An old family legend

George III

Samuel was born on July 7, 1711 in the small English town of Bradninch, Devon (near Exeter). Samuel's family belonged to the Religious Society of Friends, called "Quakers", and were persecuted in England for their dissenting beliefs. Samuel and his family emigrated to the New World in 1717, to join William Penn's colony of dissenters. His parents, George III and Mary, built a cozy log cabin at Boonecroft in 1720 when he was just 9 years old.

Samuel Senior

Samuel's older brother, Squire, had come to the colony four years before he and his parents arrived. He was 15 years older than Samuel, and had begun his own family. He had a son, Danny, in 1734. More about him latter.

Sam's big brother Squire

On March 22, 1736, Samuel and his wife Elizabeth had a son. They named him Samuel Jr. He was two years younger than his cousin Daniel. The elder Sam died only nine years later at the age of 34. Young Sam was sent to be raised by his uncle James.

He became interested in the trade of gunsmith, and over the years learned this task well. After his first wife and infant son died, he married Jane Hughes (actually a cousin) in 1766. This created somewhat of a stir, but things settled down eventually. Jane and Samuel began building their family. They had nine children together, of which we will learn more about number four, their son William born in 1774 on the eve of the American revolution.

By the time of the Revolutionary War, Samuel Jr. was running a gunsmith shop on the Potomac river in Fredrick Maryland. He manufactured and sold gun locks (the part that includes the trigger and hammer) to General Washington's Continental Army. Unfortunately, he had to pay in gold bullion for his materials and labor, while he received payment in Continental Script. This essentially drained his fortune over the course of the war. 

Sam Junior, gunsmith and patriot

Shortly after the war, Samuel and his family moved to Kentucky with his cousin. He and Jane remained there the rest of their lives other than one aborted trip down the Mississippi to establish a new settlement.

Sam Jr's fourth child, William, married Nancy Wilson in Kentucky in 1804. He was a farmer, and held slaves. He and Nancy had a baby girl that they named after her grandmother Jane Hughes in 1811. Not a lot is known of their lives, but in 1836, when daughter Jane was 25 years old, she married a man named Herod P. Turner. It turns out that these two would become my Grandmother Margaret Ellen Red's great grandparents. 

In the early 1960's, my Dad was breaking into the acting business. Suddenly his dream of becoming an actor, intersected with a family "legend" that he had heard from his mother Margaret, and her sister Rose. The rumor was that he was directly descended from the great American frontiersman: Daniel Boone. One of the networks was developing a TV series about Daniel Boone starring the actor Fess Parker. When Dad got wind of this, he called on his mom and auntie Rose to help him verify the family legend, Maybe it would help him land a good role in the new series.

Dad may have had this "character" picture taken as part of his effort
 to land a part in the Daniel Boone program.

There began a letter writing campaign to the "Boone Family Society" for help in making the connection. It continued for months, maybe a few years. I have several of these old letters, from the Boone Family Society, saying they could not find a connection, and others from my grandmother's Uncle Barry (guess who Uncle Fluffy is named after) in Oklahoma insisting that there was one. Looking through the hand written letters, I found mention of a "Great Grandmother Jane Hughes Boone" as being the link. However, that was where the trail went cold. It seemed that it was just the name "Boone" and that there probably was some connection, but it could not be verified. 

Fast forward over 50 years, and add the internet, some very powerful genealogy search engines, and a little luck. 

Starting with the old letters and handwritten notes that I retrieved from my parents house after they were gone, I have spent more than a few hours at the computer scratching my head and looking through lots of previously unavailable records. Of course it turns out that Great Grandma Jane was Jane Hughes Boone who married Great Granddad Herod P. Turner. Now you can go back and add the last name "Boone" to the story above. Remember the little boy Danny? Sam junior's first cousin? That little boy "Danny", the elder Samuel's nephew, was the great Daniel Morgan Boone! 

Col. Daniel Morgan Boone

So, bottom line is that Daniel Boone's granddad, and my 7th great granddad are that same emigrant Quaker, George Boone III. The man who left England with his family in 1717 to pursue freedom, and start a new life in the American Colonies.

And what about the rest of the trail? Well, Herod and Jane had many children including one James A. Turner. James grew up and married Ellen Adair Carey. They also were fruitful and multiplied. Their youngest daughter Lula Hughes Turner married a man named James Erle Red (who's great grandfather George immigrated to America from Ireland in 1771). They had two daughters: Margaret Ellen and Rosemary. Margaret is my Dad's mother, and Rosemary is my Auntie Rose! 

I think that you know...the rest of the story!

That's All!