536 MISSOURI HISTORICAL REVIEW
THE BOONE, HAYS AND BERRY FAMILIES
OF JACKSON COUNTY
BY VIRGINIA HAYS ASBURY AND ALBERT N. DOERSCHUK
The early history of Jackson county presents no figures
more striking than those of Daniel Boone, Boone Hays,
Caleb Berry, and the members of their families.
Boone Hays was the oldest son of William Hays, a
Virginia bred pioneer of Scotch blood, who, accompanied by
a younger brother, Daniel, came with Daniel Boone to the
Spanish territory west of the Mississippi in 1798. William
Hays, the father, lost his life on Femme Osage Creek in 1804.
Boone, Greenup, Richard and William were his sons and their
mother was Susannah Boone, eldest daughter of Daniel Boone.
In company with the followers of Daniel Boone, Boone Hays
as a boy with his father had been in Braddock's army and
had served in 1774 under Lord Dunmore, governor of Virginia,
in the campaign against the "Shawanos" or Shawnee and
allied Indians officered by French-Canadians, and also in the
battle of Blue Licks in 1782.
Daniel Boone first hunted in Kentucky in 1769. In 1775
Susannah Hays was the one woman who crossed the Cumberland Gap with her husband and father and thirty pioneers.
This party pushed through the wilderness to the banks of the
"Cantuckie" river, south of the hills of the "Ohigho," and
established Boonesborough. Susannah Hays may not have
been the first white woman to set foot on Kentucky soil but
she undoubtedly was the first white mother to establish a
home there. Among the later additions from Virginia to
this little colony, was Abraham Lincoln, grandfather of the
martyred president, who came from Rockingham county in
1779. The Lincolns and Boones had been warm personal
friends in Pennsylvania where their families had intermarried.
During these troubled times of home building, Daniel
Boone, father of eleven children, was commissioned lieutenant
colonel in the army of the colonies and commanded the three
garrisons at Fort Union (Louisburg), Fort Donnelly and Fort
Stewart.
