My Great-Great Grandfather, William John Abner Boon William J. A. Boon was born December 21, 1821 on the Boon Plantation in Johnston County, North Carolina. He came from prominent family. His grandfather Joseph Boon had been a Colonel in the Johnston County Militia in charge of prisoners at the time of General Gates retreat during the battle of Camden in 1780. He had also served as a 3 term representative for the North Carolina Assembly in 1787. His political prominence was to serve as State senator as a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1788. His son, the Reverend Daniel Boon, a Baptist minister and one of the founding trustees of Wake Forest College, was a large landholder and cotton/tobacco farmer. The Boon Plantation was located near the present town of Princeton, 50 miles southeast of Raleigh at the intersection of State Route 1007 (Brogden Road), close to the Neuse River. The town was named Boon Hill prior to the Civil War. He attended Wake Forest College (1836-1841), and the year following his graduation moved with his family to Hernando (De Soto County), Mississippi about 20 miles south of Memphis, Tennessee. Desoto County was established on Feb. 9, 1836. following the Chickasaw Indian cession of 1832 allowing the.great influx of immigration. The 6th child and 1st son of Daniel and Louise, he arrived with his parents, brothers Joseph and William, sisters; Harriet, Sarah, Evaline, Eliza, Mary Louise, Daniel Estelle and 13 slaves. On Febuary 1, 1846 he married Augusta Ann White near Goldsburg, North Carolina at the tender age of 18. She bore him four children; Mary Elizabeth, Daniel, Louise Miller, and Daniel Ratcliffe. He was a planter and raised fine horses on his plantation. When Augusta died at the age of 39 he erected a monument in the old Baptist Cemetery in Hernando the inscription: Sacred To the Memory of Augusta Ann The beloved Wife of William J. A. Boone Born June 13, 1828 Died May 27, 1857 She died as she had lived a Christian After the death of Augusta he returned to North Carolina where on April 20, 1859, he married Ursula Sherrard from Smithville (born about 1830, died in Goldsboro October 1886) She bore him two daughters, Sarah Euzelia and Ursula Willie Boon. He eventualy returned to Mississippi and thence Lonoke County, Arkansas where he lived with his son Daniel Ratcliffe Boone and his bride of only a few months, Martha Jane Munroe. He died July 13, 1885 at his son's home of what was then termed a "malignant carbuncle". Thus are the old land marks passing away, and soon the place that know us now will no us no more forever. by Boone Groves (great-grandson of Ursula Sherrard)