Alphonso Boone

     Alphonso Boone was born on 7 November 1796 at Mason County, Kentucky.^2,1 He was the son of Jesse Bryan Boone and Chloe VanBibber.¹ Alphonso Boone married, at age 25, Nancy Linville Boone, age 23, daughter of John Linville Boone and Mary Polly Morris, on Thursday, 21 February 1822 at Callaway County, Missouri.³ Alphonso Boone died on 27 February 1850 at Long's Bar, Oroville, Butte County, California, at age 53 years, 3 months and 20 days.³
     From Gary R. Hawpe, ed. and comp., 'The Boone Family Emigrants of 1846,' Van Bibber Pioneers E-Newsletter, Vol. 4 No. 11 (September 2001), pp. 3 - 5.

THE BOONE FAMILY EMIGRANTS OF 1846
Pioneer Family of the Month February, 1998

Boones Ferry Road is one of the busiest roads in the Portland area, but not many modern residents are aware that there once actually was a ferry on Boones Ferry Road -- and fewer still know that the Boone in question was a descendant of the one and only Daniel Boone.

The branch of the Boone family that emigrated to Oregon was led by Daniel's grandson, Alphonso Boone. Moving west seems to have run in the family, as Alphonso 'westered' at least three times in his life. In 1841, he set up shop in Independence, Missouri, outfitting fur traders and caravans on the Santa Fe Trail. From 1843 to '45, Alphonso cashed in on a new source of business: emigrants bound for Oregon and California. In 1846, Alphonso headed west with seven of his children, his sister Panthea Boone Boggs, and her husband Lilburn W. Boggs, former governor of Missouri.

The Boones jumped off from Westport, Missouri, where Alphonso's brother, Albert Gallatin Boone, ran his own a general store catering to the overland trade. The Boones with their eleven wagons joined a California-bound wagon train which they expected to stay with to Fort Hall or thereabouts. Traveling in the same train were several people whose names are still known to historians, including Edwin Bryant, J. Quinn Thornton, T. H. Jefferson, George Law Curry, and George Donner and family.

Alphonso Boone's brother-in-law, Lilburn Boggs, wanted to be captain of the train, but he lost the election by a landslide to one William H. Russell. Dissatisfaction with the leadership of Captain Russell was widespread, however, and he complained that:

'My duties as commandant are troublesome beyond anything I could conceive of. I am annoyed with all manner of complaints, one will not do this, and another has done something that must be atoned for, and occasionally, through variety, we have a fight among ourselves... I sometimes get out of patience myself, and once I threw up my commission, but to my surprise...I was again unanimously re-elected...'

- William H. Russell, June 13, 1846

A week or two later at Ash Hollow, Russell resigned again, and the wagon train broke up into small groups for the remainder of the journey. These parties, including the Boones, remained loosely associated with one another, often exchanging members, banding together, and splitting up again as the days wore on.

The Boones reached South Pass on July 18, and two days later they encountered a lone horseman from the west urging emigrants to try a new, shorter route to California being promoted by Lansford W. Hastings. Led by George Donner, about twenty wagons from the Russell train turned off to follow this new route into the history books.

On August 8, at Fort Hall, the Boones met a man promoting another new route, this one leading to Oregon's Willamette Valley instead of California. Panthea Boone Boggs and her husband struck out for California, while Alphonso Boone decided to take a chance on the new road to Oregon, known as the Southern Route or the Applegate Trail.

This proved to be a mistake. The Applegate Trail was a hard road through difficult terrain with limited access to water. To make matters worse, the Indians of southern Oregon and northern California were extremely hostile to the overlanders. While they didn't stage a full-blown attack on the emigrants, they frequently harassed them by shooting arrows at their livestock and stealing from their wagons. Indians opportunistically attacked and killed two overlanders who got separated from the groups they were traveling with.

As winter weather set in and threatened to strand the travelers on the Applegate Trail, the emigrants began throwing away everything they could in order to lighten the load for their exhausted, footsore oxen. They cached their valuables in hope of being able to return for them later, but the Indians dug up and stole all but a few items of clothing. The Boones lost everything that they couldn't carry out of the mountains on their backs, including a compass and surveying instruments that had once belonged to Daniel Boone himself.

It was Christmastime when the Boones finally reached the settlements in the Willamette Valley. In the spring of 1847, Alphonso moved his family upriver and claimed 1000 acres across the Willamette from present-day Wilsonville. The Boones established a ferry on an old Indian trail running from Salem and the French Prairie area to the newly established city of Portland, offering a more direct route than going by way of Oregon City. They improved the trail by laying down a 'corduroy road' of split tree trunks to get wagons through the muddiest stretches, and it grew into a major thoroughfare. Legend has it that their road was a hotbed for moonshiners, who operated stills hidden in hollows and glens nearby and used the road to transport their product to town. Alphonso made a point of operating his ferry 24 hours a day for the convenience of his customers, which may have had something to do with the number of illegal distilleries operating along his road...

One of the Boones' neighbors was George Law Curry, who knew the family from the Oregon Trail and had taken a shine to Alphonso's eldest daughter, Chloe. George courted Chloe by canoe, paddling up and down the river to pay regular visits until she consented to marry him. He later became the third and last governor of the Oregon Territory, in office from 1854 - 59.

