The association was founded on August 1, 1953 at its first picnic meeting, held at the home of Dr. and Mrs. C. J. Rose in Enumclaw, Washington. Mr. Joel F. Boone of Puyallup attended, and invited the association to hold its picnic at his home the next year. Guests from out of state were Mr. and Mrs. Guy L. Ravin of Corvallis, Oregon, and Mrs. A. H. Gronwoldt of Redding, California. Mrs. J. H. Buchanan was appointed temporary chairman, and Mrs. J. W. Hurd as temporary secretary.
The first officers of the association were:
The Executive Committee consisted of:
Mr. Boone, Mr. Allison, Mrs. Hurd, Mrs. Hartwig, Mrs Buchanan, Mrs. Rose of Enumclaw, Mrs. G. W. Swift* and Mr. Robert Boone of Seattle, and Mrs. Jack Brewer of Orting.
* Note: Florence Hilda (Schricker) Swift, wife of Dr. George Wilkins Swift, was an aunt of Mrs. Buchanan's.
The Association published the Boone Scout from October 1956 to July 1983. It was the newsletter of the association, and had announcements, articles, queries, and other information about the Boone and related families.
The officers listed in the first issue were:
| President: | Daniel B. Allison, Seattle | Vice Presidents: | Raymont T. Cole, Seattle Mrs. A. D. Boone, Centralia Mrs. B. W. Davidson, Colton |
| Secretary: | Mrs. Floyd E. Boone, Seattle | Treasurer: | Mrs. N. M. Hartwig, Seattle |
| Historian: | Mrs. J. H. Buchannan, Seattle | ||
| Librarian: | Mrs. Carol Lind, Public Library | Assistant Librarian: | Robert H. Du Vall, Seattle* |
* Note: Robert H. Du Vall was a grand-nephew of Mrs. Buchanan,
and the son of Louis Henry and Ottille Iona (Schricker) Du Vall.
Mrs. Buchanan was also the editor of The Boone Scout. Robert W. Boone, Mrs. Carol Lind, Mrs. Bertha Jane Libby, and Mrs. George W. Swift were listed as Advisors to the Editor in the first edition.
The Association early made a connection with the Seattle Public Library, having their meetings there, and having the genealogy and history librarian, Mrs. Carol Lind, as theit Librarian. They also established a Boone Research Center in the library, containing books and materials donated to the Association for all library patrons to use. The Boone Scout contained some good genealogical articles, plus providing a forum for publishing queries that other researchers could read and respond to. A number of original source documents were published in the Scout.
Here is a list of some of the major accomplishments of the Boone Family Association of Washington:
| 1956 | Mrs. Buchanan published The Four Generations of the Boone Family, which was sent to the Institute of American Genealogy in Chicago, and to the Wisconsin State Historical Society. |
| 1956 | The Association joined in the proposed reconstruction of the Morgan Boone cabin in Kansas City. |
| 1957 | The establishment of the Boone Research Center at the Seattle Public Library. This center made available books and other materials donated to the Association for the use of all researchers. |
| 1959 | The reception of the records, books, and other materials from the national Boone Family Association. (See The Boone Family Association page for details.) |
| 1962 | The Association joined with other historical groups in opposing the removal of the graves of Daniel and Rebecca Boone from Frankfort, Kentucky. |
| 1963 | The Association receives the notes and papers of Mrs. Hazel Atterbury Spraker, the author of The Boone Family. (See The Spraker Manuscripts, below.) |
| 1968 | Records of the Boone Family Association of Oregon were received from Mrs. Raven following that organization's becoming inactive. |
| 1970 | Copies of the Draper Manuscripts were received and added to the Boone Research Center. |
Mrs. Bethesda Beals Buchanan, the Historian of the Association, and Editor of the Boone Scout, died on July 28, 1973 after a short illness. Robert Du Vall succeeded her in both posts. Mrs. Buchanan had been one of the founders of the Association, after a remarkable career with an anti-tuberculosis association. "The following year [1910] Bethesda Beals Buchanan accepted the position of the first Executive Secretary of the Washington Association for the Prevention and Relief of Tuberculosis. Mrs. Buchanan held the position for thirty-five years. During this time she oversaw the organization and publicity work of the association. ... The Health Pilot, a monthly newsletter edited by Mrs. Buchanan, Dr. Clarence A. Smith, and John Weinzirl, was first published in January 1919 and continued through 1944."1 See the Memorial to her, written by Mr. Du Vall, which appeared in the Boone Scout (pdf).2
Sources:
The officers of the Association at the time of this announcement were:
| President: | Mrs. Lewis Miles, Palouse | Vice Presidents: | Mrs. Darrell Lopeman, Kent Dale D. Whitney, Tacoma Mrs. G. Harter, Wala Wala |
| Secretary: | Mrs. Mary E. Allen, Seattle | Treasurer: | Mrs. N. M. Hartwig, Seattle |
| Historian: | Robert H. Du Vall, Seattle | Research: | Mrs. Carol Lind, Seattle |
| Editor: | Robert H. Du Vall, Seattle | ||
Mrs. Buchanan was said* to be descended from Joseph Boone, brother of Squire Boone, father of the famous Daniel Boone. I've prepared a report of her ancestry in pdf format. I've also compiled a descendant report for her ancestor John Beals. The death notices and obituaries of Bethesda and her husband James Buchanan are below.
