Boonesborough Defender & Kentucky Entrepreneur
By Harry G. Enoch

John Holder made his mark as one of the heroic defenders of Boonesborough. After Daniel Boone left Kentucky, Holder became commander of the fort.

Holder married Fanny Callaway, a daughter of Col. Richard Callaway, one of the founders of Boonesborough. Fanny, along with her sister Betsy, and Jemima Boone were captured by the Shawnee in 1776-one of the signature events on the Kentucky frontier.

The self-taught Holder established himself as a man of property, acquiring well over 100,000 acres of Kentucky land. He was a commercial-industrial innovator involved in farsighted business enterprises. Under Holder's leadership, the settlement he established about a mile downstream from Boonesborough grew to include a store, tavern, boatyard, ferry, warehouse and mill. His landing on the Kentucky River became a major departure point for flatboats bound for New Orleans with Kentucky produce.

  Paperback January 17, 2022    290 pages

By Randell Jones
The new and substantially revised 2nd edition of In the Footsteps of Daniel Boone tells the life story of America's pioneer hero by putting his life on the landscape, taking the readers to 100 places spread across 11 states from Pennsylvania to Missouri and from Michigan to Florida (yes, Florida!) where they can see markers, monuments, plaques, historic homes, replica forts, and statues that commemorate events of his life. The second edition is a solid arm-chair read illustrated with 150 photographic images captured at historical reenactments during the last 20 years, with another 160 images and all the location information found in a 60-page appendix with additional commentary. 

 This new and greatly enhanced second edition becomes available in time for the 250th anniversary of Boone Trace in 2025. Market hunter, wilderness scout, frontier guide, master woodsman, expert marksman, militia leader, surveyor, land speculator, judge, sheriff, coroner, elected legislator, merchant, tavern keeper, prisoner of war, Spanish syndic, son, brother, husband, father-Daniel Boone led one of the fullest and most eventful lives in American history. Showcasing 100 sites stretching across 11 states, In the Footsteps of Daniel Boone takes readers to the places where Boone lived, hunted, fought, and dreamed of the next frontier. You'll find the sites where two of Boone's sons were slain by warriors, where he rescued his kidnapped daughter from Shawnee captors, where his brother was killed by Shawnees who mistook him for Boone, where he tricked a British governor, and where he was court-martialed on charges of treason. 

Paperback – September 3, 2024 219 pages

By Harry G. Enoch and Anne Crabb

The purpose of this study is to chronicle the lives of African Americans who were at Fort Boonesborough. We limited the scope of our narrative to the years the fort stood, 1775 and 1784. Fort Boonesborough is one of Kentucky’s most historic places. It was the wilderness outpost of Richard Henderson’s Transylvania Company and, for a few years, was home to Daniel Boone. Due to Boone’s involvement, few places in early Kentucky have been so well documented and written about. It will surprise no one to learn that the early records and subsequent historical accounts mainly involve the white males who settled there. There are biographical sketches for Monk Estill, the “black Indian” Pompey, Frederick Hart, John Sidebottom, and others less well known. Our work identifies only a fraction of the pioneer African Americans of Kentucky. Many more deserve to be remembered and commemorated.

Paperback – May 4, 2019   120 pages

By Harry G. Enoch and Anne Crabbe


Fort Boonesborough is one of Kentucky’s most historic places and, although seldom mentioned in popular accounts, women were there from the very beginning. This work includes 195 women whose presence at the fort can be reasonably documented by historical evidence. The time period was limited to the years between 1775, when the fort was established, and 1784, when the threat of Indian attack at Boonesborough had subsided and the fort’s stockade walls had been taken down. The names of the female children these pioneer women brought to the fort are also included, as they shared the risks and hardships of frontier life. The work includes a Historical Sketch describing the women’s experiences at the fort and a Biographical Section that gives a brief personal history of each woman. 1 indexed, paper.
Paperback – Illustrated, August 11, 2014  174 pages

By George R. Chalfant

The story of an elk antler with a carving of D Boon(e) 1778, determined to be an antler of an extinct subspecies of Eastern Elk, that was found near Hinkston Creek, Bourbon County, Kentucky.

Paperback – April 20, 2021, 88 pages

By George R. Chalfant

Firearms and Ammunition Used by Fort Defenders and Native Americans at Fort Boonesborough 1777 & 1778: Revolutionary Battles at Fort Boonesborough.

Paperback – May 24, 2019 63 pages

By Harry G. Enoch

This work focuses on the first-hand accounts of men and women who came to Clark County, Kentucky during the early settlement period, 1775-1800. The accounts are drawn from the interviews conducted by Rev. John D. Shane with aging pioneers in the 1840s and 50s. To make their stories accessible to modern readers, thirty-two interviews and one memoir were transcribed from microfilm and explanatory material was added. They describe their adventures coming out to this new country, America’s first western frontier, and many recounted their clashes with Indians, often in graphic detail. Shane recorded their stories in plain language that includes a wealth of valuable information about everyday life in the wilderness that was then Kentucky.

