Rebecca Boone

Rebecca Bryan Boone (January 9, 1739 – March 18, 1813) was an American pioneer and the wife of famed frontiersman Daniel Boone. She began her life in the Colony of Virginia (1606–1776), and at the age of ten moved with her grandparents and extended family to the wilderness of the Province of North Carolina (Crown colony (1729–1776), now North Carolina). It was there that she met her future husband, Daniel Boone. Rebecca Boone raised ten of her own children and eight nephews and nieces that she and Daniel had adopted. Since Daniel was away for extended hunting and exploration trips, sometimes for several years at a time, Boone generally raised and protected their eighteen children by herself. Living in the frontier, and needing to be self-reliant, she was a healer, midwife, sharpshooter, gardener, tanner, and weaver. The family was subject to attacks by Native Americans as their land was encroached upon by white settlers and by bands of white men, called highwaymen, who attacked settlers. Several times she and her family left their home for shelter and protection in nearby forts and in one case lived several years in Culpeper County, Colony of Virginia, during the Anglo-Cherokee War.

In 1775, the Boones moved to Kentucky County, Virginia (1776–1780), now the state of Kentucky, where Boone was the first white woman settler. Boone's son James was killed by a group of Cherokee, Delaware, and Shawnee men during the trek through the wilderness. After the family settled at Fort Boone (now Boonesborough), Jemima was captured by Native Americans and was subsequently rescued by Daniel. Daniel was also captured and Boone, believing her husband was dead, returned to North Carolina with her children. Daniel later escaped, returned his family, and later escorted them back to Kentucky County. During the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), one of Boone's sons was killed and another was wounded at the Battle of Blue Licks (August 19, 1782). Boone moved to numerous locations where she raised her family, ran a tavern kitchen, operated stores, hunted for game, and made and sold maple sugar.

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