* Source: Article in the Seattle Times, 18 July 1965.
|
1220 Boylston. Beloved aunt of Mrs. Ottille I. Duvall, Seattle; Mrs. Hilda Swift, Seattle and several grand nieces and nephews. Services Thursday, 11 a.m., Bonney-Watson on Broadway. Interment, Burlington Cemetery. |
Source: The Seattle Times, Tuesday, July 31, 1973, page C 15.
|
Bethesda B. Buchanan, founder and historian for the Boone Family Association of Washington, died Saturday. |
Source: Seattle Times, 2 August 1973.
|
Funeral services for James H. Buchanan, an attorney who had resided in Seattle since 1905, will be held at 11 o'clock tomorrow in the Bonney-Watson Chapel. Burial will be in Burlington, Skagit County. Mr. Buchanan, 68 years old, died at his home, 1815 13th Av. S., Tuesday after a short illness. He was a member of the Seattle and Washington State Bar Associationns and the Bridgeport, Conn., Elks. He was graduated from Yale Law School in 1901. Survivors include his widow, Bethesda; two sisters, Margaret L. Buchanan and Jane Buchanan of Bridgeport; a brother, John A. Buchanan, of Manchester, Conn., and two nieces. |
Source: The Seattle Daily Times, 25 August 1948, page 32.
In reviewing the later issues of the Boone Scout, it's obvious that the quality of the materials gradually declined after Mrs. Buchanan's death. There just wasn't the local support available to Mr. Du Vall to keep things running as before. She had devoted so many hours to the Association and the Boone Scout, and no one was able or willing to take her place. The number of articles, and the number of pages, grew less and less as time went on.
The last issue of the Boone Scout was published in July 1983. Ironically, that was the 30th anniversary of the founding of the association. In this issue, Robert H. Du Vall, who was the Historian of the association, and the editor of the Boone Scout (after the death of Mrs. Buchanan), announced the intention of "close down" the association if no help was forthcoming to run the association and produce the newsletter. At that time, he was apparently doing everything single-handedly.
In his Historian's report to the July 1983 annual meeting, Du Vall said, "We have a large membership of over 400 but only 12 in the Seattle area. Many of these are unable for varied reasons to help. So all of the work of the Boone Scout has fallen on the Historian. ... Unless help can be found it will be necessary to set aside the Boone Family Association until help can be found."
People who had paid their dues beyond 1983 were given the option to receive a prorated refund of the dues they'd paid, or to donate them to the Boone Research Center. The contents of the Center were given to the Seattle Public Library as an addition to their collection, under an agreement that was set up on January 21, 1958 between the Library, represented by Willard O. Young, Head Librarian, and the Boone Family Association, represented by Raymond T. Cole, President, and Ann H. Boone, Secretary.
Robert H. Du Vall was the last editor and historian of the Association. These were the officers listed in this final issue:
| President | Mrs. V. Faye Worrell, Seattle | Vice President | Mrs. Jeane Ader, Tacoma |
| Secretary | Mrs. Dorothy Seidler, Seattle | Historian | Robert H. Du Vall, Seattle |
The offices of Second Vice President and Treasurer were vacant.
Mrs. Hazel A. Spraker, the author of The Boone Family, was made a life member of the Washington association on July 30, 1961 after the national Boone Family Association became inactive. She wrote a series of articles for the newsletter about the Boone family:
| Article | Publication Date |
|---|---|
| Sarah Boone | January 1957 |
| Harold Macmillan | April 1957 |
| Sarah Boone Stover | October 1957 |
| Johannes Kassel | January 1958 |
| Mary Boone Webb, part 1 | April 1958 |
| Mary Boone Webb, part 2 | July 1958 |
| Boonecroft, the Boone family home, part 1 | July 1960 |
| Boonecroft, the Boone family home, part 2 | October 1960 |
These articles were scanned from the originals into pdf files.
In January of 1963 the association announced that Mrs. Spraker had given it her unpublished notes, letters, and research materials that she'd collected since the 1922 publication of her book The Boone Family. She gave them to the association because she said they were the only organization "actively engaged in collecting, arranging and preserving Boone data." She wanted to make sure that her work would be preserved and disseminated.
These papers, called the Spraker Manuscripts, are now a part of the collection of the Seattle Public Library. A searchable electronic copy is available there for viewing and copying. An index to the manuscripts is available on the Web site of The Boone Society. Pages identified by this index may be ordered from SPL by e-mail or letter.
The Library also holds the records of the association. Darlene Hamilton, senior Genealogical Librarian of the Seattle Public Library, told me that when Mrs. Buchanan died, Mr. Du Vall moved the association's records, which she'd been keeping in her home, to his house. When he died, his administrator arranged for their removal to the library, where they've been reorganized and preserved. The library houses the contents of the Boone Research Center, the genealogical materials the Association collected over its 30 year history. Some of these materials were added to the cataloged collection, while others were placed in a special collection, available to researchers on request.
I've compiled a searchable list of the items in the Boone Scout in searchable pdf format. For each item, it shows the volume number, issue number, page, date, title, surnames mentioned, and a brief abstract. The list is now complete (10 Feb 2008). The items I listed are those of genealogical interest. I didn't include every item. For example, I didn't include the names of the officers (which appeared in every issue), things that repeated several times (like books that were for sale), or the items regarding dues, mailing addresses, etc. I hope that being able to search for surnames, places, personal names, or topics throughout the file will be an aid to finding some of the valuable things that the Boone Scout published.
The Boone Scout is available at the Seattle Public Library, the Library of Congress, the Sutro Library in San Francisco, the Los Angeles Public Library, the St. Louis library system, the Clayton Library in Houston, the Dallas Public Library, the Allen County Public Library, the Boston Public Library, and at other libraries around the country. Most public libraries can provide access to these newsletters through Inter-Library Loan. It is also available through Google Books in searchable form.
Return to the Boone Family Association page.
Links to the names of other Boone research associations and Web sites:
This file was last updated on 7/11/2019.
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