Copyright 2014 Truman State University Press, Kirksville, Missouri, 63501 All rights reserved tsup.truman.edu Cover art: Portrait of Olive Boone, courtesy of State Historical Society of Missouri (#006984); and detail of log cabin, image from istockphotos.com (#12952369). Cover design: Teresa Wheeler Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Russell, Greta, 1975 Olive Boone : frontier woman / Greta Russell. pages cm. (Notable Missourians) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-61248-118-0 (library binding : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-61248-119-7 (e-book) 1. Boone, Olive Van Bibber, 1783 1858 Juvenile literature. 2. Frontier and pioneer life Missouri Juvenile literature. 3. Women pioneers Missouri Biography Juvenile literature. 4. Missouri Biography Juvenile literature. I. Title. F466.B683R87 2014 977.8'03092 dc23 [B] 2014014351 No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any format by any means without written permission from the publisher. The paper in this publication meets or exceeds the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48 1992.
Contents Introduction...4 Chapter 1: Growing Up on the Frontier...6 Chapter 2: Moving to a New Frontier...13 Chapter 3: A New Home...20 Chapter 4: Changing Times...27 Chapter 5: The Last Move West..36 Legacy: Women on the Frontier..44 Timeline...45 For Further Reading...46 Index...48 Image Credits...48
Introduction Olive Boone was just sixteen years old in 1799 when she left Kentucky and moved to the frontier in what is now Missouri. As a woman on the frontier, Olive did not have an easy life. She had to work hard to provide food and clothing for her family, and as a woman, she had few 4
legal rights and little freedom to make her own choices. Because her husband was often away from home, Olive had to work even harder, working their farm, caring for livestock, and making clothing and other items for her family. She even built a chimney and made a floor for their log cabin while Nathan was away. Because many women could not read or write in the early 1800s, the stories of most frontier women were not written down and have been lost to time. Olive was married to Nathan Boone, a respected frontiersman and soldier and the youngest son of Daniel Boone. Because she was related to famous men whose stories are written down, we do know some details about Olive s life. Her story sheds light on an untold side of the American frontier: the story of frontier women. e 5
Chapter 1 Growing up on the Frontier Olive Van Bibber was born on January 13, 1783, in a small frontier settlement in what was then western Virginia. Olive s parents, Peter and Marjory Van Bibber, were from Maryland. Soon after they married, the Van Bibbers moved west across the Blue Ridge Mountains, part of the Appalachian Mountain range, and made their 6
home at the mouth of the Greenbrier River. Like most people at that time, the Van Bibbers farmed and raised livestock. They could go to a store in the nearby settlement to buy some things, but the Van Bibbers and their neighbors had to make many of the things they needed, like furniture, tools, and clothing. Peter and In the early 1800s, the western part of Virginia was unsettled and wild compared to the eastern, coastal parts of the state. Native groups still lived in the area and fought with settlers over land. In 1863, the region separated from Virginia to become the state of West Virginia. 7
Chapter 2 Moving to the New Frontier In 1799, many of the families living on the Little Sandy left for a new frontier the Spanish colony of Upper Louisiana, which would later become the Missouri Territory. Spanish officials in the region were eager to have more settlers move into the area, and decided to relax the previous rule that all new immigrants had to be Roman Catholic. 13
