Nathan and Olive Boone Homestead State Historic Site, Greene County, Missouri.Photo byMostateparks, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

The Nathan and Olive Boone Homestead State Historic Site is located about two miles north of Ash Grove, Missouri on Highway V. It's a state-owned property and contains the preserved home built by Nathan Boone for his family in 1837.

Nathan Boone was also the youngest son of Daniel Boone. His one-and-a-half-story house was made from hand-hewn oak log walls. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 1, 1969.

The Nathan Boone House is a pioneer log house with a stone foundation. The logs were sheathed with weatherboarding. There's a porch at the rear of the house. There's not any ornamentation on the exterior of this house, but there doesn't need to be in order to appreciate its integrity and historic value.

Nathan Boone's family graveyard is about 500 yards north of the house. At the time the house was nominated for the National Register, the inscriptions on the gravestones were still legible. To the north of the family plot is a cemetery for those enslaved and some African Americans continued to live there after the Civil War.

Photo byNathan and Olive Boone Homestead State Historic Site via Facebook.

Backstory

The Nathan Boone House is important because it was one of the first homes built in southwest Missouri. Nathan Boone was one of Daniel Boone's 10 children, and he was the youngest. He built this house considered to be a rare and surviving example of a classic saddle-bag type of pioneer log house.

Boone was born in 1731. He arrived in Missouri in 1799 and lived in St. Charles County. He was married to Olive Van Bibbar. From 1807 to 1815, Boone mnufactured salt at Boonslick in Howard County with his brother, Daniel Morgan Boone.

In May 1820, Nathan was one of three delegates representing the St. Charles District at the Missouri Constitution Convention in St. Louis. He was also a land surveyor for the federal government in Missouri, Kansas, and Indian Territory. While working, he became interested in an area in southwestern Missouri. It's believed Boone owned 1,200 acres in that area at one time.

In 1837, he had to sell his home and 700 acres in the Femme Osage Valley in order to pay off a debt, which he acquired while serving as a bondsman for a county official who stole county funds. Some time during that year, Boone and his family moved to the area he acquired in southwest Missouri and built the log house.

Boone is noted for his service with the United States Army. He was a Captain during the Black Hawk War of 1832. In 1853, he retired as a Lieutenant Colonel.

According to the Missouri Encyclopedia, Boone and his wife had 14 children. He died on October 16, 1856, at age 75. His wife, Olive, died on November 12, 1858, at age 75. They and other family members are buried in the graveyard near the house.

At the time of his death in Greene County on October 16, 1856, he owned twelve hundred acres and held eleven people enslaved. (Source.)

Nathan and Olive Boone Homestead State Historic Site

The State Historic Site established in 1991 is two miles north of Ash Grove, Missouri. The state-owned property contains the home that continues to be preserved. This site offers an interpretive trail and tours of the home and cemetery. The Boone family was one of many who helped build and define Missouri's history.

Interior of the house.Photo byNathan and Olive Boone Homestead State Historic Site via Facebook.

After Nathan and Olive were gone, their home was empty for over 80 years. More awareness about the Boone house and property was achieved by Ash Grove historians. The community in Ash Grove placed a matching headstone on Olive Boone's gravesite in 1985.

In 1991, the Missouri Department of Natural Resources acquired the property. The historic site that is open for touring includes the cabin, what's left of outbuildings, cemeteries of the Boone family and those enslaved, and 370 acres of the original homestead.

The site also includes a picnic area and shelter, trails, and restrooms with running water. For more information, visit here.

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