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.
