolina. In 1755, Governor Dobbs called for volunteers to march with British General Edward Braddock, and he placed his son Edward Dobbs in charge of the troops to join Braddock.
Daniel Boone was among eighty-four men who responded to the call for volunteers. He was a teamster or wagon driver along with many others such as Daniel Morgan, who would go on to fame as a general in the American Revolution, and John Finley, who would later pilot Daniel Boone and companions for the first time in 1769 through the Cumberland Gap.
As a part of the French & Indian War, British General Braddock commanded an army ordered to march on and recapture Fort Duquesne from the French. The fort was located at the present City of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Serving under General Braddock was Colonel George Washington, who was in command of Virginia’s militia.
The British and American armies numbered fifteen hundred troops. On July 9, 1755, they were only a few miles south of the French fort, when they were ambushed by three hundred Indians and the French. This became known as the Battle of Monongahela. The British were routed, General Braddock was mortally wounded, and about 1,000 British were killed or wounded. As Daniel Boone saw British soldiers running past him to the rear, he knew to cut his horses loose from his wagon. He climbed on one of the horses and rushed to the rear with the rest of the British.
Daniel’s son, Nathan, recounted his father’s story to Lyman Draper during an interview in 1851 as follows:
“In 1755, my father, Daniel Boone, was on Braddock's campaign during the French and Indian War. He was not a soldier, but served as a teamster, conveying the baggage of the army. When General Braddock's army was defeated near Pittsburgh, he was with the baggage in the rear of the column. When the retreat began, he cut his team loose from the wagon and escaped with his horses. He used to censure Braddock’s conduct, saying he neglected to keep out spies and flank guards. I think that somehow my father was connected with Washington's colonial troops; he often spoke of Washington, whom both he and my mother personally knew.”
On page 255 of his book Braddock’s Defeat, David Preston also explained similar experiences of the wagoners during this battle by saying,
“A Virginia wagoner named Lewin was badly wounded in the arm as Native warriors fired on the train. Wagoners struggle to control their teams, spooked by the sounds of musketry and artillery. Enemy fire was killing and wounding both men and horses and scattering some of the pack horses and cattle. A slow trickle of soldiers and teamsters began flowing back to the ford of the Monongahela throughout the battle. Twenty-year-old Daniel Boone was one of the many who chose survival over their sovereign, cutting a horse out of its harness and escaping the expedition.”
After Daniel Boone returned home to the Bryan Settlement from the Battle of Monongahela (Braddock’s Defeat), he met Rebecca Bryan. They married in Rowan County on August 14,1756 and ultimately settled at Sugartree Creek in the Bryan Settlement. They “adopted” Jesse and Jonathan, children of Israel Boone (1726-1756), and Rebecca gave birth to her first two sons, James and Israel, at Sugartree Creek in 1757 and 1759, respectively.
Within the time frame of the French & Indian War, another conflict was sparked in 1758 in North and South Carolina known as the Anglo-Cherokee War (1758-1761). It was fought between the British and the Cherokee.
At the beginning of the French & Indian War, the British and Cherokee were allies. However, one thing that caused this relationship to deteriorate was the encroachment by settlers on the Cherokee towns. Secondly, and more importantly, Cherokee warriors had been traveling from their towns through Virginia to go back and forth to engage in battles with the French. The Virginia militia alleged that Cherokee warriors were stealing their horses, so the militia attacked the Cherokee, which sparked the Anglo-Cherokee War. This led the Cherokee to retaliate by raiding the settlements and towns along the Yadkin and Catawba Rivers.
The conflict raged, and the Cherokee raids increased. By late 1759 many of the settlers in the Bryan Settlement left to find refuge. Daniel Boone moved his wife Rebecca and two sons by wagon to Culpepper County, Virginia, and they were accompanied by his sister Elizabeth and her family. Squire and Sarah Morgan Boone moved farther north to Pennsylvania along with their younger children Squire and Hannah.
In 1756, there were about 1,531 taxable people in Rowan County. There was less than 800 three years later as a result of those fleeing from Cherokee attacks.
Once their families were safe in Virginia, Daniel and his brother-in-law, William Grant, returned to North Carolina to serve in the Rowan County Militia to protect their homes and the settlers that chose to remain. They served under Captain Morgan Bryan who was the uncle of Rebecca Bryan Boone.
Existing records for the militia in North Carolina at this time are very scarce. However, in Jo White Linn’s Rowan County Tax Lists one will find on page 14 as follows: ”25 April 1759. The Publick of North Carolina to Morgan Bryan to a Scout Sent Out in the Alarm of Daniel Hossey & Others being killed ---” Among the eleven members of the Militia listed serving under then Lt. Morgan Bryan are William Bryan (his brother and Daniel’s brother-in-law), John Boone (Daniel’s cousin or brother), and William Grant (Daniel’s brother-in-law). Ms. Linn shows a second entry on that same page that says, “A Scout sent out by the Order of Col. Alexdr. Ozburn & Major Dunn” and shows listed below it “Morgan Bryan, Capt.” and a list of 28 men below him, but none are members of the Boone or Bryan families. In the same Rowan County Tax Lists, Ms. Linn shows on page 13 this entry, “May 25th 1759. The Publick of North Carolina to Morgan Bryan to Scouts Sent Out on the Alarm of William Pincher’s being Killed by the Indians.” Morgan Bryan is shown as the Captain, and there are 43 men serving under him but no members of the Boone or Bryan families. In the Abstract of the Records of the Rowan County Court of Common Pleas, Volume II, entry 279 dated 19 Oct. 1759, one finds “Capn. Morgan Bryan, Lieutenant Roger Turner & Enseyn Thomas Bryan (Morgan’s younger brother) Qualified to their Severall Commissions According to Law &c.”
In 1760, the Cherokee continued their raids as far east as the Moravian settlements that lie to the east of the Yadkin, attacked Fort Dobbs, and continued to raid settlements in both North and South Carolina. British Colonel Archibald Montgomery with 1,200 soldiers razed the Southern Cherokee Towns in 1760. Later that same year, the Overhill Cherokee captured Fort Loudon and defeated the British settlers.
In 1761, a military campaign against the Cherokee was planned to attack the Cherokee towns from two directions. Colonel James Grant arrived in Charles Town with a force of 340 men supported by South Carolina provincials. His force was to march through the Low Country and into the Cherokee Middle Towns. Simultaneously, Colonel William Byrd III’s Virginia troops were to attack from the north the Cherokee Overhill Towns. They were to move along the Holston River through southeastern Virginia and into what is today’s eastern Tennessee. While Grant’s forces raided and wreaked havoc in western North Carolina, Byrd was frustrated by delays and a lack of supplies. Byrd resigned his commission and was replaced by Lieutenant Colonel Adam Stephen. He requested North Carolina recruits from Colonel Waddell at Fort Dobbs, and the North Carolina Governor ordered troops to join the Virginia Regiment serving along the Holston.
Colonel Stephen was impressed by the Carolina companies, even though they were raw troops, and many were just recently recruited. The Carolina troops camped at the recently constructed Fort Robinson located near the Long Island of the Holston. (This is in present day Kingsport, Tennessee.) These soldiers saw no combat, since, in November 1761, the Cherokee signed the Treaty of the Long Island of the Holston with Virginia, and in December 1761, the Cherokee signed with South Carolina the Treaty of Charleston. Once the treaty was signed with Virginia, Daniel and others were discharged from service.
In another part of the conversation Lyman Draper had in 1851 with Nathan and Olive Boone, Olive advised as follows:
“I often heard Colonel Daniel Boone speak of Byrd’s Expedition in 1761. He always criticized Byrd for his slowness and failure, but I can't recall whether Colonel Boone actually said he was on this expedition. But Nathan and I both feel that his father would not have spoken that way about Colonel Byrd, had he not been an eyewitness.”
Draper immediately responded to Olive’s comment by adding:
“Mr. Haywood says that immediately after the peace of 1761, Daniel Boone and others went hunting in the Holston Valley and East Tennessee, which leads me to think that he was on the campaign with Colonel Byrd. Daniel Boone probably served as one of Colonel Waddell's men and, after being discharged from the Army camp on Holston, went hunting on the way home.”
In his Annals of Tennessee, J.G.M. Ramsey mentions on page 66 that now that the Cherokee were at peace in 1761 with the whites, “the hunters began with safety to penetrate deeper and further into the wilderness of Tennessee.” Ramsey continues on page 67 by saying that, “At the head of one of the companies that visited the West this year ‘came Daniel Boon, from the Yadkin, in North Carolina, and traveled with them as low as the place where Abingdon now stands, and there left them.’”
The treaties in 1761 ended in the Carolinas the Anglo-Cherokee and the French & Indian Wars. Daniel and his brother-in-law, William Grant, subsequently traveled to Virginia to retrieve their families and return them to their homes in the Forks of the Yadkin. Daniel Boone would have been required to continue his service with the North Carolina Militia in Rowan County, but the records are scant. Once Daniel Boone migrates in 1773 into Fincastle County, Virginia, one finds records of his militia service there where he rises to the rank of Lieutenant and then Captain and is appointed to command the defense of three forts during Lord Dunmore’s War.
Sources:
Anson County, North Carolina Deed Records.
Belue, Ted Franklin, Editor, The Life of Daniel Boone by Lyman C. Draper, Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, 1998.
Clark, Walter, Editor, The State Records of North Carolina, 16 Volumes, Winston, Goldsboro, State of North Carolina, 1895-1907.
Colonial and State Records of North Carolina, Acts of the North Carolina General Assembly, 1753, Chapter VII, p. 383.
Draper, Lyman Copeland, Draper Manuscripts, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin.
Fries, Adelaide Lisetta, Records of the Moravians in North Carolina, 1752-1771, Vols. 1 & 2, Publications of the North Carolina Historical Commission, State Department of Archives and History, Raleigh, North Carolina, Reprinted 1968.
Hammond, Neil O., Editor, My Father Daniel Boone: The Draper Interviews with Nathan Boone, The University of Kentucky Press, Lexington, Kentucky, 1999.
Kamper, Ken, An Accurate Summary of the Life of Daniel Boone, Daniel Boone History Research – Newsletter No. 6, December 2021.
Kamper, Ken, A Researcher’s Understanding on the Boone Family Move to North Carolina, No. PK17.0211, February 2017.
