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