Rebecca Booneand Kentucky Frontier Women

Bluegrass Heritage MuseumMay 13, 2010

Randolph Hollingsworth, Ph.D.University of Kentucky

Rebecca Bryan Boone – what do we know?

• Born in Virginia, January 9, 1738• Moved to North Carolina at 10 years old• Met Daniel in 1753 and married August 14, 1756• Moves and sets up house again at least 15 times• Marriage lasted 56 years and she had 10 children:

1757 James 1768 Rebecca1759 Israel 1769 Daniel Morgan 1760 Susannah 1773 Jesse1762 Jemima 1775 William1766 Levina 1781 Nathan

• Died March 18, 1813, in Missouri at age 75

1830s Image of Rebecca Bryan Boone

A Slave AuctionIllustration by Edmund Ollier (1826–1886)

“Boone’s Fort”from a drawing by Colonel Richard Henderson

Women’s Names in Fayette Co. VA Personal Tax Lists 1787-1791 31 women’s names in the six lists of recorded

taxpayers 7 are slaveowners – averaging 3-4 slaves per

household – which puts them into a more wealthy rank than the majority of Kentucky population

4 women paid taxes on their indentured servants (whose first names are recorded)

The ethnicity of these women is not recorded

Kentucky Wealth in 1790s

Size of Land Owned

Slaveholder Families

Non-Slaveholder Families

10,000 acres 87 20

1,000 acres 507 270

100 acres 5,107 7,450

1 acre 5,717 9,450

Source: Lee Soltow, “Kentucky Wealth at the End of the Eighteenth Century,”Journal of Economic History 43 (Sept. 1983): 617-33.

Evidence of Women’s Work Constant’s Station 1785

George Caleb Bingham, 1852

Bryan Station Memorial, KY DAR, 1896

Bodmer and Millet, Abduction, 1852

George Fasel, Daniel rescues Jemima, 1851

Eighteenth century tea party –in the Lexington Fort?

Early 1800s fashion

Cane Ridge revival, 1801

Shakers

Some Domestic Manufactures

Slater Mill, Rhode Island, 1793

Mill Worker Drawing In Warp Threads