King, Duane H., Editor, The Memoirs of Lt. Henry Timberlake: The Story of a Soldier, Adventurer, and Emissary to the Cherokees, 1756-1765, Museum of the Cherokee Indian, Cherokee, NC, 2007.
Linn, Jo White, Abstracts of the Deeds of Rowan County, North Carolina, 1753 – 1785, Books 1 through 10, Salisbury, North Carolina, Privately published, 1983.
Linn, Jo White, Abstracts of the Minutes of the Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions, Rowan County, North Carolina, Volume I – 1753-1762, Volume II – 1763-1774, Volume III – 1775-1789, Salisbury, North Carolina, Privately published, 1977, 1979, 1982.
Linn, Jo White, Rowan County, North Carolina Tax Lists 1757-1800 Annotated Transcriptions, Salisbury, North Carolina, Privately published, 1995.
Maas, John R., The French & Indian War in North Carolina: The Spreading Flames of War, The History Press, Charleston, SC, 2013.
Melius, Jason, “Defining the Variety of Combatants During the French and Indian War,” The Fort Dobbs Gazette, Volume XIX, Issue 4, pages and 5, December 2022.
Melius, J., “Militia Activity on the NC Frontier 1755-1766,” June 2022.
Preston, David L., Braddock’s Defeat: The Battle of Monongahela and the Road to Revolution, Oxford University Press, New York, NY, 2015.
Ramsey, J.G.M., The Annuals of Tennessee to the End of the Eighteenth Century, Walker & Jones, Charleston, SC, 1853.
Ramsey, Robert W., Carolina Cradle: Settlement of the Northwest Carolina Frontier 1747-1762, The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1964.
Robinson, Blackwell P., The Five Royal Governors of North Carolina 1729-1775, State Department of Archives and History, Raleigh, NC 1968.
Saunders, William L., Editor, The Colonial Records of North Carolina, 10 Volumes, Printers to the State, Raleigh, North Carolina, 1886-1890.
Spraker, Hazel Atterbury, The Boone Family, The Tuttle Company, Rutland, Vermont, 1922.
Tortora, Daniel J., Carolina in Crisis: Cherokees, Colonists and Slaves in the American Southeast, 1756-1763, The University of North Carolina Press, 2015.
U.S Quaker Meeting Records 1681-1935.
Whisker, James Biser, The North Carolina Militia, 1585 – 1783, Heritage House, Columbia, South Carolina, 2022.
The Mysterious Symbols on Squire Boone’s Headstone - Did Daniel Boone Carve Them?
Above are Masonic images on Squire Boone’s headstone which are (l to r) a Compass and Square, a Point in a Circle, and the letter “G.” More images below.
Robert Alvin Crum copyright 23 November 2024
Before I moved into the “High Country” of the North Carolina mountains in 2017, I lived in Salisbury, North Carolina, which is just a short drive from Joppa Cemetery in Mocksville. I frequently went to Mocksville and Davie County to do research about my Boone and Bryan ancestors. Whenever I was in the area, I would leave flowers, coins or flags at the graves of my ancestors Squire and Sarah Morgan Boone. I also photographed and even completed a large painting of the gravesite. The text on Squire’s headstone always fascinated me, and what I found is the subject of this article.
The cemetery was originally known as Burying Ground Ridge, and the area around today’s Joppa Cemetery was settled in the early 1750’s. Joppa Cemetery is believed to hold the graves of many of those early settlers. Until recently, the earliest marked grave was that of Squire Boone, who was buried there in 1765. Squire’s wife, Sarah, died in 1777 and was buried beside him. More recent research confirmed the location of the grave of their oldest son, Israel, who died in 1756. He’s buried to the left of his parents, and his grave was marked in May 2009 by his descendants and The Boone Society.
Squire Boone died on January 2, 1765, and was buried in Joppa Cemetery in what is now Mocksville, North Carolina. He was sixty-nine years old, and his gravestone reads:
SQUIRE BOONE
DEPARTED
THIS LIFE IN
THEY SIXTY
NINTH YEAR
OF HIS AGE IN
THAY YEAR
OF OUR LORD
1765 GENEI
ARY THA 2
O
In the biography written in 2007 about Daniel Boone, Robert Morgan writes on page 81:
“The inscription may have been cut by Daniel himself, for the imaginative spelling resembles that in many of the documents in Daniel's handwriting. The symbol of the point within the circle carved in the stone suggests that Squire was indeed a Freemason. In those days the sign was most often intended to show the duty of the individual brother to ‘God and man by means of the circumference.’ But it was also a sign often to taken to mean ‘the Divine Spirit indwelling creation and abiding in the nature of man.’ It is possible that the sign was used to illustrate Tertullian's definition of God as a circle whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere. According to A Dictionary of Freemasonry, it is a symbol of the creation of the world.”
After reading this entry by Robert Morgan, I returned to Squire Boone’s grave to give his gravestone closer examination. This one symbol he explained appearing in the lower right corner wasn’t the only Freemasonry symbol. I found Masonic symbols throughout the text on Squire Boone’s gravestone! I will go into more detail about all the Masonic symbols I found later in this article, but first I’d like to explore why they might be there in the first place.
Robert Morgan also wrote in his Boone biography on pages 26 & 27 the following:
“There is reason to believe, based on symbols carved on his tombstone in North Carolina, that Squire, like his son Daniel later, had been initiated into the society of Freemasons. Leaders such as Benjamin Franklin were known to be enthusiastic Masons. Formed in England early in the eighteenth century, the secret society was devoted to fellowship, ceremony, charity, and service to the community. Joining the Freemasons could have made Squire feel even more independent of the Quaker Meeting.”
“Freemasonry offered a fresh way of looking at society and mankind – liberal, rational, committed to a useful, moral life, not based on revelation, class, monarchy. Jews and even African Americans and Native Americans might be initiated into lodges. It seems likely the Boones’ affiliation with Masonry strengthened their sense of belonging to the fraternity of all men, whether white or Indian, American or British, and helps explain Daniel's conduct later in the complex, dangerous time of the American Revolution.”
Robert Morgan continues in his Boone biography on page 60 by saying:
“Though Boone may have been initiated as a Freemason in 1755, his return to Virginia in 1760 also provided an opportunity for joining the brotherhood. An important lodge had already been established in nearby Fredericksburg, and there are rumors that the Boones met George Washington in Fredericksburg also. It is possible his father, Squire, became a Freemason at this time also, or renewed his Masonic connections begun earlier in Pennsylvania.”
Historian Neal O. Hammond edited a book that includes Lyman Draper’s interviews of Nathan Boone, Daniel Boone’s youngest son. The title of the book is My Father, Daniel Boone, and Nathan Boone tells Draper on page 14 that my father “often spoke of Washington, whom both he and my mother personally knew.” Nathan continues saying that “…it is more likely they met in Fredericksburg in 1762.”
There’s evidence that George Washington was a Mason and that he attended the lodge in Fredericksburg. Why was Daniel Boone in Fredericksburg in 1762? Did he meet George Washington at the lodge there? There is no clarification about this detail by Nathan Boone. However, on page 139 in Hammond’s book about Draper’s interview, Nathan Boone recounts his father’s funeral in 1820 and says, “There were no military or Masonic honors, the latter of he was a member, as there were then but very few in that region of the country.” Nathan Boone advises that his father was a Mason.
Dr. John W. Bizzack published an article online entitled Unravelling Tall Tales: A 21st Century Investigation into the Disputable Masonic Claims that Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett Were Freemasons. He begins his article by saying that there has been a longstanding belief that Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett were Freemasons. He adds that Daniel Boone’s name appears on the “Famous Masons” list and generations of Masons have defended the listing “without regard to the fragile and unreliable speculation on which those claims are based.” Dr. Bizzack continues by saying the beginning of the belief that Daniel Boone was a Freemason began at Boone’s reinternment in 1845 in Frankfort, Kentucky, because “Freemasons, along with a reported 25,000 other people, attended the ceremony.”
Dr. Bizzack also mentions in his article that John Filson interviewed Daniel Boone and published in 1784 the first biography about Boone. Bizzack mentions that John Filson was a Freemason at Christen Lodge No. 84 in Wilmington, Delaware. However, Bizzack finds it curious that Filson never mentions in his writing that Boone was a “brother Mason.”
Also mentioned as an authority in Dr. Bizzack’s article is J. Winston Coleman who is “a highly respected Kentucky historian,” and he was a member of the Masonic Lexington Lodge No. 1. Bizzack says that “Coleman extensively researched about Freemasonry in Kentucky” and wrote, “an Authentic Account of Masonry in Lexington and Fayette County, Kentucky 1788 - 1933.” Bizzack emphatically states, “There are no references or notations about Daniel Boone being a Mason in any of Coleman’s writings.” Bizzack concludes. “The writings of Boone’s exploits and life certainly suggest he conducted himself in ways compatible with Masonic values. But the issue of whether Boone was a member of the Craft remains undocumented and unproven.”
I began my search for documentation that both Squire and Daniel Boone were Freemasons after reading Robert Morgan’s statement mentioned above that they were both Freemasons. Daniel Boone’s son, Nathan, said he was a Mason, which should be pretty good evidence that his father was a Mason; however, I’ve not yet found any other documentation or evidence confirming this.
As part of my research, I also photographed and completed a tracing of Squire Boone’s gravestone to examine whether and how many masonic symbols might appear there. When I compare my photo and my tracing to the headstone tracing that’s between pages 38 and 39 in Spraker’s The Boone Family, there are a few more letters there in the book. These few additional letters have no bearing on my analysis of the masonic symbols.
As I mentioned above, the symbol Robert Morgan and others notice and on which they focus is the point in a circle at the lower right-hand corner. However, if you examine the stone in person, every “O” in the text has a point in the center. It is a little difficult to see in a photograph, but it is clear on my tracing. There is also a “Y” in the word “year,” and for some unknown reason, there is a point in a circle superimposed over it. On the headstone, there are carved six symbols of the point in a circle.
The most common masonic symbol is the square and compass, and it’s used worldwide by Freemasons and Masonic lodges. In Masonry, the square is an emblem of morality, and the compass represents the relationship between the individual and society. The text on Squire’s headstone has seven “A’s,” and they all are carved into the shape of a masonic square and compass.
