America 250 commemorates the 250th anniversary of the United States, honoring the courage and sacrifice that founded the nation, including the often-overlooked contributions of women.
For the National Society of the Daughters of the Revolution, Rebecca and Jemima are highlighted as steadfast patriots through their presentations. The Boone Society will feature their stories in Compass Magazine's America 250 special edition, reaching genealogists and frontier historians.
Both women are recognized as verified NSDAR Patriot Ancestors through documented service, independent of their famous husbands and fathers, embodying survival, strategy, and quiet bravery on early America's most perilous frontier.
Rebecca and Jemima are both recognized NSDAR Female Patriot Ancestors — a designation requiring independent documentation of their own patriot service during the Revolution.
The Siege of Boonesborough took place September 7, 1778 — one of the longest frontier sieges of the entire Revolutionary War. The Shawnee, allied with the British, launched a coordinated assault that lasted 11 days.
Both women are documented defenders. Rebecca served as markswoman and ammunition supplier. Jemima's nightly ammunition runs are preserved through the Draper Correspondence — accounts passed down through her granddaughter Eviza Coshow.
Frontier historian Lyman C. Draper corresponded with Eviza Lydia Howell — Jemima Boone Callaway's granddaughter — multiple times to preserve firsthand accounts of the siege that might otherwise have been lost entirely. Eviza was the eighth of fourteen children born to Susannah Callaway and Thomas Howell, one of roughly eighty grandchildren of Daniel and Rebecca Boone. Despite having only one eye, she wrote extensively to Draper, relaying stories exactly as her grandmother Jemima had told them. Her correspondence is catalogued as Draper Series C, Volume 21.
It is through this correspondence that we know the details of Jemima's nightly ammunition runs. Jemima later dictated her own memoir to correct inaccuracies in the historical record — tragically lost when the riverboat carrying it sank. Draper had intended to include Eviza's accounts in his book on Daniel Boone, a book he never finished.
— Passed down through Jemima Boone Callaway, recorded via Eviza Coshow in the Draper Correspondence
This project is not the work of a detached historian. As a direct lineal descendant of Rebecca and Jemima Boone, Britta brings a personal weight to this research that sharpens every interpretive decision. The intimacy of that connection — tracing her own bloodline through documented siege accounts, correspondence, and frontier records — produces a quality of scholarship that no external study can fully replicate. These women are not subjects. They are family.
The work combined genealogical research, primary source analysis, and presentation design — built to bring two overlooked women back into the room where the history of their contributions has always belonged.