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.