Another possible masonic symbol on this headstone is the letter “G.” It stands for “geometry,” and masons frequently place it in the center of their square and compass symbol. Geometry is the basis for stonemasonry, and, symbolically, it is the basis for Freemasonry. There are only two “G’s” on this headstone, and I would not consider this as a masonic symbol, if it only appeared in the word “age.” It piqued my curiosity, when I saw it in the month of Squire’s death which is spelled “Geneiary.” There was not a standardization of spelling in the eighteenth century since Webster’s Dictionary was not yet in existence. One might argue that the stone carver was spelling phonetically, but a “G’ at the beginning of a word has a harsh sound, and months like June and July have a soft sound. So why didn’t this carver use a “J” rather than a “G?” Is the “G” on this headstone a masonic symbol as appears to be the case with the “O” and “A?” Unfortunately, we have no way to confirm this suspicion.
Dr. Bizzack mentions only the one point in a circle in the lower right corner but appears to dismiss it as a possible masonic symbol but also suggests that it might be a Quaker symbol. I’m a little surprised by the latter statement, since Squire was expelled by the Quakers from the Friend’s Meeting in Pennsylvania before he migrated to North Carolina in 1750. Why would a possible Quaker symbol be carved in his headstone at the time of his death fifteen years later in 1765?
Dr. Bizzack also mentions the letter “A” and says, “A closer look at the letter ‘A’ is merely the letter “A’ and not a Masonic symbol.” As a visual artist, carver, and during my studies in geometry, I learned that “the shortest distance between two points is a straight line.” When closely examining the seven “A’s” the headstone, where the “A” should be completed using a straight horizontal line, all are drawn as a right angle appearing to be the square portion of the masonic square and compass symbol. Why wouldn’t the stone carver take the easier route of carving a straight line seven times rather than carving a more complicated right angle? These seven “A’s” are clearly the symbol of a square and compass.
It's possible that Daniel Boone was a Mason based on his son’s statement. Authors disagree, and Dr. Bizzack reminds us that there’s no documentation. The question also remains about Daniel’s father, Squire. Was he a Mason? It’s possible given his political connections, but, again, there’s no documentation to be found.
However, the big question is why are there masonic symbols on Squire Boone’s headstone? Without analyzing all the letters, there’s no question that the “A’s” and the “O’s” are Masonic symbols. It’s understandable to conclude that they’re on the headstone, because Squire was a Mason, or the carver was or both. At the moment, there’s no documentation, so my hope is that the reason isn’t lost to history, and maybe one day we’ll know.
The final question is who carved Squire Boone’s headstone that included Masonic symbols? Many claim it was his son Daniel. Again, there’s no documentation that he did so.
I looked at one more possibility about who might have carved this headstone. Squire Boone, Jr. was twenty-one years of age at the time of his father’s death. There are existing examples of stone carvings in other locations by Squire Boone, Jr., so I examined and compared the text on them to Squire Boone’s headstone. One is in Richmond, Kentucky, and is called the “Squire Boone Rock.” On it is a carving that says, “1770 Squire Boone.” Tradition says that Squire carved this to let his brother Daniel know that he had returned to the vicinity. When I compared the text, I saw no similarities to his father’s headstone. Another place with examples of Squire Boone, Jr.’s stone carving is in Harrison County, Indiana where Squire lived his final years, died and was buried. There are stones carved by Squire Boone, Jr. in his reconstructed Grist Mill in Harrison County. One has text and the date 1809, but the text on this stone also doesn’t resemble that on his father’s headstone. Therefore, it doesn’t look like the headstone carving was by the hand of this son either.
Examination of the text on Squire Boone’s headstone in Joppa Cemetery does reveal masonic symbols. It’s possible that he and/or the carver were Masons. However, after my research and examination, there doesn’t appear to be hard evidence that Squire was a Mason nor the identity of who carved this headstone. Therefore, the mystery continues about why masonic symbols appear on the headstone of Squire Boone.
Sources:
Bizzack, John W., Unravelling Tall Tales: A 21st Century Investigation into Disputable Masonic Claims that Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett Were Freemasons, https://thecraftsman.org/unraveling-tall-tales/
Cemetery Census, Davie County North Carolina Cemeteries, Davie County Historical & Genealogical Society, http://cemeterycensus.com/nc/davie/cem089.htm
Draper, Lyman Copeland, Draper Manuscripts, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison, WI.
Hammond, Neal O., Editor, My Father Daniel Boone: The Draper Interviews with Nathan Boone, The University Press of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, 1999.
Heitman, Mary J., History of Joppa Church, Martin-Wall History Room, Davie Public Library, Mocksville, NC.
Lilley, George H., The Meaning Behind 15 Common Masonic Symbols, https://www.ghlilley.com/blogs/news/freemason-symbols?
Masons of California, Freemasonry Symbols: An Introduction to the Symbols, Signs, and Emblems of Masons and Masonic Lodges, https://freemason.org/freemasonry-symbols/
Martin-Wall History Room, Davie County Public Library, Mocksville, NC.
Morgan, Robert, Boone: A Biography, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, 2007.
Sons of the American Revolution, www.sarpatriots.org/patriotssearch and cemetery search.
Spraker, Hazel Atterbury, The Boone Family, The Tuttle Company, Rutland, VT, 1922.
U.S. Quaker Meeting Records 1681-1935.
The Bryan Settlement
Above is a detail of an antique map of the Moravian’s Wachovia Tract showing the Bryant’s Settlement to the southwest. More images below.
Robert Alvin Crum copyright 22 May 2024
Historians provide memories of people, places, and events, and without their stories, so much would be lost in time. Around 1747, land speculators and early settlers were moving into the western part of the British Colony of North Carolina, and they established a settlement in the Forks of the Yadkin on both sides of a prominent crossing known as the Shallow Ford. Their initial land grants spanned thousands of acres in what are now the counties of Forsyth, Yadkin, and Davie. Dr. Robert Ramsey wrote in Carolina Cradle: Settlement of the Northwest Carolina Frontier 1747-1762 that, “The most prominent of settlers in northwestern Carolina before 1752 was Morgan Bryan,” and this place that was almost lost to history was named after him and called the “Bryan Settlement.”
Most of these early land speculators and settlers came from the British Colonies of Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Maryland. They were looking for more and cheaper land that wasn’t available in the colonies in which they lived. At this time, they couldn’t move west, because the land to the west of the mountains was claimed by the Empire of France. Therefore, they moved south to western North Carolina where the Earl of Granville was selling off large tracts of land cheaper than what could be found in other British colonies.
It’s almost impossible to find all the names of the first settlers of the Bryan Settlement, but the families among them include Morgan Bryan, James Carter, Samuel Davis, George Forbush, Edward Hughes, Jonathan Hunt, William Linnville, Squire Boone, and more. The names of Morgan and Martha Bryan’s children whose families also migrated into North Carolina with them in 1747 were Eleanor, Samuel, John, William, James, and Thomas, and they also brought with them granddaughters Martha Bryan, Rebecca Bryan, and Mary Curtis.
They migrated out of the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and headed south. It was a rocky trail through Virginia, and the Bryans had to clear sections as they went. For a brief time, this was known as the Bryan Road in Virginia. Later, it was referred to as the Carolina Road but eventually became known as the Great Wagon Road. They followed the road out of Virginia and into North Carolina where it wound through present day Stokes and Forsyth Counties. The road curved southwest along a ridge above the Yadkin River to the east of the Shallow Ford. There, Edward Hughes established a tavern where he could provide service to all those following the Great Wagon Road and would frequently stop before fording the Yadkin. The Bryans crossed the Yadkin River from the east side to the west at the Shallow Ford and entered this land to be among the first white settlers. Many of the children of these early settlers would marry and continue to expand their land holdings.
Morgan Bryan initially bought eleven tracts of land totaling 3,838½ acres, and most were later sold to his children. Eight of these tracts were in the Forks of the Yadkin, but three were on the north side of the Upper Yadkin River at Mulberry Fields and Reddy’s River. The grants and indentures are dated 1752, and Morgan made the first five sales to his sons in 1753. Most of Morgan’s children began buying more land where they chose to build their homes.
In 1750, Squire and Sarah Boone also brought their extended family to North Carolina. Squire’s two 640-acre Granville Land grants were perfected in 1753. The Boone children would intermarry with the Bryans, Carters, Linvilles, and other families, and they too would purchase and settle on lands in the Bryan Settlement.
Many of these first families were Quakers or members of the Society of Friends in Pennsylvania, but when they moved to North Carolina, most abandoned that faith and some even declared themselves to be members of the official church of state, the Anglican Church. (Also referred to as the Church of England.) Some of the Boones became Baptists, and a few of the Bryans became active with the Moravians.
In 1752, Bishop Spangenburg led the Moravians into the Colony of North Carolina in search of land to establish a large community. He was unable to purchase some land he wanted on the Upper Yadkin River, because Morgan Bryan had already surveyed and acquired it three to four years earlier. As the Moravians moved east in search of additional land, they found the Bryan Settlement already occupied the west side of the Yadkin River. The Moravians had to cross the Shallow Ford to acquire land to the east of the Yadkin River, and it became known as the Wachovia Tract. Today, this is the location of Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
The 1750’s saw rapid population growth in the Settlement as more families arrived from the northeast. The Bryan and Boone families moved into North Carolina at a peaceful time with the hopes of farming, hunting, and even earning a livelihood as land speculators. They also were heavily involved in the North Carolina colonial government of Rowan County. However, things quickly changed in 1754, when conflict began with the French and Indian War, but violence escalated in the Carolinas with the Cherokee War from 1758 to 1761. Many of the Boones left and took shelter at this time in Virginia and points farther north. The Bryans stayed, and Morgan Bryan, Jr. served as the militia captain while brother Thomas was his ensign. Bryan brothers Samuel, John, William, and James also served in the militia during this Cherokee war.
After the French & Indian War, the land west of the mountains was acquired by the British from the French. The British colonists, especially many in the Bryan Settlement, began to turn their attentions to new land on the west side of the mountains.
The parents who led their children into the Bryan Settlement began to die off and were buried there. Morgan Bryan died in 1763, and his wife Martha died the previous year in 1762. Squire Boone died in 1765, and his wife Sarah died in 1777.
Much like their parents, the Boones, Bryans, and related families began moving west to speculate on the purchase of new lands. In 1775, the Boones and related families made a successful attempt to settle at and helped establish Fort Boonesborough. At the same time, the four Bryan brothers, Joseph, Morgan, William, and James, established Bryan’s Station near present day Lexington, Kentucky. The Bryans would frequently travel back and forth between Bryan Station and the Bryan Settlement.
