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A Pioneer's Grave

Our attention has been called to an article lately published in the Youth's Companion in regard to the grandfather of the late W. M. Boone and brothers of this county, and father of the late Squire Boone, who died here sJome years ago. As there are so many of the family descendents residents of this county, we reproduce the article which they will no doubt be glad to keep and add to the records of that celebrated family.

It is not commonly known that the bones of one of the most renowned pioneers of the west lie neglected and uncovered in a rude cave on the side of a high hill, close by a county highway, in Harrison County, Indiana, but such is the case.

The writer and a companion recently took a horseback ride to the grave to Squire Boone, one of the first explorers of Kentucky.

Our road lay through the shaded woods and over a stony highway.

Presently, entering a wood, we heard overhead the shrill scream of a bird and saw through the dry leaves the scampering feet of a rabbit. Reining our horses to the side of the road, we dismounted at the very mouth of a small cave.

We entered the cave by springing into it, as one might spring into an open well.

This cave is about ten feet long and seven or eight feet wide. On a sort of stone shelf, or ledge, rests what remains of the worm-eaten coffin and decaying bones of one of the earliest pioneers of Kentucky, Squire Boone.

He was a brother of the famous Daniel Boone, the great explorer.

Squire Boone accompanied Daniel in his expeditions into the wilds of Kentucky. At one time he travelled on foot back to the old settlements in North Carolina, a distance of five hundred miles, in order to procure horses, powder, lead and provisions for his brother and himself.

It required two months to make the journey and return to the hut in the wilderness. During his absence Daniel lived alone, without the sight of a human face save that of the savage Indian.

Squire Boone crossed the Ohio River and made his home in Southern Indiana, in the early part of this century. There he lived, and there prepared with his own hands the dark cavern where his bones are lying.

Some of the very old settlers who live near this cave tell of how the Indians attacked and drove him from his work of opening up this tomb. They tell of his kind face and strange, rough manners. For sixty-seven years these bones have laid in this unmarked grave, to be clattered over by careless feet, and to be inspected by strangers' eyes.

Source: Boone News Republican, March 28, 1883

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