Daniel Boone Daniel Boone was famous as an explorer. At different times, Boone made money by buying and selling land, trading furs, keeping a store, and holding political offices. Boone and his family moved around frequently, always looking for a new frontier and chasing his dreams of fortune. A few years earlier, Daniel Boone had written to the Spanish governor in St. Louis to ask about the cost of land. At that time, there were fewer than a thousand settlers living in the area of St. Louis, and most were French fur traders. The governor was eager to make his colony a success, so he encouraged Boone to bring as many Americans as he could to Upper Louisiana. To entice them to move, the governor offered free land for every family that moved to the territory with Daniel Boone. In a settlement like the Little Sandy, everybody knew everybody else, and some of the people living there, like Olive s brother Peter, had moved to the Little Sandy from Point Pleasant with Daniel. So when Boone spread the 14
Chapter 5 The Last Move West Life for Olive and her family changed suddenly in 1833 when Nathan became a captain in the U.S. Army. This new position would keep him on the frontier permanently. It would also mean that Olive and her family would have to move. Nathan picked out a site west of Springfield, Missouri, in a neighborhood known as Ash Grove, and sent their three grown sons there to begin clearing the land and building a house. 36
When the time came for the Boone women to leave, Nathan helped them pack the wagon and led them down the road toward Springfield. Besides Nathan, the final party included Olive, her mother, Marjory, and her five youngest daughters Levica, Melcina, Mary, Sarah, and Mahalia. The trip took them nearly a month. When Olive arrived at the new farm, she would have seen a small white cabin sitting in a valley full of towering ash and walnut trees. A babbling creek separated the house from the wagon road back to Springfield. It would have been a scenic view, but a lonely one. Unlike the 37
Legacy Women on the Frontier Olive Boone stands out as an example of a whole generation of Missouri women whose history was not written down. Olive grew up in frontier settlements in the eastern United States. She moved to the frontier in Missouri before it was part of the United States. By the time she died, Missouri was a state and the frontier had moved farther to the west. Olive spent much of her life dependent on men, but she also proved that a frontier woman could be just as tough as her male counterparts. Olive s story is a reminder that throughout history, even on the most dangerous frontiers, women stood alongside men and they faced the frontier together. e 44
Timeline 1783: Olive is born on January 13 in what is now Greenbrier County, West Virginia. 1787: The Van Bibbers move to Point Pleasant in western Virginia. 1796: After Olive s father dies, she and her mother move to the Little Sandy to live with her brother. 1799: Olive marries Nathan Boone on September 26, in Kentucky. They leave for Upper Louisiana (now Missouri) on October 1. 1800: Nathan builds a one- room log cabin on the couple s new farm on the Femme Osage Creek, then leaves on a hunting trip. Olive and Nathan s first child, James, is born in July. 1802 1824: Olive and Nathan have thirteen more children, three more boys and ten girls. 1803: The United States buys the Louisiana Territory from France. Nathan begins working as a surveyor and guide. 1806 1811: Nathan and his brother operate a saltworks. 1812 1815: Olive cares for the farm and her children while Nathan serves in the army during the War of 1812. 1821: Missouri becomes a state. 1832 1853: Nathan serves in the U.S. Army on the western frontier. 1837: Olive and the family leave St. Charles County to settle near modernday Ash Grove in southwest Missouri. 1851: Nathan and Olive are interviewed by historian Lyman Copeland Draper, who is writing a book about Daniel Boone. 1856: Nathan Boone dies, leaving everything he owns to Olive in his will. 1858: Olive Boone dies November 12 at 75 years old. 45
