Rebecca Bryan Boone (January 9, 1739 – March 18, 1813) was an American pioneer and the wife of famed frontiersman Daniel Boone. She began her life in the Colony of Virginia (1606–1776), and at the age of ten moved with her grandparents and extended family to the wilderness of the Province of North Carolina (Crown colony (1729-1776), now North Carolina). It was there that she met her future husband, Daniel Boone. Rebecca Boone raised ten of her own children and eight nephews and nieces that she and Daniel had adopted. Since Daniel was away for extended hunting and exploration trips, sometimes for several years at a time, Boone generally raised and protected their eighteen children by herself. Living in the frontier, and needing to be self-reliant, she was a healer, midwife, sharpshooter, gardner, tanner, and weaver. The family was subject to attacks by Native Americans as their land was encroached upon by white settlers and by bands of white men, called highwaymen, who attacked settlers. Several times she and her family left their home for shelter and protection in nearby forts and in one case lived several years in Culpeper County, Colony of Virginia, during the Anglo-Cherokee War.
In 1775, the Boones moved to Kentucky County, Virginia (1776–1780), now the state of Kentucky, where Boone was the first white woman settler. Boone's son James was killed by a group of Cherokee, Delaware, and Shawnee men during the trek through the wilderness. After the family settled at Fort Boone (now Booonesborough), Jemima was captured by Native Americans and was subsequently rescued by Daniel. Daniel was also captured and Boone, believing her husband was dead, returned to North Carolina with her children. Daniel later escaped, returned his family, and later escorted them back to Kentucky County. During the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), one of Boone's sons was killed and another was wounded at the Battle of Blue Licks (August 19, 1782). Boone moved to numerous locations where she raised her family, ran a tavern kitchen, operated stores, hunted for game, and made and sold maple sugar.
Early life
Rebecca Ann Bryan was born January 9, 1739 in Frederick County, Virginia near Winchester, Colony of Virginia. She was born into the Quaker family of Joseph and Hester Bryan. Hester was Joseph's first wife. The couple had a second daughter, Martha, before Hester died. The young girls were then taken in by their Grandmother Bryan.
In the fall of 1748, Rebecca, Martha, her grandparents Morgan and Martha (Strode) Bryan, and their eight married children and families left Virginia. They traveled along the Great Wagon Road, which at the time was a path of rugged terrain, just wide enough for a horse-drawn cart. It was a long and dangerous trip to the wilderness of the Province of North Carolina, where they settled in the Yadkin River valley in Rowan County, present-day Davie County, North Carolina. They founded the community called Bryan's Settlement. In Augusta County, Virginia, her father, Joseph Bryan, married a second time to Alice "Alee" Linville, with whom he had a large family. Joseph Bryan fathered a total of eleven children.
The Carolina Bryans cleared the land and built cabins and barns for the families. Elk, deer, turkeys, and fish were abundant in the area. Boone gathered berries and nuts and tended the garden. She learned to spin wool, weave, sew, cook, and make candles. She also learned how to dry food for the winter, tan deer hide, ride a horse, and shoot a musket. She received domestic training from her grandmother and learned outdoor skills, like shooting, from the male members of the Bryan family.
Daniel Boone's family, who were Quakers until 1748, migrated from Pennsylvania in 1750 and between the fall of 1751 and spring of 1752, they settled along the Yadkin River near the Bryans in Rowan County. There are a couple of stories about Daniel and Rebecca's first meeting. One is that on a night that Rebecca was herding stray cows, Daniel tracked her during a "fire hunt", a Native American night-time method for stalking and shooting deer that became frozen or catatonic by the light. In the story, he followed her to the Bryan homestead. Another is that they first met at a cherry picking. They likely first "took notice of each other" at the wedding of Mary Boone, Daniel's sister, to Rebecca's Uncle William—or the later wedding of Squire Boone, Daniel's relative, to Rebecca's Aunt Rebecca. Rebecca was said to have been a tall, attractive woman with black hair and dark eyes. No contemporary portrait of her exists.