There is an entry in the Moravian’s Salem Diary of 1779 on October 3 that states, “Six more families passed on their way to Kentok; it is unbelievable that such a crowd of people as are going thither will be able to support themselves. Several hundred went with the Bryants recently.” (The Moravians usually spelled the Bryan name with a “t” on the end.) In the fall of 1779, Daniel Boone also led another large migration out of the Bryan Settlement and into Kentucky.
Most of the Boones, Bryans, and related families led America’s first great migration west. By the end of the 18th century, the large area they once inhabited that was known as the Bryan Settlement faded into history.
Sources:
Anson County, North Carolina Deed Records, Wadesboro, North Carolina.
Belue, Ted Franklin, Editor, The Life of Daniel Boone by Lyman C. Draper, Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, 1998.
Bryan, Jr., John K., “Morgan Bryan,” Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, 6 Volumes edited by William S. Powell, The University of North Carolina Press, copyright 1979 – 1996.
Clark, Walter, ed., The State Records of North Carolina, 16 Volumes, Winston, Goldsboro: State of North Carolina, 1895-1907.
Colonial and State Records of North Carolina, Acts of the North Carolina General Assembly, 1753, Chapter VII, p. 383.
Draper, Lyman Copeland, Draper Manuscripts, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin.
Fries, Adelaide Lisetta, Records of the Moravians in North Carolina, 1752-1771, Vol. 1, Publications of the North Carolina Historical Commission, State Department of Archives and History, Raleigh, North Carolina, Reprinted 1968.
Hammond, Neil O., My Father Daniel Boone: The Draper Interviews with Nathan Boone, The University of Kentucky Press, Lexington, Kentucky, 1999.
Kamper, Ken, A Researcher’s Understanding on the Boone Family Move to North Carolina, No. PK17.0211, February 2017.
Linn, Jo White, Abstracts of the Deeds of Rowan County, North Carolina, 1753 – 1785, Books 1 through 10, Salisbury, North Carolina, Privately published, 1983.
Linn, Jo White, Abstracts of the Minutes of the Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions, Rowan County, North Carolina, Volume I – 1753-1762, Volume II – 1763-1774, Volume III – 1775-1789, Salisbury, North Carolina, Privately published, 1977, 1979, 1982.
Manuscript Collection, The State Historical Society of Missouri, St. Louis, Missouri.
McMurtry, David C., Seven Sons and Two Daughters of Morgan Bryan (1671-1763): “Irish Immigrant” and Some of Their Descendants, Mil-Mac Publishers, Lexington, Kentucky, 2009.
McMurtry, David C., Bryan, David Randall, and Weiss, Katherine, Morgan Bryan (1671-1763: A Danish Born “Irish Immigrant” and Some of His Antecedents and Descendants, Mil-Mac Publishers, Lexington, Kentucky, 2007.
Ramsey, Robert W., Carolina Cradle: Settlement of the Northwest Carolina Frontier 1747-1762, The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1964.
Rowan County Deeds, Rowan County Records, Salisbury, North Carolina.
Rowan County Wills, Rowan County Records, Salisbury, North Carolina.
Saunders, William L., ed., The Colonial Records of North Carolina, 10 Volumes, Printers to the State, Raleigh, North Carolina, 1886-1890.
Spraker, Hazel Atterbury, The Boone Family, The Tuttle Company, Rutland, Vermont, 1922.
Stimson, R. Kyle, The Great Philadelphia Wagon Road in Forsyth County, N.C. 1750 – 1770: Historic Roads of Forsyth County – Volume One, copyright 1999 by R. Kyle Stimson.
Surry County Deeds, Surry County Records, Mt. Airy, North Carolina.
U.S Quaker Meeting Records 1681-1935.
Weiss, Kathryn H., Daniel Bryan, Nephew of Daniel Boone: His Narrative and Other Stories, Self-published by Kathryn H. Weiss, Forbestown, California, 2008.
Weiss, Katherine, Morgan Bryan, Senior’s “Original Eleven” Anson (Rowan) County North Carolina Land Grants, Katherine Weiss, Forbestown, California, 2006.
Israel Boone (1726-1756) Daniel Boone’s Brother
Above is the grave marker for Israel Boone located to the left of his father’s grave in Joppa Cemetery. Photo by Robert Alvin Crum 2024. More photos below.
Robert Alvin Crum copyright 28 April 2024
As I mentioned in a previous article, Squire Boone was born in Devonshire, England in 1696 to a family who belonged to the Society of Friends or what we commonly refer to as Quakers. For both economic and religious reasons, Squire, his parents, and siblings migrated in 1717 to the Quaker colony of Pennsylvania. His future wife Sarah Morgan was born in Pennsylvania in 1700, and her parents were also Quakers. In 1720, Squire Boone married Sarah Morgan in the Gwynedd Meeting (Society of Friends).
Squire and Sarah had eleven children who were all born in the British Colony of Pennsylvania. Daniel was born as their sixth child, and his oldest brother, Israel, was born on May 20, 1726.
Squire and Sarah’s oldest daughter, Sarah, married a non-Quaker, John Wilcoxson, in 1742 (referred to as marrying a worldling outside the Quaker Meeting). The Society of Friends required Squire to repent for her behavior, which he did, so he could remain a Quaker.
Records of the Exeter Monthly Meeting held on “the 28th Day of the 11th Month of 1747,” states that “Israel Boone, Son of Squire Boone of Exeter, having been Educated and brought up amongst Friends, and as a Member of this Meeting, hath married a Wife who is not in Unity with Friends….” Since Israel, their second child, also married a worldling, Squire was again required to repent for his son’s behavior. When Squire refused, the Society of Friends expelled him from the Friends Meeting, so Squire was no longer a Quaker. However, his wife was able to maintain her standing as a Quaker the rest of her life.
In the spring of 1750, Squire and Sarah Morgan Boone left Pennsylvania with their children and large extended family. That same year, in 1750, the Boones settled on the east side of the Yadkin River in what is now Davidson County at or near Boone Cave Park. They resided there until lands could be purchased on the west side of the Yadkin River. Then they all moved into what is now Davie County.
As mentioned above, Israel Boone married in Pennsylvania, and some sources say his wife’s name was Martha Farmer. They had two sons, Jesse (1748-1829) and Jonathan (1750-1826), and two daughters Elizabeth and Jemima, according to some sources. As part of the extended Squire Boone family, they also migrated to North Carolina. There is no known record of Israel Boone owning land in what is now Davie County; however, The Rowan County Minutes in January 1765 quote a road overseer as saying, “from the South Yadkin to Israel Boons old Place.” It’s also possible that Israel and his family lived on one of his father’s 640-acre tracts.
The French & Indian War erupted in 1754, and North Carolina Governor Arthur Dobbs gave his son, Edward Brice Dobbs, a provincial commission as Captain. This son was also a lieutenant in the 7th Royal Fusiliers. As participants in this war, Captain Dobbs was the last to arrive with his North Carolina ranger company at Fort Cumberland on May 30. Daniel Boone was one of the teamsters in Captain Dobbs’ company. When The Battle of the Monongahela began on July 9, 1755, Daniel Boone had crossed the river with his wagon and was huddled in a tight formation with the other waggoners. They were enveloped in the battle, and as they tried to control their teams of horses spooked by musket and canon fire, they realized the British had lost the battle to the French. Boone and the other waggoners cut their harnesses from their horses and escaped from what would have been certain death.
Daniel Boone returned from the battle to North Carolina during the summer of 1755 to find that Israel Boone was suffering from the disease known then as consumption. Today, we refer to this disease as tuberculosis. Another disease that afflicted both settlers and Natives in North Carolina was smallpox. Daniel survived this disease as a child that left his face scarred for life. As mentioned in a previous article, in 1738, the Cherokee suffered from a smallpox epidemic that killed half of their population, and in 1759, a smallpox epidemic killed half of the Catawba Nation.
As mentioned, the Boones lived in what today is Davie County on the west side of the Yadkin River, and east of them on the other side of the Yadkin was the Wachovia Tract where the Moravians established in 1753 a small community they called Bethabara, which means “house of passage.” Fifteen Moravians from Pennsylvania first settled this village. It became a bustling trade center but was only intended to be used until Salem could be established. When that occurred in 1766, many of the Moravian settlers moved to Salem.
It was well-known that the Moravians could treat the ill and those afflicted with disease. Therefore, it wasn’t unusual that in 1755 Sarah Morgan Boone took her son Israel to Bethabara and left him for treatment of consumption. In the Moravian Records the Bethabara Diary dated 1755 states that on August 26, “A consumptive came with his mother, and asked to remain two weeks for treatment, and we could not refuse. We lodged him in the old house.”
There’s another entry in the 1755 Bethabara Diary which states on September 1, “The consumptive was taken home by his brother, who came for him last evening. He, - Mr. Boone, - returned on the 6th, accompanied by his father, who remained overnight. On the 15th his brother came for him once more, and he left, there being small hope of his recovery.” A few weeks later, his father and brother (probably Daniel) spent the night to see Israel and took him home, when the doctor said there was little hope for recovery.
Lyman Draper interviewed Samuel Boone, Israel’s brother, who said that Israel died on June 26, 1756, and was buried near present-day Mocksville. Draper also wrote that Israel had two sons and two daughters and that the daughters contracted consumption from their mother and died at an early age. After Israel’s death, the two sons, Jesse and Jonathan were cared for and raised by Daniel and Rebecca Boone.
The “sick house” and the “stranger’s house” have been reconstructed at Bethabara Historic Park. They are believed to be the locations where the Boone’s stayed when here in 1755.
Originally known as Burying Ground Ridge, the area around today’s Joppa Cemetery was settled in the early 1750’s. The cemetery is believed to hold the graves of many of those early settlers. For many years, it was believed that the oldest marked grave in Joppa Cemetery (Burying Ground Ridge) was that of Squire Boone (1696-1765).
In October 2005, Katherine Weiss wrote an article about Israel Boone’s possible burial location. In it, she quotes letters from Lyman Draper’s Boone Series written by James Williamson and Jethro Rumple. There’s an analysis of a broken stone that was next to the gravestone of Squire Boone, and the broken stone is very similar to Squire’s. Text on the broken stone was ++BoonE and part of a number 5 and then a 6. The conclusion is that the only family member that died in 1756 and would have had stone similar to his father was Israel.
