Boonesborough or Boonesboro is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

in Madison County,

Kentucky Kentucky (, ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north, West Virginia to the ...

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. Founded by famed frontiersman

Daniel Boone Daniel Boone (, 1734September 26, 1820) was an American pioneer and frontiersman whose exploits made him one of the first folk heroes of the United States. He became famous for his exploration and settlement of Kentucky, which was then beyo ...

in 1775 as one of the first English-speaking settlements west of the

Appalachian Mountains The Appalachian Mountains, often called the Appalachians, are a mountain range in eastern to northeastern North America. The term "Appalachian" refers to several different regions associated with the mountain range, and its surrounding terrain ...

, Boonesborough lies in the central part of the state along the

Kentucky River The Kentucky River is a tributary of the Ohio River in Kentucky, United States. The river and its tributaries drain much of eastern and central Kentucky, passing through the Eastern Coalfield, the Cumberland Mountains, and the Bluegrass re ...

and is the site of Fort Boonesborough State Park, which includes the

Kentucky River Museum The Kentucky River Museum is located in Boonesborough, Kentucky, in Fort Boonesborough State Park. Established in 2002, the museum occupies the former lock operator's home and storage and maintenance building for Lock 10, one of fourteen lock ...

. The park site has been rebuilt to look like a working fort of the time that Boone resided there. Boonesborough is part of the Richmond-Berea micropolitan area. It is located at the junction of Kentucky Route 388 and Kentucky Route 627.

History

Boonesborough was founded as Boone's Station by the frontiersman

while working for Richard Henderson and Nathanial Hart of the

Transylvania Company The Transylvania Colony, also referred to as the Transylvania Purchase or the Henderson Purchase, was a short-lived, extra-legal colony founded in early 1775 by North Carolina land speculator Richard Henderson, who formed and controlled the Tra ...

. Boone led a group of settlers (which included a number of

African Americans African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa ...

) through the mountains from Fort Watauga (present-day

Elizabethton Elizabethton () is a city in, and the county seat of Carter County, Tennessee, United States. Elizabethton is the historical site of the first independent American government (known as the Watauga Association, created in 1772) located west of bo ...

Tennessee Tennessee (, ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Kentucky to the north, Virginia to the northeast, North Carolina t ...

), carving the

Wilderness Road The Wilderness Road was one of two principal routes used by colonial and early national era settlers to reach Kentucky from the East. Although this road goes through the Cumberland Gap into southern Kentucky and northern Tennessee, the other ...

through the

Cumberland Gap The Cumberland Gap is a Mountain pass, pass in the Eastern United States, eastern United States through the long ridge of the Cumberland Mountains, within the Appalachian Mountains and near the tripoint of Kentucky, Virginia, and Tennessee. At&n ...

, and established

Fort Boonesborough Fort Boonesborough was a frontier fort in Kentucky, founded by Daniel Boone and his men following their crossing of the Kentucky River on April 1, 1775. The settlement they founded, known as Boonesborough, Kentucky, is Kentucky's second oldest E ...

. Boone lived there from 1775 to 1779. The region was at that time part of the

Commonwealth A commonwealth is a traditional English term for a political community founded for the common good. The noun "commonwealth", meaning "public welfare, general good or advantage", dates from the 15th century. Originally a phrase (the common-wealth ...

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...

, which officially chartered Boonesborough in October 1779. It was one of the first English-speaking communities west of the

. Boone successfully led his fellow settlers during the

Siege of Boonesborough The siege of Boonesborough was a military engagement which took place in September 1778 during the American Revolutionary War. On September 7, Shawnee chief Blackfish, who was allied to the British, led an attack on the Kentucky settlement of B ...

in 1778. He then moved to his son Israel's settlement at

Boone's New Station Boone Station State Historic Site was a List of Kentucky state parks, Kentucky State Historic Site on Boone Creek (Kentucky), Boone's Creek near Athens, Kentucky, Athens in Fayette County, Kentucky, Fayette County, Kentucky, USA. Boone's New ...

near present-day

Athens Athens ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica (region), Attica region and is the southe ...

, Kentucky. Although the town served as a way-station for pioneers venturing further into Kentucky during the 1780s and 1790s, it never attracted a significant long-term population, and thus slowly declined. By 1877, Boonesborough had "almost disappeared as a village".

References

External links

Fort Boonesborough State Park
official web site.
Fort Boonesborough Foundation
Unincorporated communities in Madison County, Kentucky Unincorporated communities in Kentucky Daniel Boone Richmond–Berea micropolitan area Colonial settlements in North America {{MadisonCountyKY-geo-stub

History

Further reading

See also

References

External links