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Surnames: Boone
Classification: Biography
Message Board URL:
http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/Di.2ADE/1953
Message Board Post:
Hiram C. Boone was for many years prominent in the history of Indiana, being one of the
pioneers and patriots who opened up that region to civilization. He was born in Shelby
County, Ky., July 3, 1789, being a son of Samuel and Jane Boone, the former a gunsmith by
trade, who was employed by the Continental Congress to operate the first gunlock factory
ever carried on in America. This was located in Georgetown near Washington. After the
Revolution, in 1785, he removed to Shelby County, Ky. When Mr. Boone was seventeen years
old his father died, and shortly after, with his mother, brothers and sisters, he removed
to Harrison County, Ind. The date of this migration was 1811, the same years that the
battle of Tippecanoe was fought.
In August, 1812, Mr. Boone, then a youth of eighteen, was called upon to fill the position
of Captain in a company of drafted militia, to go against the Indians who were threatening
to take Vincennes and Fort Harrison. They had been given a regular detailed captain who,
on perceiving the wishes of his men, with magnanimity yielded his position to Mr. Boone,
who was justified in the feeling of pride with which he ever remembered this unexpected
mark of appreciation. They marched to the relief of Fort Harrison, where they dispersed
the enemy, and from there proceeded to Vincennes, where they were mustered out of service.
In the next month, at the request of the Colonel of the Fifth Indiana Regiment, Mr. Boone
commanded a company of mounted riflemen and was stationed for thirty days at the fort on
White river in order to protect the frontier settlement there from the savages. After
seeing more or less service during that winter, Mr. Boone was given the rank of Major in
the army!
, but from that time forward was able to pursue more peaceful vocations.
In March, 1813, Hiram Boone married Miss Fannie Boone, who was a daughter of Jonathan
Boone, and granddaughter of a brother of the celebrated Daniel Boone of Kentucky. Our
subject is also a descendant of the English Boone family, his father having been an own
brother of Daniel Boone. After his marriage, Hiram Boone removed to land which he had
purchased near Laconia, Ind., where he built a house and necessary barns. In the spring of
1815 he purchased a tract of land opposite Brandenburg, and for the following few years
acquired property very rapidly. About this time he was induced to go into partnership in
the dry goods business with a couple of men, the firm investing $9,000 in stock. Things
did not go very well with his commercial venture, and he finally lost nearly all he had
invested. In 1822 Mr. Boone purchased a tract of land. He went to work in earnest and soon
acquired considerable property, his estate being worth about $40,000 at the time of his
death. This was accu!
mulated through honest toil, without any speculation or trading.
On the 4th of July, 1820, occurred the death of Mr. Boone’s first wife, and in August of
the following year he married Mrs. Sarah Renfro, nee Staples. Her mother was, before her
marriage, Jane Haustin, who came of a very wealthy old Virginia family.
Mr. And Mrs. Boone had a family of eleven children. The ancestors of the Boone family
emigrated from Exeter, England, settling near Philadelphia not very long after it was laid
out as a city. They were all members of the Society of Friends.
Portrait and Biographical Record of Buchanan and Clinton Counties, Missouri; Chapman
Bros., 1893, pgs. 336-337.