After research to confirm the location of the grave of Israel Boone, his descendants and The Boone Society, Inc. placed a bronze plaque in Joppa Cemetery in May 2009 marking Israel’s grave just to the left of Squire and Sarah Morgan Boone. The text on the plaque marking his grave reads as follows:
ISRAEL BOONE
Born May 20 (N.S.), 1726 Bucks County, PA
Died June 26, 1756, Davie County, NC
A few feet to the right, Israel Boone rests for eternity. Israel was the 2nd
Of 11 children born to Squire and Sarah Morgan Boone and their only child
to be buried in North Carolina.
Israel married in 1747 while in Pennsylvania. The name of his wife and
the location of her burial have never been proven. To them were born 4
Children, Jesse, Jonathan, Elizabeth, and Sarah (Sallie).
IN GRATEFUL MEMORY
BY DESCENDANTS OF ISRAEL, HIS WIFE AND THE BOONE SOCIETY
MAY 2009
If you’d like to visit Bethabara Historic Site to follow in the Boones’ footsteps, it is now owned by the City of Winston-Salem. Admission to the park grounds, gardens and trails are free and open year-round. There is a visitor center open from April to mid-December, and tours can be scheduled for a fee of the 1788 Gemeinhaus (Moravian Church) and other historic buildings which includes the 1754 Colonial Village.
This site encompasses 183 acres that includes more than ten miles of hiking trails. This site also includes two historic gardens begun in 1761. One is a European Medicinal Garden, and the other is a Community Garden. The 1754 village has been reconstructed, and the Palisade Fort (1756-1763) built and used during the French and Indian War has been reconstructed. Some historians believe that some of the Boones and Bryans may have “forted up” here during the French and Indian War, but there isn’t documentation to confirm this.
Sources:
Belue, Ted Franklin, Editor, The Life of Daniel Boone by Lyman C. Draper, Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, 1998.
Colonial and State Records of North Carolina.
Draper, Lyman Copeland, Draper Manuscripts, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin.
Faragher, John Mack, Daniel Boone: The Life and Legend of an American Pioneer, Henry Holt and Company, Inc., New York, NY, 1992.
findagrave.com/memorial/8117530/Israel-boone.
Fries, Adelaide Lisetta, Records of the Moravians in North Carolina, 1752-1771, Vol. 1, Publications of the North Carolina Historical Commission, State Department of Archives and History, Raleigh, NC, Reprinted 1968.
historicbethabara.org.
Linn, Jo White, Abstracts of the Minutes of the Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions, Rowan County, North Carolina, Volume I – 1753-1762, Volume II – 1763-1774, Volume III – 1775-1789, Salisbury, North Carolina, Privately published, 1977, 1979, 1982.
Preston, David L., Braddock’s Defeat: the Battle of the Monongahela and the Road to Revolution, Oxford University Press, New York, NY, 2015.
Ramsey, Robert W., Carolina Cradle: Settlement of the Northwest Carolina Frontier 1747-1762, The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1964.
Rumple, Rev. Jethro, A History of Rowan County, North Carolina: Containing Sketches of Prominent Families and Distinguished Men, Published by J.J. Bruner, Salisbury, North Carolina, 1881.
Spraker, Hazel Atterbury, The Boone Family, The Tuttle Company, Rutland, VT, 1922.
U.S. Quaker Meeting Records 1681 – 1935.
Weiss, Katherine, “Israel Boone’s Burial,” page 11, The Compass, The Boone Society, Inc., October 2005.
A Brief History of Joppa Cemetery (Burying Ground Ridge)
Graves at right of Squire and Sarah Morgan Boone. Wilcoxson graves are at left foreground. Photo by Robert Alvin Crum copyright 2024. More images below.
Robert Alvin Crum copyright 26 April 2024
This past year, I had the honor of being involved in organizing the Col. Daniel Boone Chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution in Boone, North Carolina. This was especially an honor for me since I became a member of the Sons of the American Revolution as a direct descendant of Col. Daniel Boone.
One of the missions of the Sons of the Revolution (SAR) is to mark with granite stones the graves as “Patriots” of those who served as soldiers, in the government, or contributed financially to the fight for independence from Great Britain. On April 15, 2023, our Boone Chapter, sponsored its first Patriot Grave Marking at Joppa Cemetery in Mocksville, North Carolina, along with another SAR Chapter and a Chapter of Daughters of the American Revolution. The Grave Marking Ceremony was for Patriots Basil Gaither and Isaac Jones, and there were about sixty people in attendance along with the Mayor Marklin of Mocksville and North Carolina House Member Howard.
As a historian, I was asked to write a brief history about Joppa Cemetery and give an oral presentation to the crowd attending. Those with whom I was involved in planning this ceremony knew my connection as a Boone descendant and that I had frequented the cemetery to leave flags and coins and flowers. They also knew that I had enough research to write a book about the subject, but we didn’t want to put our audience to sleep, so I kept my presentation fairly brief.
After my presentation, I was surprised that most who attended had never heard of the history of this place. There are many descendants of Squire and Sarah Morgan Boone who make pilgrimages to Joppa Cemetery to visit the graves of their ancestors, but most of them also have not seen its history. I know many of them are members of The Boone Society, so I thought what better place than The Compass to pass along this history. My presentation about Joppa Cemetery to those in attendance at the Grave Markings on April 15 is as follows.
Originally known as Burying Ground Ridge, the area around today’s Joppa Cemetery was settled in the early 1750’s. The cemetery is believed to hold the graves of many of those early settlers. Until recently, the earliest marked grave was that of Squire Boone, who was buried here in 1765. It’s believed that his son Daniel carved Squire’s headstone, which includes many Masonic symbols. Squire’s wife, Sarah, died in 1777 and was buried beside him. A bronze plaque mounted above their gravestones quotes the text on each of their stones. Squire’s text recites, “Squire Boone departed this life they sixty-ninth year of his age in thay year of our Lord 1765 Geneiary tha 2.” The text on Sara’s stone is simpler and says, “Sah + Boone departed this life aged 77 years.”
More recent research confirmed the location of the grave of their oldest son, Israel, who died in 1756. He’s buried to the left of his parents, and his grave was marked in May 2009 by his descendants and The Boone Society. John Boone, Squire’s nephew, died in 1803, and he’s believed to be buried near the grave of Squire and Sarah Morgan Boone. Squire’s oldest daughter, Sarah, married John Wilcoxson who also is documented as being buried near Squire and Sarah Boone. As of this writing, the Sons and Daughters of the American Revolution are continuing with plans to conduct a Patriot Grave Marking of John Wilcoxson’s currently unmarked grave.
I dwell on the Boone graves, because many, including historians, believe that people have worked to preserve this cemetery as the final resting place of the parents of Daniel Boone. In 1938, North Carolina Highway Marker M 3 was first installed here which said, “DANIEL BOONE’S PARENTS – Squire and Sarah Boone are buried here. Daniel Boone, 1734 – 1820, lived many years in this region.”
In addition to the Boone family association, this cemetery is connected to the Presbyterian congregation originally located here. The first known building at Joppa Cemetery was a small, one-room log meeting house. It’s believed to have been in the southeast corner of the cemetery just inside today’s old stone wall marking the original cemetery. First Presbyterian Church of Mocksville traces its founding to this place.
The May 1767 minutes of the Synod of Philadelphia and New York first mention a group of worshipers at the meeting house in Joppa Cemetery. There’s speculation that a congregation was meeting here as early as January 1765, when Squire Boone was buried in the nearby cemetery. The May 1789 Presbyterian Church records refer to the church name for the first time as Joppa, which is a Biblical word meaning beautiful. A frame church was built in 1793 on the same site as the original log structure. The Joppa church members moved from this country church into the town of Mocksville around 1834, which subsequently became the First Presbyterian Church of Mocksville
In 1951, the Presbyterian Church deeded the cemetery to Joppa Cemetery, Inc. who is still the owner. There are many unmarked graves in the old part of the cemetery surrounded by the stone wall. In this area, there are five Revolutionary War veteran graves whose names are Evan Ellis, Basil Gaither, Isaac Jones, Aaron Van Cleve and John Wilcoxson (The husband of Sarah Boone 1724-1815.) There are at least seven graves of Civil War veterans in this area. Quite a few veteran graves are also located in the front and newer part of the cemetery.
In 2022, the historic highway sign at the front of the cemetery was replaced due to the previous sign’s age and weathering. It now reads, “SQUIRE AND SARAH BOONE – Parents of frontiersman Daniel Boone settled in N.C. ca. 1751, received land grant nearby, 1753. Squire died, 1765, and Sarah, 1777. Buried here.”
This cemetery has also become a popular historical destination for visitors to Mocksville. It’s located on Yadkinville Road – east side of U.S. Highway 601 North, Mocksville, North Carolina. Location coordinates are N35.90914; W80.57750.
Sources:
Cemetery Census, Davie County North Carolina Cemeteries, Davie County Historical & Genealogical Society, http://cemeterycensus.com/nc/davie/cem089.htm
Daughters of the American Revolution, www.dar.org/library/onlineresearch/ ancestorsearch.
Davie County Register of Deeds, Mocksville, NC.
Draper, Lyman Copeland, Draper Manuscripts, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison, WI.
Heitman, Mary J., History of Joppa Church, Martin-Wall History Room, Davie Public Library, Mocksville, NC.
Martin-Wall History Room, Davie County Public Library, Mocksville, NC.
North Carolina Highway Historical Marker Program, North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, Raleigh, NC, www.ncmarkers.com.
Rowan County Register of Deeds, Salisbury, NC.
Sons of the American Revolution, www.sarpatriots.org/patriotssearch and cemetery search.
Spraker, Hazel Atterbury, The Boone Family, The Tuttle Company, Rutland, VT, 1922.
State of North Carolina, Department of Revenue, Raleigh, North Carolina.
U.S. Quaker Meeting Records 1681-1935.
Wall, James W., A History of the First Presbyterian Church of Mocksville, North Carolina, Mocksville, NC,1963.
Arrival in the Land of the Native Americans in North Carolina
“Cherokee and Shawnee at Fort Dobbs Reconstructed” Photo by Robert Alvin Crum 2020. More images below.
Robert Alvin Crum copyright 30 March 2024
I previously wrote two articles about the Boone and Bryan families’ migration to the backcountry of the colony of North Carolina. The Bryan family, which included Daniel Boone’s future wife Rebecca Bryan, arrived around 1748, and the Boone family, which included a young Daniel Boone, arrived in 1750. Even though they found plenty of land upon which to settle, they were not alone.