Further Reading Books for Young Readers Greenwood, Barbara, and Heather Collins. A Pioneer Sampler: The Daily Life of a Pioneer Family in 1840. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1995. Kozar, Richard. Daniel Boone and the Exploration of the Frontier. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 2000. Moses, Will. Johnny Appleseed: The Story of a Legend. New York: Philomel Books, 2001. Reiter, Joan Swallow. 1978. The Women. Alexandria, VA: Time- Life Books, 1978. Russell, Dakota. Belle. Jefferson City: Missouri Department of Natural Resources, 2006. Sinnott, Susan, Chris Duke, Connie Russell, and Jamie Young. Welcome to Kristen s World, 1854: Growing Up in Pioneer America. Middleton, WI: Pleasant Co. Publications, 1999. Walker, Barbara M. The Little House Cookbook: Frontier Foods from Laura Ingalls Wilder s Classic Stories. New York: Harper and Row, 1979. Wilder, Laura Ingalls, and Stephen W. Hines. Little House in the Ozarks: The Rediscovered Writings. Nashville, TN: T. Nelson, 1991. Websites Havighurst, Walter. Pioneer Life. The New Book of Knowledge. Grolier Online http://nbk.grolier.com/ncpage?tn=/ encyc/article.html&id=a2023250-h&type=0ta (accessed March 23, 2014). 46
Markham Museum and Historic Village. Pioneer Home. http:// www.projects.yrdsb.edu.on.ca/pioneer/pioneer_home.htm. WVAM, Museums of West Virginia. Food. http://www.museumsofwv.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article &id=35&itemid=5. Kids Konnect.com. Pioneers [on emigration to the West]. http://www.kidskonnect.com/subjectindex/16- educational/history/276-pioneers.html. Lone Star Junction. David Davy Crockett (1786 1836). http:// www.lsjunction.com/people/crockett.htm. Sources on Nathan Boone Bounds, Myron. Van Bibber e-pioneers 2, no. 6 (April 1998). http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb. ancestry. com/~blogan/v02n06.html (accessed April 13, 2014). Faragher, John Mack. Daniel Boone: The Life and Legend of an American Pioneer. New York: Henry Holt, 1992. Hammon, Neal O., ed. My Father, Daniel Boone: The Draper Interviews with Nathan Boone. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1999. Hurt, R. Douglas. Nathan Boone and the American Frontier. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1998. Hawpe, Gary R. Descendants of James Craig and Delinda Boone. Van Bibber e-pioneers 3, no. 4 (April 1998). http:// freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~blogan/ v03n04.html (accessed April 13, 2014). McMillen, Margot Ford, and Heather Roberson. Called to Courage: Four Women in Missouri History. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2002. Spraker, Hazel Atterbury. The Boone Family. 1922. Reprint, Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1999. 47
Index Boone, Daniel, 5, 14, 15, 27, 34 35, 40 Boone family, 9, 12, 21, 30 32 children of Olive, 22, 27, 33 34, 37, 39, 42 43 education for girls, 9 10 grandchildren of Olive, 40, 43 hunting and trapping trips, 23 25, 27 28, 29 Indians, encounters with, 8 9, 29 30, 31 Nathan as soldier, 33, 36, 38 39 Nathan as surveyor, 33 Olive as farm manager, 5, 25, 28, 33 salt-making, 30 32 women on the frontier, 5, 23, 26, 28, 33 War of 1812, 32 33 westward movement, 6, 8, 12, 14 16, 36 37 women and the law, 4 5, 41 Image Credits Original artwork by John Hare: pgs. 6, 13, 20, 27, 36. Map by Greg Olson: p. 18. Courtesy of Dustin Holmes: p. 37, scenic view, and p. 38, view of Boone house, both at Nathan Boone Homestead State Historic Site, Ash Grove, Missouri. Courtesy of Nick Michael, private collection: p. 11, mid-eighteenth century English sampler. Courtesy of Library of Congress, Geography and Maps Division: p. 12, Map of the United States, by Abraham Bradley, 1804 (g3700 ct0023544); p. 34, Missouri Territory, formerly Louisiana, by Matthew Carey, 1814 (g4050 ct000652). Courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs: p. 15, Portrait of Daniel Boone, drawing, 1876 (LC-USZ62-37338). Courtesy of Lindenwood University/Historic Daniel Boone Home: p. 35, Nathan Boone stone house, front view. Courtesy of Missouri Department of Natural Resources: p. 29, Olive Boone s loom at Nathan Boone Homestead State Historic Site, Ash Grove, MO. Courtesy of Research Division of the Oklahoma State Historical Society: p. 39, Portrait of Nathan Boone. Courtesy of State Historical Society of Missouri: cover and p. 4, Portrait of Olive Boone (SHS MO 006984); p. 31, sketch, salt-making (SHS MO 026369). Courtesy of University Press of Kentucky: p. 21, Spanish Land Grants in St. Charles County, MO, 1799, from Neal O. Hammon, ed., My Father, Daniel Boone (University Press of Kentucky, 1999). Images by istockphoto.com: cover (#12952369), p. 7 (#4036907), p. 10 (#6397279), p. 11 (#32414610), p. 17 (#35552764), p. 22 (#29735776), p. 24 (#28215908), p. 25 (#35623698), p. 26 (#28712918), p. 30 (#31830648). 48