BOONE CROSSING

Across The Fence

By Arvord Abernethy

When I was by there last week talking to you about the C. B. Walls, I didn’t have time to tell you about everything I saw and learned.

First, let me tell you where they live, as some have asked me about the location. Highway 281 used to cross the Cowhouse Creek nearly a mile below where it does now. If you take the old road, you can see the Wall’s nice home off to the east shortly before you get to the creek. The new addition is on the east end of the house, so you can’t see it from the road.

While we were driving around down there that day, Cloven said he would like to show me an old creek crossing, so we drove to it and he drove his pickup right down into the bed of the creek, and the going out place on the other side was still very plain. I told him about some early maps showing a Boone Crossing up the creek from the Parsley Crossing. When I got home I called Mrs. Paul (Estelle Boone) Walker and she verified that fact that the place we saw was the old Boone Crossing. She told me some other things about the Boones and their early home.

She said that one day when her grandfather, Jacob H. Boone, and one of the Hogg brothers were off buying some cattle, some Indians came by and Mrs. Boone slipped off with the children and hid from them under a cliff which is right below the house. The Indians cut down their peach trees, cut open their feather mattresses and did other havoc.

Cloven has lately bought the original part of the Boone place, so we drove over it also. The field of oats on that place is as pretty as any I have seen this year; they should turn out real well.

We drove up where the old log house stood that was built by the Boones after they bought the place in 1865. Estelle was telling that the fireplace was large enough to hold cord-length wood and that it had hooks and cranes for holding the cooking pots. You can a picture of the old log house with its large fireplace on page 347 of the recent Hamilton County History Book.

The story is told that 480 acres of abandoned land near the Boone land came up for sale for unpaid taxes. Mr. Boone paid $7.44 plus $4.00 court cost for the land with the understanding that the original owner could reclaim the land within two years, but the owner never returned.

If my brain serves me right, that figures a little less than two and a half cents per acre. I’ve heard of some mighty cheap land in those early days, but that is the best bargain I’ve heard of. That is as good a deal as Thomas Jefferson made in the Louisiana Purchase ; it figured about two and a half cents per acre.

The log house has long since been replaced with a nice house, and the barn and other buildings are fairly recent additions.

There was some feelings of sadness when the last of the Boone land was sold after being in the family for 104 years.

The Hogg brother I spoke of earlier was one of two brothers who came over from Scotland in 1874 and bought up a large amount of land on the Cowhouse. They were very capable and Industrious men, but by 1900 they had broken up their ranch into smaller tracts, sold them and returned to Scotland  

Shared by Roy Ables

ACROSS THE FENCE