Squire Boone's Station, 1779
Shelby County, Shelby County, Kentucky
Marker Inscription
Squire Boone's Station, 1779. "Painted Stone" 21/2 miles north on Eminence Road, thence, 1/2 mile west to site on Clear Creek. For nearly 2 years only large station on the Wilderness Road between Harrodstown and the Falls of the Ohio River. Ground plan found among papers of Gen. George Rogers Clark. Disastrous attack by Indians 1781-re-occupied by the whites. First improved 1775-called "Painted Stone Tract" 1776.
Erected by Kentucky Historical Society
The Story
In 1779 Squire Boone — younger brother of the famed Daniel Boone — planted a fortified station he called "Painted Stone" on Clear Creek in the Kentucky wilderness. For nearly two years it stood as the only large station on the Wilderness Road between Harrodstown and the Falls of the Ohio, a lifeline of shelter for settlers pushing into the trans-Appalachian frontier during the Revolutionary War. A devastating Indian attack in 1781 forced its abandonment, though whites soon reoccupied the ground; its very layout survives because a ground plan was preserved among the papers of General George Rogers Clark.
Why it matters
Frontier stations like Painted Stone were the fragile footholds that turned the contested Kentucky wilderness into settled American territory, and their story captures both the ambition and the violence of westward expansion during the nation's founding years.
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Related people
- · Squire Boone
- · George Rogers Clark
Related events
- · Attack on Painted Stone Station, 1781
Themes & tags
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