The Native Americans or Indians had lived in North Carolina for thousands of years, and this article briefly summarizes when they lived in the backcountry of the colony of North Carolina. E. Lawrence Lee in The Indian Wars in North Carolina, 1663-1763 writes that, “When Europeans first arrived in North Carolina there were only three important tribes, or nations, in the region. In the order of their size, they were the Cherokee of the western mountains, the largest, the Catawba Nation of the Piedmont Plateau, and the Tuscarora of the Coastal Plain.”
The Boones and Bryans were among the first white settlers in the backcountry of North Carolina; however, the Spanish had explored the Carolinas two centuries earlier. In 1540, DeSoto and his army left what is now northwest Florida and marched through the southeast to the Mississippi River. They traveled through the Carolinas and were at a location called Xualla, which was a place between two rivers with the mountains in sight. They met with the Suara tribe, and this was probably the first contact in the area between Europeans and Indians. Twenty-six years later, another Spanish explorer, Juan Pardo, explored locations similar to DeSoto, and upon reaching Xualla (Joara), established a fort at that site. Explorations by the Spanish led to trade with the natives but no permanent settlements.
In the 1670’s, a German doctor, John Lederer, explored the Virginia and Carolina piedmont. As he descended from the Blue Ridge mountains and headed east, he wrote that he “descended broad savannahs, flowery meads, where herds of red deer were feeding. The grass which sprang from the limestone soil was so high. They could tie it across their saddles. Since the Indians burned their land over every autumn to make their game preserve, it was only lightly wooded with occasional groves of oak or maple.” In June 1670, he found the Suara Indians in the Yadkin River Valley and their camp on the Yadkin near the Trading Ford.
Subsequently, John Lawson traveled and extensively explored the Carolina backcountry in 1701. Lawson wrote that, “We reached the fertile and pleasant banks of the Sapona River…. This most pleasant river is beautiful with a numerous train of swans and other sorts of waterfowl, not common though extraordinary to the eye.” In his History of Rowan County North Carolina, Jethro Rumple writes that he believes that the Sapona River is actually the Yadkin River and that the Sapona town mentioned in other parts of Lawson’s accounts is an Indian village located near the Trading Ford.
Around 1703, the Sapona united with other tribes, left the Carolinas, and moved north into Virginia about ten miles north of the Roanoke River. After living there two or three decades, they returned to the Carolinas and lived among the Catawba.
When the Boones and Bryans moved into the North Carolina backcountry, Indians belonging to the Catawba Nation were those living closest to them. The Catawba towns were in the North and South Carolina Piedmont and were located along the Catawba and Wateree Rivers and Sugar and Twelve Mile Creeks. The land along the Yadkin settled by the Boones and Bryans was the hunting land of the Catawba Nation, and the Catawba frequently visited the settlers living along the Yadkin River and in the Bryan Settlement. There were times they even made camp near them and would barter and trade with the settlers.
In the early years, when the Boone and Bryans settled along the Yadkin, relations were usually peaceful, especially with the Catawba. However, there were times that violence erupted with the Indians. One example is when Christopher Gist returned to his home along the Yadkin River after his 1750 -1751 explorations of the Ohio Valley and the area that’s now Kentucky. He noted in his journal that on May 18, 1751, he arrived home and found his family gone. After learning Indians had killed five people nearby, he headed north and found his wife and family in Roanoke, Virginia.
Another incident was in July 1753, shortly after Rowan County was formed. A party of “Northern Indians” invaded and massacred sixteen whites and took ten captives at a settlement on Buffalo Creek in western North Carolina. The militia was called out and dispatched, and Catawba Indians assisted by searching for the raiding party, but without success.
King Hagler (circa 1700-1763) became Chief of the Catawba in 1750 and was very astute and adept at negotiating with the white settlers and other tribal nations. However, several tragedies plagued the Catawba Nation. One devastating event was a smallpox epidemic in 1759 where half of the Catawba Nation died. King Hagler was forced into treaty negotiations to preserve the ancient lands of his nation, and in 1756, he negotiated a defense treaty with the colony of Virginia. He worked to maintain the location of Cofitachique and his home at Pine Tree Hill. In 1760 he began the three-year negotiations for the Treaty of Pine Tree Hill. He was willing to move his home and the Catawba Nation north seventy miles and give up his land base of 55,000 squire miles, since he knew it was already lost to illegal white settlement in North and South Carolina. By doing this, he retained much of his ancestral land which was a two million tract of land centered at the Old Waxhaw Fields.
Legend has it that the Shawnees living to the north invaded the Catawba towns, and in 1763, they killed their honored chief, Hagler. This occurred only a couple months before Chief Hagler was to attend the Treaty of Augusta in Georgia. With Hagler out of the way, the Carolina colonies had a much easier time negotiating in Augusta. After brief negotiations, the Catawba land base was cut down to fifteen square miles.
The Cherokee Nation was the most powerful tribe in the South. Their towns were in the mountains just to the west of the Boone and Bryan settlements. The land under their control roughly included what is now western North Carolina, eastern Tennessee, northwestern South Carolina, and northern Georgia.
The English quickly dominated coastal Carolina tribes. However, authors in Native Carolinians: The Indians of North Carolina write that the Cherokee maintained their independence from the British during the colonial period for two reasons. First, they were a large population who lived in a remote and defensible area of the mountains. Secondly, the Cherokee also traded with the Spanish in Florida and the French to the west of their Nation, so they did not have to rely on trade goods from the British. In the early years, the Cherokee were able to play one European power against another.
One problem that resulted from exposure to white settlers was decimation by disease. In 1738, the Cherokee suffered from a smallpox epidemic that killed half their population.
An alliance was formed between the Cherokee and British from 1730 to 1753. In doing so, the Cherokee hoped to gain protection from Indians allied with the French, and the British wanted to monopolize the Cherokee deer hide trade. The Cherokee eventually became dependent on the trade goods such as metal tools and guns and ammunition provided by the British. Simultaneously, the European demand for deer hides continued to accelerate. Traders increased the price of their goods, so the Cherokee had to provide more skins which meant they had to abandon their attitude toward killing deer and could no longer keep their world in balance. In Theda Perdue’s book The Cherokee, she writes that the Cherokee sold 50,000 deer skins to traders in 1708. That number increased dramatically in 1735 when the Cherokee sold 1,000,000 hides to traders.
Initially, the Catawba and Cherokee established good relationships with white settlers and even became their allies during times of war. However, this would change with the Cherokee due to incitement by the whites, and this topic will be addressed in a future article. The conflicts that arose in this land that initially appeared peaceful to the Boones and Bryans erupted into conflict that included the French & Indian War (1754-1763), the Anglo-Cherokee War (1758-1761), the American Revolution (1775-1783), and the Cherokee War of 1776.
Sources:
Belue, Ted Franklin, Editor, The Life of Daniel Boone by Lyman C. Draper, Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, 1998.
Blumer, Thomas J., Catawba Nation: Treasures in History, The History Press, Charleston, South Carolina, 2007.
Brawley, James S., The Rowan Story 1753-1953, Rowan Printing Company, Salisbury, North Carolina, 1953.
Colonial and State Records of North Carolina.
Draper, Lyman Copeland, Draper Manuscripts, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin.
Harris, Frances Latham, Lawson’s History of North Carolina, Garrett & Massie, Inc., Richmond, Virginia, 1952.
Johnson, J. Stoddard, First Explorations of Kentucky, John P. Morgan, Louisville, Kentucky, 1898.
Lee, E. Lawrence, Indian Wars in North Carolina 1663-1763, State Department of Archives and History, Raleigh, North Carolina, 1968.
Perdue, Theda, The Cherokee, Series: Indians of North America, Chelsea House Publishers, New York & Philadelphia, 1989.
Perdue, Theda and Oakley, Christopher Arris, Native Carolinians: The Indians of North Carolina, North Carolina Department of Public Resources, Offices of Archives and History, Raleigh, North Carolina, 2010.
Ramsey, Robert W., Carolina Cradle: Settlement of the Northwest Carolina Frontier 1747-1762, The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1964.
Rights, Douglas L., The American Indian in North Carolina, John F. Blair, Publisher, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, 1957.
Rumple, Rev. Jethro, A History of Rowan County, North Carolina: Containing Sketches of Prominent Families and Distinguished Men, Published by J.J. Bruner, Salisbury, North Carolina, 1881.
1750 - Squire and Sarah Morgan Boone and Family Settle in North Carolina
View of the Yadkin River from Boone Cave Park. Photo by Robert Alvin Crum - copyright 2018. More images below.
Robert Alvin Crum copyright 26 February 2024
Squire Boone was born in Devonshire, England in 1696 to a family who belonged to the Society of Friends or what we commonly refer to as Quakers. For both economic and religious reasons, Squire’s parents and siblings migrated in 1717 to the Quaker colony of Pennsylvania. His future wife Sarah Morgan was born in Pennsylvania in 1700, and her parents were also Quakers. In 1720, Squire Boone married Sarah Morgan in the Gwynedd Meeting (Society of Friends).
Squire and Sarah had eleven children who were all born in the British Colony of Pennsylvania. Daniel was born as their sixth child, and all their children were educated, including the girls (which was common for Quakers). Daniel was one that had little formal education in a schoolhouse, but beginning at age fourteen, his older brother Samuel’s wife, Sarah Day, taught Daniel to read and write.
Squire and Sarah’s oldest daughter, Sarah, married a non-Quaker, John Wilcoxson, in 1742 (referred to as marrying a worldling outside the Quaker Meeting). The Society of Friends required Squire to repent for her behavior, which he did, so he could remain a Quaker. Subsequently, their second child, Israel, also married a worldling in 1747, and Squire was again required to repent for his son’s behavior. When Squire refused, the Society of Friends expelled him from the Friends Meeting, so Squire was no longer a Quaker. His wife was able to maintain her standing as a Quaker the rest of her life.
Squire’s expulsion from the Friends Meeting probably influenced his interest in moving south, especially since it would have affected his ability to conduct his many businesses. Another important reason for the move was his interest in acquiring additional land that was cheaper. As you can read in Dr. Robert Ramsey’s Carolina Cradle: Settlement of the Northwest Carolina Frontier 1747-1762, there were many Pennsylvania Quaker families who began migrating to the North Carolina backcountry in what became the Bryan Settlement, because they could buy cheaper land and even become land speculators.
