For members of the Boone Society, a visit to Berks County this week is more than a history tour. It is a return to the place where their family’s American story took root.
The society’s biennial reunion in the Reading area brings together descendants of the Boone family and others interested in Colonial and frontier history, said Judy Smith of Augusta, Ga., president of the society.
The organization formed in 1996 as an association of descendants, genealogists and historians with a mission to preserve and study the family’s history and the American frontier.
Smith said 41 people from across the U.S. and as far away as Hawaii are taking part in this year’s gathering. For many, the reunion is also a chance to meet distant relatives for the first time.
“Most of us have never seen each other before, so we’re getting to know other cousins,” Smith said.
Smith said many trace their ancestry to George Boone III, the paternal grandfather of famed frontiersman Daniel Boone.
George Boone III was born in England in 1666 and immigrated with his wife, Mary, and their family in 1717, arriving in Philadelphia before eventually settling in what became Exeter Township, according to genealogical information published by the society.
That history gives Berks particular significance to the organization, Smith said.
The group’s itinerary includes sites connected directly to the Boone family as well as places offering a glimpse of life during the Colonial period.
Members of the Boone Society hold their biennial reunion in the Reading area this week. Forty-one people, many of them Boone descendants, toured local sites, such as the Exeter Friends Meeting House in Exeter Township. (Courtesy of Robert Crum, society historian)
In Berks, stops include the Daniel Boone Homestead and Exeter Friends Meeting House in Exeter Township and the Berks History Center in Reading. The group also visited the Peter Wentz Farmstead in Worcester Township and Morgan Log House in Towamencin Township, both in Montgomery County.
Wednesday’s stops included a drive-by visit to Boonecroft, the Exeter Township property where George Boone III and his wife settled. Only the stone chimney and fireplace survive from the couple’s log house. The property also includes a stone house built in 1733 by the next generation.
“George and his wife, Mary, attended the Quaker meeting house in Exeter,” Smith said, noting their graves in the associated burial ground are unmarked, in keeping with Quaker tradition.
The Boone family’s Berks County branches extend to Daniel Boone. The famed pioneer spent his childhood in the area before his family left Pennsylvania for North Carolina in 1750. He later became one of the best-known figures associated with America’s westward expansion.
Members of the Boone Society attending the biennial reunion in the Reading area gather for a photo at the Daniel Boone Homestead in Exeter Township. (Courtesy of Robert Crum, society historian.)
Preserving that broader frontier history is central to the society’s mission, Smith said. The nonprofit publishes a quarterly magazine, The Compass, and assists people researching Boone genealogy. The society also works to identify and preserve Boone-related documents and artifacts.
“Our purpose is educational,” Smith said. “We want to educate about the frontier history.”
Membership is not limited to Boone descendants, Smith stressed. Some members simply have an interest in frontier history.
“We have a lot of people in our group,” Smith said. “Maybe about 3% to 5% of our members just love the frontier history. They’re not necessarily a Boone descendant, so they join because they love our articles and all the information we’re giving them about American frontier history.”
For the descendants gathered in Berks this week, however, the reunion offered an opportunity to connect with that history and with relatives they may never have met.
“We’re getting with our other cousins, so to speak,” Smith said. “And we’re all descendants of various branches of the Boone family, but we all come from George III.”