The Death of James Boone

Southwest Virginia Project

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For additional articles refer to Indian Attacks in Southwest Virginia.

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This passage from Source:Thwaites, 1902:100-103, describes the events surrounding the death of James Boone, son of Daniel, on 10 October 1773. The following year Southwest Virginia would be immersed in the portion of the period of Indian Hostilities known as Dunmore's War.

For another version of this story, see the Dallas Brogan Article from the Lafallette Press, Lafallette TN. (Source:Bogan, undated)

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For two and a half years after his return Boone quietly conducted his little farm, and, as of old, made long hunting trips in autumn and winter, occasionally venturing sometimes alone, sometimes with one or two companions far west into Kentucky, once visiting French Lick, on the Cumberland, where he found several French hunters. There is reason to believe that in 1772 he moved to the Watauga Valley, but after living there for a time went back to the Yadkin. Early in the following year he accompanied Benjamin Cutbirth and others as far as the present Jessamine County, Ky., and from this trip returned fired with quickened zeal for making a settlement in the new country.

The spring and summer were spent in active preparations. He enlisted the cooperation of Captain William Russell, the principal pioneer in the Clinch Valley; several of the Bryans, whose settlement was now sixty-five miles distant, also agreed to join him; and five other families in his own neighborhood engaged to join the expedition.

The Bryan party, numbering forty men, some of them from the Valley of Virginia and Powell's Valley, were not to be accompanied by their families, as they preferred to go in advance and prepare homes before making a final move. But Boone and the other men of the upper Yadkin took with them their wives and children; most of them sold their farms, as did Boone, thus burning their bridges behind them. Arranging to meet the Bryan contingent in Powell's Valley, Boone's party left for the West upon the twenty-fifth of September, 1773 fifty six years after old George Boone had departed from England for the Pennsylvania frontier near Philadelphia, and twenty-three after the family had set out for the new southwest frontier on the Yadkin.

Reaching Powell's [Valley], Boone went into camp to await the rear party, his riding and pack horses hobbled and belled, after the custom of such caravans, and their small herd of cattle properly guarded in a meadow. His eldest son, James, now a boy of sixteen years, was sent with two men, with pack animals, across country to notify Russell and to secure some flour and farming tools. They were returning laden, in company with Russell's son Henry, a year older than James, two of Russell's negro slaves, and two or three white workpeople, when, missing their path, they went into camp for the night only three miles from Boone's quarters. At daybreak they were attacked by a Shawnese war party and all killed except a white laborer and a negro. This pathetic tragedy created such consternation among the movers that, despite Boone's entreaties to go forward, all of them returned to Virginia and Carolina. Daniel and his family, no longer having a home on the Yadkin, would not retreat, and took up their quarters in an empty cabin upon the farm of Captain David Gass, seven or eight miles from Russell's, upon Clinch River. Throughout this sorrowful winter the Boones were supported from their stock of cattle and by means of Daniel's unerring rifle.