When word of the gold strikes in California reached Oregon in 1848, Alphonso and his boys headed south to make their fortune. On February 1, 1850, Alphonso died at Long's Bar of an illness contracted in the gold fields. Though they lost their father, the Boone brothers did well in the mines, and Alphonso's sons gradually dispersed across the Northwest with their fortunes assured: Jesse returned to Oregon and ran the ferry for 26 years, until he was murdered by a neighbor in a dispute over access to the river; Alphonso (junior) briefly ran the ferry before selling it to Jesse and going into the steamboat business; Joshua settled in Benton County, Oregon; and James moved to Idaho and ran the Morning Star Silver Mine.

The only son of Alphonso Boone who didn't accompany him to Oregon was George Luther Boone. Many years later, he told his story to fellow Oregon Trail emigrant Eva Emery Dye:

'When I was twelve years old, my mother died; and Father, Col. Alphonso Boone, named for an old Spanish friend of his Grandfather Daniel, moved us up to Jefferson City, where he opened a trading post to outfit caravans for the Oregon Trail. My father's sister, Aunt Panthea, the wife of Governor Boggs, lived in a fine house next to the Missouri state capitol. ... When Father moved to Independence near Kansas City I struck out on the plains as a trapper working for my Uncle Albert Gallatin Boone, agent for the Kaw and Cheyenne Indians. ...

In the early Spring of 1846 when my Father, Colonel Alphonso Boons, with his large family of boys and girls set out on the Oregon Trail, I was absent on a trading trip to the Arapahoes and Cherry Creek where Denver was yet to be. With my mouse-colored mules I was carrying trading goods for Uncle Albert into the farther Rocky Mountain wilds.

By midsummer, with goods sold out and three wagon-loads of furs for Uncle Albert, I returned to Westport to find my folks gone and Colonel Doniphan there recruiting for the Mexican War. ... Selling my mules to the government I was mustered in at Fort Leavenworth and was soon on the march for Santa Fe.'

- George L. Boone

George was honorably discharged in 1847 and led a wagon train across the plains the following spring to join his family in Oregon. In 1849, he went to find his father and brothers in California, made some money shipping freight, and returned to Oregon to settle down in 1852.

The ferry established by Alphonso Boone in 1847 operated continuously for 107 years. It was finally shut down in 1954 after the completion of a highway bridge adjacent to the ferry crossing.

End of the Oregon Trail.
Alphonso Boone
1796-1850

by Arlene Curry Buschert, Gggrandaughter

Alphonso Boone was the third child of Judge Jesse Bryan Boone and Chloe Van Bibber. Named for an old Spanish friend of his grandfather Daniel Boone, he was born on Nov.7, 1796 in Mason County, Ky.

W ith his family Alphonso settled in 1818 in Montgomery County, MO and helped build the first road in the county in 1820.

February 21,1822, Alphonso married his second cousin Nancy Linville Boon who was the daughter of John Linville Boon, granddaughter of George Boone (Daniel's brother). They settled in the vicinity of Loutre Lick (MO). Six children were born to them by the time the 1830 census was taken, and in that year he acquired 80 acres of land, probably by relinquishment from his father. All the children, including four more two of which died, were born in Montgomery County except for the last one Alphonso Jr. He was born in Cole County in 1837 where his mother Nancy Linville Boone died June 9, 1838.

In 1841 Alphonso moved to Independence where he engaged in outfitting caravans and trading. His brother Albert was already on this new frontier trading with the Indians. The lure of the West was too much for the Boone blood and Alphonso began making plans to cross the Plains.

After a long and arduous journey to Oregon, Alphonso established the Boone's Ferry north of Salem on the "Boone Ferry Road"which continued to run for 107 years [It was taken out of service in 1954 when a bridge was built across the Willamette]. Alphonso and his sons located on adjoining tracts of 1000 acres of land. On a big Fir tree he chipped his name, and a triple log cabin was built facing the river. Mt. Hood and Mt. St. Helens could be seen on a cloudless day.

In March of 1849, Alphonso set out for California and the gold fields with his sons. Less than a year later, February 27, 1850, he died of fever at a trading post known as Long's Bar on the Feather River. From Gary R. Hawpe, ed. and Arlene Curry Buschert, comp., 'The Discovery of Alphonso Boone's Grave,' Van Bibber Pioneers E-Newsletter, Vol. 6 No. 2 (December 2002), p. 12.

THE DISCOVERY OF ALPHONSO BOONE, SON OF CHLOE VAN BIBBER AND JESSE BRYAN BOONE, GRAVE

On Sept. 7, 2002 the gravesite of Alphonso Boone received a proper tombstone brought about by the efforts of many caring relatives and friends. Alphonso died in 1850, of the fever, at Long's Bar on the Feather River near Oroville, California while prospecting for gold with his sons.

One hundred and fifty years later the President of the Wilsonville-Boone's Ferry Historical Society, John Smith, in a telephone call to the Historian, Jim Lenhoff of Butte County, was told there was a small cemetery with 5 gravesites but only 4 grave markers.

With research done at the Oregon Historical Research Library it was determined the 5th gravesite was Alphonso as described by two of his sons in letters written after they had returned to Oregon.

Sixteen friends and three generations of grandchildren of Alphonso participated in the ceremony held up in the golden hills above Feather River. The dedication was climaxed by sharing 'Dried Apple Fruitcake' a family recipe brought over the Oregon Trail by Alphonso's daughter, Mary Boone Norris.