“Reverend” Squire Boone?

Many written histories, and even a historical marker, confused two men named Squire Boone

Squire Boone Jr. and his old­er broth­er Daniel Boone shared many adven­tures together. 

Squire joined Daniel on a long hunt to Kentucky (1769−1770) and was wound­ed in 1777 and 1778 at Boonesborough. Trained as a gun­smith, Squire had a work­shop set up in the mid­dle of the fort.  He lived briefly at Harrodsburg and the Falls of the Ohio before estab­lish­ing a sta­tion (“Painted Stone”) on his 1,400-acre land claim in Shelby County.  After relo­cat­ing his fam­i­ly numer­ous times, Squire final­ly moved to Indiana around 1804.  He set­tled twen­ty-five miles north­west of Louisville, where he built a grist­mill.  Squire died in 1815 and was buried in a cave on his property.

Due to the fact that many details of Squire’s life are so sketchy, many folk tra­di­tions have attached them­selves to his name.  One of the most endur­ing myths is that Squire Boone Jr. was an ordained Baptist min­is­ter.  In that capac­i­ty, he has been cred­it­ed with con­duct­ing Kentucky’s first wed­ding, preach­ing the first ser­mon in Louisville, and start­ing Indiana’s first Baptist church.  These leg­ends have been end­less­ly repeat­ed in books and arti­cles down to the present time—even in the Boone Society’s publications.

In 2013, a schol­ar­ly arti­cle appeared in the jour­nal of the American Baptist Historical Society: “Squire Boone Jr. (1744−1815), The First Kentucky Baptist Minister?” The author, Jeff Straub, B.A., M.A., M.Div., Ph.D., is a pro­fes­sor of the­ol­o­gy and Baptist his­to­ri­an.  In his paper, Straub arrived at the sur­pris­ing con­clu­sion that there is no evi­dence to show that Squire was a Baptist minister—or that he was even a Baptist!

The mar­riage of Samuel Henderson to Betsy Callaway took place at Boonesborough on August 7, 1776.  The claim that Squire offi­ci­at­ed at that union first appeared in print in 1878 in Richard Collins’ History of Kentucky:

“The First Marriage in Kentucky [per­formed] by Squire Boone (younger broth­er of Daniel), who was an occa­sion­al preach­er in the Calvinistic Baptist church.”

Collins attrib­uted this infor­ma­tion to R. H. Rivers (1814−1894), a grand­son of Samuel Henderson.  Rivers claimed he was informed by his eighty-year-old uncle.  Collins became the source of near­ly all lat­er claims that Squire was a Baptist minister.

None of the 18^th- or 19^th-cen­tu­ry Baptist his­to­ri­ans who record­ed names of the ear­ly min­is­ters in Kentucky ever men­tioned Squire Boone Jr.  The tire­less col­lec­tor of Americana, Lyman C. Draper, inter­viewed sev­er­al of Squire’s sons.  In the two hun­dred pages of notes he record­ed, there is no men­tion of Squire being a min­is­ter or a Baptist.  His son Enoch claimed that Squire was a Quaker.  Regarding his father, son Johnathan declared, “If he or Daniel ever belonged to any church, I have no knowl­edge of it.  Their soci­ety was called Friends.”  Son Isaiah talked exten­sive­ly about Squire’s last years spent in Indiana, but made no men­tion of his father’s reli­gion or his estab­lish­ing a church there.

Baptist his­to­ri­an Samuel Howard Ford pub­lished a series of arti­cles (1856−1859) about ear­ly Baptists in Kentucky.  He men­tioned Squire sev­er­al times, but nev­er as a min­is­ter or a Baptist.  Ford stat­ed that the first Baptist to preach in Louisville was the well-known Lewis Craig, not Squire Boone. 

Several biog­ra­phers of Squire Boone Jr. men­tioned the chal­lenge of sep­a­rat­ing the family’s reuse of the names Squire and Daniel across mul­ti­ple gen­er­a­tions.  Confusion over the var­i­ous Squires may have con­tributed to the leg­end of Squire Boone Jr. being a Baptist minister.

In cre­at­ing the myth, it is pos­si­ble that Squire Boone Jr. became con­fused with the well-doc­u­ment­ed Rev. Squire Boone (1760−1817), a known Baptist min­is­ter.  He was the son of Daniel Boone’s broth­er, Samuel. This Squire Boone was born in South Carolina and enlist­ed for two tours with the local mili­tia dur­ing the Revolutionary War.  He came to Kentucky with the Boone and Bryan fam­i­lies in 1779.  He suf­fered a bro­ken thigh at the Battle of Blue Licks (1782), made it back to Boonesborough after three days, and even­tu­al­ly recov­ered, although the wound trou­bled him for the rest of his life.  In 1786, Squire unit­ed with Providence Baptist Church in Clark County, then in about 1800, he became the first pas­tor of Boggs’ Fork Baptist Church near Athens, Fayette County.  Squire lat­er moved to a farm in Todd County, where he and his wife Anna are buried.

Confusion over Squire Boone was respon­si­ble for a mis­take on the Kentucky his­tor­i­cal mark­er for Providence Baptist Church in Clark County.  The first sen­tence of text read, “Daniel Boone attend­ed,” fol­lowed by “Squire, Samuel, Elizabeth, and Mary Boone attend­ed.”  There is no shred of evi­dence that Daniel ever attend­ed church there, and the “Squire” on the mark­er was not Daniel’s broth­er.  Squire, Samuel (Jr.), Elizabeth, and Mary were all chil­dren of Daniel’s broth­er, Samuel.  This Squire was the Rev. Squire Boone.  In 2024, a cor­rect­ed mark­er replaced the old marker.