Paperback – November 20, 2012   142 pages

Clark County, Kentucky A Family History
By Harry G. Enoch

No one played a more important role in the settlement of Clark County than Capt. William "Billy" Bush. Born in Orange County, Virginia, Billy came out with Daniel Boone in 1775, resided for a time at Fort Boonesborough, then spent the rest of his life living a few miles from the fort. He thus became one of the first permanent settlers in Kentucky. He thus became one of the first permanent settlers in Kentucky. He fought in the "Indian Wars" from the Battle of Point Pleasant (1774) to General Harmar's defeat (1790). Billy was also a key figure in establishing Providence Baptist Church, the first church in Clark County. Their place of worship-the Old Stone Church-is now the oldest church on Kentucky soil. Billy Bush laid claim to thousands of acres of land between Winchester and the Kentucky River, and Daniel Boone ran the surveys for him. This land became the foundation of the Bush Settlement.

Hardcover – October 23, 2015 - 392 pages, indexed

Crisis in the Wilderness: The Capture and Rescue of the Boone and Callaway Girls, 1776

By Harry G. Enoch and Anne Crabb
The capture of Daniel Boone’s daughter and two of Richard Callaway’s by a party of Shawnee and Cherokee Indians is one of the most thrilling and memorable events of frontier Kentucky. Boone’s role in recovering his daughter Jemima and Betsy and Fanny Callaway contributed to his becoming the most celebrated Kentuckian of the 18th century. His part in the capture and rescue was the subject of endless telling and retelling of the events. The fact that the story was told and retold so frequently has resulted in numerous variations. Over time, additional details became incorporated into the basic narrative. Many of the details in the different versions are contradictory.

Our objective in Part I, “A True Story,” was to tell the captivity story as accurately as possible. Thus, we had to pick and choose which details to include and which to leave out. Like everyone who has written about Daniel Boone since the late 1800s, we have relied on the body of work amassed by Lyman Copeland Draper (1815-1891), who served as secretary for the State Historical Society of Wisconsin at Madison, Wisconsin. One of Draper’s particular fascinations was the capture of the Boone and Callaway daughters. For the captivity and rescue, his compilation of interviews, letters, articles and documents has provided essentially the entire body of source material on the subject. We located and transcribed 88 narratives from Draper’s informants about this signature event. These are published here for the first time in Part II, “The Captivity Narratives.” Readers of popular Boone biographies may be surprised to find some of the familiar “well known facts” are missing. This was most often the result of conflicting reports and the lack of evidence to identify the correct version. Many of the omitted details and the reasoning behind our decisions are discussed in Part III, “Analysis of the Captivity Narratives.”

Paperback – July 7, 2021  182 Pages

Settling Boonesborough: Journals, Letters and Other Documents, 1775

By Harry G. Enoch and Anne Crabb

Few places have a more storied past than Boonesborough, the Kentucky frontier outpost of the Transylvania Company. Boonesborough was a major focal point for the host of pioneers migrating West in 1775 and thereafter. This tiny settlement on the banks of Kentucky River would weather multiple Indian attacks, the capture and rescue of the daughters of Daniel Boone and Richard Callaway, the capture and captivity of Boone’s salt makers, and a protracted siege of the fort by more the 400 Shawnee Indians. This work tells the story of Boonesborough’s first year from journals, letters and other documents of 1775.

Paperback – March 4, 2022 211 pages

The Siege of Boonesborough - 1778
as told by the Pioneers

Compiled and Edited by Anne Crabb

Paperback 112 pages

Edited by Harry G. Enoch

John Halley's journals provide the earliest first-hand accounts of the voyage down the Kentucky, Ohio and Mississippi rivers to New Orleans. Halley supplies insightful accounts of what became one of Kentucky's major early industries-shipping goods and produce by flatboat to the port of New Orleans-and he does so almost at the birth of that industry, just two years after Gen. James Wilkinson's inaugural trip in 1787. Although rivermen often suffered at the hands of Native Americans and Spanish officials, Halley seems to have gotten along well with everyone he met. He describes every encounter and tells of shooting the rapids at the Falls of Ohio (Louisville), getting stuck on a sandbar, breaking his steering oar, almost losing one of the men in a pile of driftwood, and many other adventures. He was a keen observer and comments on hunting and fishing along the way, local flora and fauna, weather and river conditions, settlements, and notable landmarks.

Paperback, illustrated 52 pages

Edited by Harry G. Enoch

The descendants of Kentucky pioneer William Calk kept dozens of his manuscripts and heirlooms, passing them down from generation to generation. Among the most valuable of these treasures is a journal Calk kept of a journey to Kentucky in 1775, the year Boonesborough was settled.

Paperback with photos 18 pages