Page:The part taken by women in American history.djvu/92

This page has been validated.
Women Pioneers
67

The names of these worthy delegates were: Squire Boone, Daniel Boone, Samuel Henderson, William Moore, Richard Callaway, Thomas Slaughter, John Lythe, Valentine Harmon, James Harrod, Nathan Hammond, Isaac Hite, Azariah David, John Todd, Alexander Spotswood Dandridge, John Floyd, and Samuel Wood.

REBECCA BRYANT BOONE.

The wife of Daniel Boone, born about 1755 in the Yadkin settlement of western North Carolina, and her daughter Jemima, are supposed to be the first white women residents of Kentucky. In 1773, in company with her husband, she set out for their new home. It is believed that no women suffered more hardships or showed more heroism than these two white women, the first to enter Kentucky. This little band was attacked by Indians in the mountains, and six men of the party were killed, among them her eldest son. They took up their home in the Valley of the Clinch River, where they lived until 1775. Daniel Boone had undertaken a surveying trip for the Government extending from tidewater to the Falls of the Ohio, a distance of about eight hundred miles. After attending the Rustic Parliament, he returned to Clinch River and brought his family back to Boonesborough. In February, 1778, Daniel Boone was captured by the Indians while out trying to secure a supply of salt. He was carried north of the Ohio River, and all tidings of him to his family ceased. His wife, of course, supposed he had been killed, and taking her children, she returned to Yadkin, North Carolina. In 1778, Boone escaped and returned to Boonesborough, joining his family the following autumn and bringing them into Kentucky in 1780. In 1782 another son was killed in a massacre by the Indians. Mrs. Boone died in 1813, leaving a record of heroism unequalled by any woman of that time, living as she had, much of her time alone and constantly surrounded by savages, her life and that of her children in constant peril. Kentucky has shown its appreciation of this heroism and her part in the early history of the state by the legislature passing a resolution to bring her remains and those of her husband back to the state and burying them with honor at Frankfort.

KETURAH LEITCH TAYLOR.

Keturah Leitch Taylor, formerly Keturah Moss, was born September 11, 1773, in Goochland County, Virginia. She was the daughter of Major Hugh Moss of the Revolutionary Army. Her father having died in 1784, she, with two sisters, was brought to Kentucky by her uncle, Rev. Augustine Eastin, their mother having married again. While en route to Kentucky, the train of settlers of which they were a part, was attacked by Indians, and many were killed. This was witnessed by Keturah Moss, then only a child of fifteen years. Her early experiences and her courage make her one of the cherished memories of Kentucky, and her descendants are among the well-known names of that state.