The Rev. James Gilruth died before July 12, 1873, a year after publishing these stories, in Davenport, Iowa. He was an abolitionist and preacher of the Gospel. More on him later. May 16, 1872
The next above settled the celebrated Col. Daniel BOONE. But before detailing my recollections of the BOONE family, I wish to preface them with a few remarks of a general nature. Before Kentucky became organized into a State, she was under the laws of Virginia, whose land policy authorized individuals, under the authority of a land warrant issued by her, to take up land for their own private use.
The individual then got a surveyor to run around the land he wished to take up, had the corners, distances, and courses all noted, and then got his survey, with his warrant, recorded in the office where the law required them to be recorded. The first recorded warrant and survey held the land. In such a way of doing business, it was next to impossible, but individuals in having their warrants would lap over on each other’s survey.
Had statesmen designedly concocted a system to produce litigation and trouble in this country, it is difficult to conceive how they could have produced one more effectual for that purpose than the land policy of Virginia. Col. BOONE, in a conversation with my father, gave the following account of his Kentucky land failure; He got his warrant and laid it on a tract of 4,000 acres of choice land lying on the waters of a stream called Elkhorn; apprehending no danger, he omitted for some time to get his warrant and survey recorded. In the meantime, Robert JOHNSTON, the father of Richard M. JOHNSON, afterward Vice President of the United States, laid his warrant on the land covered by BOONE’S warrant and, being a prompt man to attend to his own interests in these matters, got his warrant and survey recorded.
A lawsuit was afterward entered to decide who should hold the land, and after litigating the matter for some time, one day, they met in the street; said JOHNSTON:[sic] “BOONE, I will keep you out of the land as long as I live; but to settle the matter and end our lawing, I will give you for you claim 400 acres of the Ohio River, one mile above the mouth of Little Sandy, for which I will give you a warranty deed.” BOONE rejected JOHNSTON’S [sic] proposition and went and told his lawyer what JOHNSTON [sic] had proposed.
His lawyer advised him by all means to accept JOHNSON’S [sic] offer, which he ultimately did. BOONE left Kentucky and, with his family, moved to Big Kanawha: he lived there for some time, then moved down here about 1800. His wife’s name I never knew. Their children’s names were Daniel, Jesse, and Nathan. Prior to their moving here, Daniel had gone to Missouri; I never knew whom he married.
Jesse married Chloe VANBIBBER. They had two children when they moved here, viz.: Harriet and Alphonso, and as I stated in a former letter after they came here, Nathan married Olive VANBIBBLER. They built a rough log cabin about 18 X 25, in which they all lived until the Col. moved away. In the meantime, Jesse was building a hewed log house, about 20 X 30, two stories high, with a shingle roof. This was the first shingle-roofed dwelling house built in the county.
At this time, the Colonel’s eyes had begun to fail. I remember being there one day with my father; their attention being attracted by an object on the other side of the river; he got his spectacles to ascertain what that object was, and he said that he “used these glasses in shooting,” While he lived here he did not hunt much. However, game of all kinds was then plenty. What he did was mainly for pastime. Jesse and Nathan were both good hunters but seemed to take no special interest in it further than convenience.
Mrs. BOONE, as I remember her, was a little taller than the common size, rather spare, slightly aquiline nose, fine forehead, good countenance, and genteel manner. The Col. said she was a better horseman than he “for she had set her horses and jumped him up and down benches of rocks in crossing the mountains that he could not.” The colonel was a little over the common size of a well-proportioned figure, neither spare nor corpulent, features formed on the Grecian model of an agreeable, frank, open countenance, in manners what we might call one of Nature’s gentlemen. While the Col. Lived here, he and my father spent much of their leisure time together, recounting the adventures of past life.
He expressed great dissatisfaction with the land policy and his treatment; after he had risked his life and the lives of his family, and done what he had to promote the settlement of that fine country, to be stripped of what he believed justly his in equity, through the technicalities of law, rasped his feelings, and let him determine to quit the country. Accordingly, he formed the resolution to go to Missouri, which at the time belonged to Spain. Soon after this, accompanied by his wife, his son Nathan and his wife, he left for Missouri.
I heard by one who ought to know that the Spanish Governor, in view of the value which he set upon the Col. As an acquisition to the country, made a grant of ten miles square, but that when the country came to be ceded to the United States, in consequence of some failure to establish this grant that it was not admitted to be valid by the United States, but that the United States in lieu of it gave him ten square miles. For the truth of these grants, I cannot vouch. Jesse BOONE remained in the place, lived by faring, owned several slaves, became Judge of the Court, was active in promoting schools, and in every way proved to be a first-class citizen.
While living here, there were added his children, Minerva, Panthea, and Mattison. Minerva married Winecup WARNER. None of the rest of his children married while the family lived here. The Colonel’s last Kentucky cabin, after serving sundry domestic purposes for some years, was converted into a school house, in which a Mr. JOHNSTON taught a common English school for three months. This was the last of my schooling in Kentucky. The cabin, at last, went the way of all backwoods cabins. In 1819, Jesse BOONE and his family moved to Missouri. When they were aboard their keelboat, about to shove off, I stepped on board to bid them farewell.
This was the last time I ever saw one of this much-respected family. The last time that I saw Nathan BOONE was some years after the Colonel moved to Missouri. He was back on business. The court was being held at Major HOOD’S. The yard was full of men. A man by the name of Silas WOOTEN, a slab guilt six-footer, for some cause struck Jesse BOONE, who at the time was nearly bed-ridden with the fever and ague, on the head with something like an Irish shillelagh; the blood gushed, which Nathan seeing, sprang at WOOTEN. WOOTEN took to his heels, and Nathan after him.
About every other jump, Nathan’s fist would light on WOOTEN like a mallet. WOOTEN re-doubled his efforts and fled for dear life, shifting and turning every way that offered him a prospect for escape, but no locomotive effort of WOOTEN could save him from Nathan’s fist until he had given him what he thought he deserved, which was done much to the gratification of spectators.
*Some years ago, when I was at the French Grant, I visited Major John C. KOUNTZ (also spelled Kouns), who was then living in Greenupsburg”. In speaking of the BOONE family, he said he “wondered that none of the writers of Col. BOONE’S life had mentioned the fact of his having lived in this country; that the Historical Society of Cincinnati, had written to him to furnish them what he knew of BOONE’S life, with that of any prominent settlers, but that he had neglected it.” I mentioned doubtingly the report of his having lived at Big Kanawa. KOUNTZ replied: “There is no mistake of his once having lived at Big Kanawha. I know that he certainly did.”
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