Rebecca Bryan was born on 9 January 1734 in Opequon, Frederick County, Virginia, the child of Joseph and Hester (Simpson) Bryan.

She married Daniel Boone (1734-1820) in Rowan County, North Carolina, on 14 August 1756. Their ten known children were:

• James was born in 1757 and died young.
• Israel was born in 1759 and married Amilla Callaway.
• Susannah was born in 1760 and married William Hayes.
• Jemima was born in 1762 and married Flanders Callaway.
• Lavina was born in 1766 and married Joseph Scholl.
• Rebecca was born in 1768 and married Philip Goe.
• Daniel Morgan was born in 1769 and married Sarah Lewis
• Jesse Bryan was born in 1773 and married Chloie Van Bibber.
• William was born in 1775 and died young.
• Nathan was born in 1781 and married Olive Van Bibber.

In 1775, the Transylvania Company hired Daniel Boone to lead axe men to cut a trace (Boone’s Trace) to what became Fort Boonesborough. Susannah Boone Hays (Rebecca and Daniel’s daughter) accompanied these men as a cook. Shortly after arriving there, the American Revolution began. Rebecca and the rest of her children arrived at the Fort in September 1775. Virginia declared Henderson’s claim invalid and maintained its claim to the land west of the Alleghenies. Daniel remained a Captain but now served in the Virginia militia.

On 14 July 1776, Rebecca’s daughter Jemima and Colonel Calloway’s two girls were taken prisoner outside Fort Boonesborough by Shawnee and Cherokee warriors. Daniel led eight men in pursuit and recovered the girls on 16 July.

The bloodiest and most violent time at Fort Boonesborough was in 1777. During that year, the Fort was attacked multiple times. Daniel was shot and wounded during one of the attacks. He was assisted with his recovery by Rebecca and some of their children.

In February 1778, Daniel Boone was captured by Shawnee warriors, taken to meet with the British at Fort Detroit, and held by Shawnee in the Ohio Territory until he later escaped. Believing that Daniel might be dead, Rebecca and her children (except Jemima) returned to the Bryan Settlement in North Carolina. Daniel escaped in June 1778 and fought during the Siege of Boonesborough in September 1778. Subsequently, Boone was promoted to Major. He returned to North Carolina with Jemima to find Rebecca and the children.

Daniel, Rebecca, and their family returned to Kentucky and arrived at Fort Boonesborough in late October 1779. Daniel’s claim for 400 acres and an adjoining preemption of 1,000 acres was approved by the Virginia Land Commission in December 1779 at Fort Boonesborough for a tract now located in Clark County, Kentucky. On Christmas Day, 1779, Daniel and Rebecca Boone, with their family and others, crossed the frozen Kentucky River and settled at the new Boone Station site in what is now Fayette County. They built a half-faced camp of boards and forked sticks to get them through the Hard Winter of 1779-1780. In March 1780, settlers at Boone’s Station built cabins with portholes and a stockade.

Rebecca’s sister, Martha, who was married to Daniel’s brother Edward Boone, also settled at Boone’s Station with their five children in 1779. Native American warriors continued attacks around them with the support of the British fighting the American Revolution. In August 1780, Daniel and his brother Squire participated in General George Rogers Clark’s invasion of the Ohio Territory and the Battle of Piqua. While hunting with Daniel in October 1780, Edward Boone was killed by Shawnee warriors near Grassy Lick.

In November 1780, Boone was appointed Lieutenant-Colonel in Fayette County, Virginia, and was elected to the Virginia legislature. On 2 March 1781, Rebecca gave birth to her tenth and last child, Nathan Boone, and Daniel left in April 1781 to take his seat in the legislature. In 1781, General Cornwallis ordered Lieutenant Colonel Tarleton’s dragoons to capture Governor Jefferson and members of the Virginia legislature. Boone was captured along with three other legislators. He was held for a few days, questioned, and then released.

On 19 August 1782, Lieutenant-Colonel Boone, serving under Colonel John Todd, fought at the Battle of Blue Licks. The militia was led into an ambush and defeated by British Rangers and Native Americans warriors who greatly outnumbered the militia. Rebecca and Daniel’s son, Israel, was among those killed during the battle.

Daniel was Lieutenant-Colonel of Fayette County and led another battalion as a full Colonel in the militia on 4 November 1782 when General Clark dispatched his battalions to attack the Shawnee towns. In 1783, Daniel was instrumental in planning expeditions against Native American people and conducting affairs of state required by his office. Around March 1783, Daniel and Rebecca lost their claim to Boone Station, so they moved briefly to Marble Creek and then to Limestone (Maysville) to run a tavern.

In 1799, Rebecca moved with her husband and others to Spanish Louisiana, which became part of the United States in 1803. After a brief illness, Rebecca died in St. Charles County, Missouri, on 18 March 1813 and was buried in the nearby Bryan family cemetery. On 26 September 1820, Daniel Boone was at the home of his son, Nathan, when he died. Daniel was buried next to his wife, Rebecca, in the Bryan family cemetery. 

In 1845, the bodies of Rebecca Bryan Boone and Daniel Boone were exhumed, and the major bones of their remains were taken to Frankfort, Kentucky. After an elaborate state funeral, they were reinterred in a grave in Frankfort Cemetery.

Sources:

1. Clovis, H. Brakebill, Compiler, Revolutionary War Graves Register, SAR, 1993, page 672.
2. Collins, Lewis, History of Kentucky, Vol. 1, Collins & Co., Covington, KY, 1878, page 20.
3. Crabb, Anne and Enoch, Harry G., Settling Boonesborough: Journals, Letters and Other Documents, 1775, Harry G. Enoch and Anne Crabb, 2022.
4. Drake, William, Kentucky in Retrospect, Kentucky Historical Society, Frankfort, KY, 1967, pages 11 and 157.
5. Draper, Lyman Copeland, Draper Manuscripts, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison, WI.
6. Filson, John, The Discovery, Settlement, and Present State of Kentucky, Wilmington, Delaware, 1784, Reprint: Cosimo Classics, New York, NY, 2001.
7. Hammond, Neil O., Daniel Boone and the Defeat at Blue Licks, The Boone Society, Inc., 2005.
8. Hammond, Neil O., My Father Daniel Boone: The Draper Interviews with Nathan Boone, The University of Kentucky Press, Lexington, KY, 1999.
9. Hammond, Neil O. and Taylor, Richard, Virginia’s Western War, 1775-1786, Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg, PA, 2002.
10. O’Malley, Nancy, Boonesborough Unearthed: Frontier Archeology at a Revolutionary Fort, The University Press of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky, 2019.
11. O’Malley, Nancy, Field Investigations at Daniel Boone’s Frontier Station, Fayette County, Kentucky, Paper presented at SHA 2002 Conference, 8-12 January, Mobile, Alabama.
12. Manuscript Collection, The State Historical Society of Missouri, St. Louis, MO.
13. Palmer, William, P. et. Al., eds., Calendar of Virginia State Papers and Other Manuscripts Preserved in the Capitol at Richmond, 1652-1869, Vol. 1, Richmond, VA.
14. SAR Revolutionary War Graves Register CD, Progeny Publishing Co., Buffalo, NY, 1998.
15. Spraker, Hazel Atterbury, The Boone Family, The Tuttle Company, Rutland, VT, 1922
16. U.S Quaker Meeting Records 1681-1935.
17. Virginia Archives, Richmond, VA.
18. Winkler, John F., Peckuwe 1780, The Revolutionary War on the Ohio River Frontier, Osprey Publishing, Oxford, United Kingdom and New York, NY, 2018.