In the spring of 1749, Squire Boone traveled from Pennsylvania to North Carolina to explore the area before a possible move. He took with him his son and daughter, Daniel and Elizabeth, and Daniel’s lifelong friend, Henry Miller. They traveled along trails that would later be known as the Great Wagon Road and continued south on a part of the trail known as Morgan Bryan’s Wagon Road that’s between today’s Roanoke, Virginia, and the Shallow Ford on the Yadkin River.
Once they reached the east side of the Shallow Ford, they probably stopped at Edward Hughes’ ordinary (tavern) before crossing the Yadkin River to talk about this new land. Squire knew Edward in Pennsylvania, and their families were connected by siblings’ marriages. Once they crossed the Yadkin, they passed through lands owned by the Bryans (who they also knew in Pennsylvania) and probably also discussed prospective land purchases.
While searching for land, it appears that they camped at a site along the Yadkin River that became known as Boone’s Ford (previously known as Alleman’s Ford). It’s located about six miles north of a place now called “The Point” where the South Yadkin River flows into the North Yadkin River. Just above this location on the east side of the river is a fertile bottom land that became known as Boone’s Bottom, and there was a log structure built on the west side of Boone’s Ford, either at this time or in 1750, that became known as Boone’s Fort.
Squire, Daniel, Elizabeth, and Henry Miller returned to Pennsylvania. On April 11, 1750, Squire and Sarah Morgan Boone sold their 158-acre Exeter Township farm, and on May 1, 1950, they left Pennsylvania for North Carolina. They and their large family followed the same route that they used the previous year during their exploratory trip. Some sources say that the Boones stopped in Winchester, Virginia and may have stayed there for two years. However, Lyman Draper documented that it was a brief stay, and there’s additional evidence to the contrary.
Additional documentation showing Squire Boone’s earlier arrival in North Carolina is a land entry in 1750 showing a warrant to measure and lay out 640 acres for Squire Boone lying on Grant’s Creek (alias Lichon Creek) and now known as Elisha Creek. When this land was surveyed, Squire Boone is named as a “chainer” indicating that he was walking the land long before the grant was issued on April 13, 1753.
Additional evidence shows the Boones first settled on the east side of the Yadkin where they are shown as living on land adjacent to a survey completed by James Carter dated February 27, 1752. Carter knew the Boones, since he married a Boone, and his daughter Mary married Jonathan Boone. There’s also documentation in the Draper Manuscripts showing that Squire and Sarah Morgan Boone and their family first lived on the east side of the Yadkin River and near today’s Boone Cave Park. In 1753, they completed the purchase of two separate 640-acre tracts from Lord Granville on the west side of the river in 1753.
When the large area of Rowan County, North Carolina was formed from Anson County in 1753, Squire Boone became a reasonably prominent colonial official. He served on the Vestry of the Anglican Parish of St. Luke, was a civil administrator of a large area of Rowan County and was appointed as one of the first Justices of the Court of Common Pleas. In the Minutes of the Court of Common Pleas, Squire Boone is listed as one of the Justices, and after his name, it’s recorded that, “Squire Boone’s residence is on the Yadkin at Boone’s Ford.”
Squire Boone’s purchases of two 640-acre tracts from Lord Granville were finalized in 1753. One is referred to the Bear Creek tract (west of present-day Mocksville) and the other is referred to as the Dutchman’s Creek tract (east of present-day Mocksville). The two following paragraphs show the initial purchase of the Dutchman’s Creek tract by Squire Boone and then the transfer to his son Squire in 1759.
Rowan County Deed Book 3, page 137 shows on April 30, 1753, the “Land granted from Granville to Squire Boone, Esq., of Rowan County, Province of North Carolina, 640 acres land in Parish of (not given) Rowan County, N. C. lying on the South side of Grant’s Creek otherwise Licking Creek. (3 shillings to every 100 acres).” Signed Granville, by James Innes and Francis Corbin. Witnesses: James Carter and William Haywood. Proved at Court House in Salisbury for Rowan County, January 20, 1756, on oath of James Carter, Esq. Ordered to be registered. Test. Thomas Parker.”
Rowan Deed Book 4, page 196 shows on April 12, 1759, the land gift from “Squire Boone of Rowan County, N. C., and Sarah, his wife, let Squire Boone, Jr., son of said Squire Boone, Sen’r., have for love and affection and for (?) pounds, 640 acres land in Rowan County, lying on South side of Grant’s Creek, otherwise Licking Creek. (This land was granted to Squire Boone, Sen’r., by Granville on April 30th, 1753). Signed Squire Boone and Sarah Boone, Witnesses: Thomas Banfield, Richard Neely and Charles Hunter. Proven, Rowan County Court, October 1759. Let it be registered. Tho’s. Parker, Clerk.”
Squire Boone, Sr. and his family lived on the Dutchman’s Creek tract as verified by a letter dated February 17, 1843, from Daniel Bryan to Lyman Draper. Daniel Bryan writes, “When Dan’l [Boone] was sixteen years old his father Squire Boone Moved to North Carolina and settled on Dutchman’s Creek at the Buffalow Lick, where he died in 1763.”
Daniel Bryan was born in 1758 as the second son of William and Mary Boone Bryan. Mary Boone was Daniel Boone’s younger sister, and William Bryan was the uncle of Rebecca Bryan Boone. Daniel Bryan was born at and lived on his parents’ land at what was known as “The Bend” along the Yadkin River in the Bryan Settlement in North Carolina. Daniel Bryan was also the grandson of Squire Boone, Sr. and Morgan Bryan, Sr. and was also the nephew of Daniel Boone and a first cousin of Rebecca Bryan. This close relationship to the Boones and living nearby as family would make his statements an accurate source about his family and where they lived.
Daniel lived with his parents at the Dutchman’s Creek site until he married Rebecca Bryan, although there are some accounts that Daniel also lived with Morgan Bryan, Rebecca’s uncle, at times before marrying Rebecca. After they were married in 1756, Daniel and Rebecca moved to the Sugartree Creek site and lived there until they moved farther up the Yadkin in 1767.
Sources:
Anson County, North Carolina Deed Records.
Belue, Ted Franklin, Editor, The Life of Daniel Boone by Lyman C. Draper, Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, 1998.
Colonial and State Records of North Carolina, Acts of the North Carolina General Assembly, 1753, Chapter VII, p. 383.
Draper, Lyman Copeland, Draper Manuscripts, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin.
Hammond, Neil O., My Father Daniel Boone: The Draper Interviews with Nathan Boone, The University of Kentucky Press, Lexington, Kentucky, 1999.
Kamper, Ken, An Accurate Summary of the Life of Daniel Boone, Daniel Boone History Research – Newsletter No. 6, December 2021.
Kamper, Ken, A Researcher’s Understanding on the Boone Family Move to North Carolina, No. PK17.0211, February 2017.
Linn, Jo White, Abstracts of the Deeds of Rowan County, North Carolina, 1753 – 1785, Books 1 through 10, Salisbury, North Carolina, Privately published, 1983.
Linn, Jo White, Abstracts of the Minutes of the Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions, Rowan County, North Carolina, Volume I – 1753-1762, Volume II – 1763-1774, Volume III – 1775-1789, Salisbury, North Carolina, Privately published, 1977, 1979, 1982.
Manuscript Collection, The State Historical Society of Missouri, St. Louis, Missouri.
Ramsey, Robert W., Carolina Cradle: Settlement of the Northwest Carolina Frontier 1747-1762, The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1964.
Rowan County Deeds, Salisbury, North Carolina.
Spraker, Hazel Atterbury, The Boone Family, The Tuttle Company, Rutland, Vermont, 1922.
U.S Quaker Meeting Records 1681-1935.
Weiss, Kathryn H., Daniel Bryan, Nephew of Daniel Boone: His Narrative and Other Stories, Self-published by Kathryn H. Weiss, 2008.
1748 - Morgan Bryan’s Family Settles in North Carolina
View of the Shallow Ford on the west side of the Yadkin River looking east. Photo by Robert Alvin Crum - copyright 2018. More images below.
Robert Alvin Crum copyright 9 February 2024
Much has been written about Daniel Boone, whose stories, and even myths, seem to have become a part of the early American experience. The same cannot be said about his wife, Rebecca, and her family. However, my curiosity got the best of me while reading Dr. Robert Ramsey’s book Carolina Cradle: Settlement of the Northwest Carolina Frontier 1747-1762 where he writes, “The most prominent of settlers in northwestern Carolina before 1752 was Morgan Bryan.”
Who was Morgan Bryan? He was a land speculator and the grandfather of Rebecca Bryan and Martha Bryan. They were part of the Bryan migration from the Shenandoah Valley into the Forks of the Yadkin in the autumn of 1748. The questions I began to ask included, “What led them to the North Carolina colonial backcountry, and why was the area they settled known as ‘The Bryan Settlement’?”
Morgan Bryan and Alexander Ross became land speculators in Virginia. In 1730, they presented a proposal to Virginia Governor William Gooch to recruit hard-working Quaker farmers to settle the western frontier of Virginia. The Governor hoped this settlement might stabilize the frontier where Indians were unhappy with hunters and traders invading tribal lands in violation of colonial and Indian law. Bryan and Ross acquired 100,000 acres south of the Potomac River and bounded on two sides by Opequon Creek near present day Winchester, Virginia. In 1734, Bryan also bought and settled on a tract of land on a branch of Opequon Creek that's now located in Berkeley County, West Virginia.
Morgan Bryan (1671-1763) and his wife, Martha Strode Bryan (1697-1762), decided in 1748 to move with their large extended family to North Carolina. Morgan and Martha Bryan along with most of their children and grandchildren left their lands in Virginia in 1748 to settle in the backcountry of North Carolina in the Forks of the Yadkin. Their oldest son, Joseph Bryan (1719-1805), and his second wife, Alice Linville, along with their children, stayed behind in Virginia until 1756, so they could tie up the loose ends of the family’s business. Joseph had two daughters, Martha and Rebecca, by his first wife, who died shortly after the second daughter’s birth. They accompanied their grandparents, Morgan and Martha Bryan, on their first trek into North Carolina. Morgan and Martha also had a daughter, Mary Bryan, who married Thomas Curtis. Since they both died in Virginia before this 1748 migration, their daughter, Mary Curtis, also accompanied her grandparents into North Carolina. It’s believed that Morgan Bryan, Jr. (1728-1804) also stayed in Virginia for a few more years until he settled affairs and later moved south to North Carolina.
