The Boone Family in Davie County

The Boone Family in Davie County. . On 04 October 1750, Squire Boone received a Land Warrant and Survey for a 640-acre tract "lying...upon Grant's Creek, alias Lickon (Licking) Creek" in present Davie County. He received a grant for this 640 acres on the present Elisha and Dutchman creeks 30 April 1753 and a second grant on Bear Creek 29 December 1753. (A roadside marker locates this Bear Creek site on Highway 64 west.)

Eleven children of Squire and Sarah (Morgan) Boone all came and lived in present Davie County. They were Sarah (Boone) Wilcockson, Israel, Samuel, Jonathan, Elizabeth (Boone) Grant, Daniel, Mary (Boone) Bryan, George, Edward, Squire (Jr.), and Hannah (Boone) Stewart Pennington.

Squire Boone's nephew, John Boone (1727-1803), and wife Rebecca (Bryan?) Boone (c1735-1820) received a 630-acre grant on Hunting Creek 21 December 1753. Their nine children were born there. Most of this family migrated to Tennessee, though some of their descendants lived at this Hunting Creek site until the 1850's and some distant relatives still live in Davie County.

In addition to Squire and Sarah Boone, John and Rebecca Boone and John Wilcockson are buried here in Joppa Cemetery in unmarked graves. Israel Boone and his wife are probably buried here also.

Squire and Sarah Boone deeded the Elisha and Dutchman Creeks grant to son Squire Jr. on 12 October 1759. On the same day they also deeded the Bear Creek tract to Daniel and Rebecca.

Daniel Boone (1734-1820), son of Squire and Sarah Boone, married Rebecca Bryan (1739-1813) in Davie County on 14 August 1756. For some eight years, from about 1756 until about 1764, they lived on what was probably Bryan property in the forks of Sugar (tree) Creek in eastern Davie County.

Only tradition locates this homesite. Their first two sons, James and Israel, were born there. Though Daniel farmed some, he was primarily engaged in hunting and trapping. He is said to have killed as many as thirty deer a day, selling the hides in Salisbury, North Carolina.

Daniel and Rebecca moved to Wilkes County, North Carolina, about 1764. In 1773 an attempted settlement of Kentucky failed because of a Shawnee Indian attack and the murder of Daniel's 16-year-old son James and five other youths. Daniel and Rebecca with most of their relatives and many friends migrated permanently to Kentucky in 1779.

Daniel Boone, the archetypal frontiersman, acquired in Davie County the experience, endurance, resourcefulness, and expertness with the rifle which enabled him to become the great explorer and pioneer settler of the trans-Appalachian American West.

Erected by the Committee for the 250th Anniversary of Daniel Boone's Birthday, Inc., Howell Boone, Chairman