The names of Morgan and Martha Bryan’s children whose families also migrated into North Carolina with them in 1748 were Eleanor, Samuel, John, William, James, and Thomas. They migrated out of the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and headed south. It was a rocky trail through Virginia, and the Bryans had to clear sections as they went. For a short time, this was known as the Bryan Road in Virginia. At one time, it was referred to as the Carolina Road but later became known as the Great Wagon Road.
They followed the road out of Virginia and into North Carolina where it wound through present day Stokes and Forsyth Counties. Before reaching their destination, they could see what the Suara Indians called “Jameokee” which means “Great Guide.” It’s a landmark that we now call Pilot Mountain. The road curved southwest along a ridge above the Yadkin River to the east of the Shallow Ford. They crossed the Yadkin River from the east side to the west at the Shallow Ford and entered this land to be among the first white settlers. The Bryans were wealthy enough to own enslaved people and brought them along when migrating into the North Carolina backcountry. Today, the east side of the Shallow Ford is being preserved as the Shallow Ford State Historic Site. The point where the Bryans entered on the west side of the Yadkin is owned privately.
Author George Raynor also wrote in Patriots and Tories in Piedmont North Carolina that “If the North Carolina frontier of the mid-18th century had leading families, the Bryans were certainly among them.” Mr. Raynor continued by saying that the Bryan family “was later to expand its lands into thousands of acres in scattered tracts known as the ‘Bryan settlements’.”
Morgan Bryan initially bought eleven tracts of land totaling 3,838½ acres, and most were later sold to his children. Eight of these tracts were in the Forks of the Yadkin, but three were on the north side of the Upper Yadkin River at Mulberry Fields and Reddy’s River. These three tracts of land are in what is now Wilkes County in the vicinity of present-day North Wilkesboro. Bryan’s eight original Granville land grants were surveyed in the years 1748, 1749,1750 and 1751. The grants and indentures are dated 1752, and Morgan made the first five sales to his sons in 1753. Most of Morgan’s children began buying more land where they chose to build their homes. The Bryan Settlement encompasses areas around the North Carolina towns of Advance, Farmington, Huntsville, Lewisville and Mocksville and the areas of western Forsyth County, eastern Yadkin County and most of Davie County. The Shallow Ford was in the middle of the Bryan Settlement. Edward Hughes owned the land directly on each side of this ford, which was an important crossing for the Great Wagon Road. In addition to Edward Hughes, the original families who migrated into the Bryan Settlement were headed by Squire Boone, Morgan Bryan, James Carter, Samuel Davis, George Forbush, and William Linville. Many of the children of these men intermarried both in Virginia before arriving and some after arriving in the Bryan Settlement.
In his book Carolina Cradle, Dr. Ramsey also mentions that “Any description of the early Bryan Settlement would hardly be complete without reference to Squire Boone, father of Daniel, who settled near the Yadkin with his family in 1750.” It appears that Squire Boone and his wife Sarah Morgan Boone knew the Bryans when they all lived in Pennsylvania, so it’s not surprising that the Boones followed the Bryans into the Forks of the Yadkin and the area known as the Bryan Settlement. Two of Morgan Bryan's granddaughters who were sisters, Rebecca and Martha, later married Daniel and Edward Boone, respectively, in North Carolina. Daniel Boone’s younger sister, Mary, also married Morgan's son William in 1753.
In 1752, the Moravians led by Bishop Spangenburg were in the Colony of North Carolina in search of land to establish a large community. In his diary he wrote,
“… They have a pleasant situation and a rich soil. Morgan Bryant has taken them up, but no one lives on them. Our land, which is opposite, is not far from the tract we have already taken on the Atkin; Morgan Bryant owns the land lying between, on which Mr. Owens lives. If we could buy this plantation, and the Mulberry Fields, we would have the land for 10 miles on both sides of the Atkin, for we have taken up a piece of the same side of the river with the Mulberry Fields, touching that on which Mr. Owens lives.”
Bishop Spangenburg was unable to purchase some of the land he wanted on the Upper Yadkin River, because Morgan Bryan had already surveyed and acquired it three to four years earlier. As the Moravians moved east in search of additional land, they found the Bryan Settlement on the west side of the Yadkin River. They had to cross the Shallow Ford to acquire land on the east side of the Yadkin River that became known as the Wachovia Tract. Today, this is the location of Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
The Bryan and Boone families moved into North Carolina at a peaceful time with the hopes of farming, hunting, and even earning a livelihood as land speculators. They also were heavily involved in the North Carolina colonial government of Rowan County.
However, things quickly changed in 1755. Conflict began with the French and Indian War in 1755, subsequent wars with the Cherokee, and continued through the end of the American Revolution in 1783. The Boones and Bryans were caught up in all these conflicts. The men in both families fought with the militia, and Bryans served on both sides of the Revolution with one Bryan even being commissioned by the Royal Governor as a Colonel. Family members not fighting tried to avoid all wars by either fleeing to Virginia and Maryland or looking for protection by “forting up” on their land or at such places as Fort Dobbs and Bethabara in the Moravian Settlements. (Also known as the Moravian Tract.)
Many of the families in the Bryan Settlement intermarried and began to raise their children, and those that aged here are also buried here. Morgan Bryan died in Rowan County in 1763, and his wife, Martha, died the previous year in 1762.
Morgan Bryan’s will was filed in Rowan County, and his sons William and John administered his estate. His son Thomas inherited Morgan Bryan’s “Mansion House and Plantation,” which was a 565-acre tract located adjacent to the Yadkin River at a place known as “The Bend.” In 1764, Thomas sold to William 56 acres of this tract as “being part of a Tract of Land Granted…unto Morgan Bryan and by sd Morgan Bryan made over to sd Thomas Bryan and Known by the Name of sd Morgan Bryan’s Mansion Plantation Tract.” In 1772, Thomas sold William another 83 acres, so now William owned 189 acres of the old home place, and Thomas owned 376 acres.
This discussion about the location of the Mansion House may be important in the current disagreement about where Morgan and Martha Bryan were buried, because the headstones were removed from their graves. Some believe they’re probably buried at Morgan Bryan’s 510-acre Deep Creek property, because some believe the Mansion House was at that location. However, this tract was sold to youngest son Thomas in 1758, and I know of no evidence showing it was the location of Morgan Bryan’s Mansion House. In the previous paragraph, I’ve provided evidence that the Mansion House was at “The Bend” along the Yadkin; however, I know of no current evidence that they were buried there. In more recent years, a plaque was installed at the Oak Valley subdivision in Advance, North Carolina claiming that Morgan and Martha Bryan are buried there, but there’s not sufficient evidence to prove this. Therefore, the location of their graves is currently unknown and may never be verified. Martha’s headstone currently rests on a table in one of the historic houses owned by the Rowan Museum in Salisbury, North Carolina, and it would take another article to explain why.
Squire Boone died at his “Dutchman’s Creek” property in 1765. His wife, Sarah, went to live with her daughter Mary Boone Bryan and her husband William Bryan on the 189 acres described above. Sarah Morgan Boone died in 1777. Squire and Sarah’s well-maintained graves are in Joppa Cemetery in Mocksville, North Carolina, and their son Israel is buried beside them.
Within a generation after arriving in the Bryan Settlement, many of the Boones and Bryans embarked on what I would call two “great migrations” out of North Carolina in 1775 and 1779. They were led by Daniel Boone and William Bryan. This became part of America’s first westward expansion into Kentucky and beyond.
Sources:
Anson County Deeds, Anson County Records, Wadesboro, NC.
Bryan, Jr., John K., “Morgan Bryan,” Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, 6 Volumes edited by William S. Powell, The University of North Carolina Press, copyright 1979 – 1996.
Clark, Walter, ed., The State Records of North Carolina, 16 Volumes, Winston, Goldsboro: State of North Carolina, 1895-1907.
Draper, Lyman Copeland, Draper Manuscripts, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison, WI.
Fries, Adelaide Lisetta, Records of the Moravians in North Carolina, 1752-1771, Vol. 1, Publications of the North Carolina Historical Commission, State Department of Archives and History, Raleigh, NC, Reprinted 1968.
Linn, Jo White, Abstracts of the Court of Common Pleas and Quarter Sessions, Rowan County, North Carolina 1753-1762, Salisbury, NC, 1977.
Linn, Jo White, Abstracts of the Court of Common Pleas and Quarter Sessions, Rowan County, North Carolina 1753-1762, Salisbury, NC, 1979.
Linn, Jo White, Abstracts of the Deeds of Rowan County, NC 1753-1785, Salisbury, NC, 1983.
Linn, Jo White, Rowan County Tax Lists 1757-1800, Salisbury, NC 1995.
McMurtry, David C., Seven Sons and Two Daughters of Morgan Bryan (1671-1763):“Irish Immigrant” and Some of Their Descendants, Mil-Mac Publishers, Lexington, KY, 2009.
McMurtry, David C., Bryan, David Randall, and Weiss, Katherine, Morgan Bryan (1671- 1763: A Danish Born “Irish Immigrant” and Some of His Antecedents and Descendants, Mil-Mac Publishers, Lexington, KY, 2007.
Phillips, Marcia D., Historic Shallow Ford in Yadkin Valley: Crossroads Between East and West, The History Press, Charleston, SC, 2022.
Ramsey, Robert W., Carolina Cradle: Settlement of the Northwest Carolina Frontier 1747-1762, The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, NC, 1964.
Raynor, George, Patriots and Tories in Piedmont Carolina, The Salisbury Post, Salisbury, NC, 1990.
Records of Augusta County Virginia, Volumes I – III.
Rowan County Deeds, Rowan County Records, Salisbury, NC.
Rowan County Wills, Rowan County Records, Salisbury, NC.
Saunders, William L., ed., The Colonial Records of North Carolina, 10 Volumes, Printers to the State, Raleigh, NC 1886-1890.
Stimson, R. Kyle, The Great Philadelphia Wagon Road in Forsyth County, N.C. 1750 – 1770: Historic Roads of Forsyth County – Volume One, copyright 1999 by R.C. Kyle Stimson.
Surry County Deeds, Surry County Records, Mt. Airy, NC.
U.S. Quaker Meeting Records 1681-1935.
Weiss, Katherine, Morgan Bryan, Senior’s “Original Eleven” Anson (Rowan) County North Carolina Land Grants, Katherine Weiss, Forbestown, CA, 2006.
