BOONESBORO

resort village, Clark county, Kentucky, U.S., on the Kentucky River, 9 mi (14 km) southwest of Winchester. It is the site of Ft. Boonesboro, built in 1775 by Daniel Boone and a company of North Carolina men under Col. Richard Henderson who had just opened Boone's Trace (an offshoot of the Wilderness Road) through the Cumberland (Mountains) Gap. The group, under a grant from the Cherokees (regarded as illegal by Britain and Virginia), claimed all the land between the Kentucky and Cumberland rivers which they called Transylvania. The Transylvania Convention held at the fort in May 1775 was the first legislative assembly west of the Appalachians. During the Revolution the settlement was under constant Indian attack. Here took place the first marriage in Kentucky (Aug. 7, 1776), between Samuel Henderson, younger brother of the pioneer, and Betsy Calloway (who, along with her sister, Fanny, and Boone's daughter, Jemima, had just been rescued from the Indians). The fort, which was abandoned in 1778 after withstanding a Shawnee Indian attack, has been reconstructed within Fort Boonesboro State Park and includes blockhouses, craft shops, and a museum. Pop. (1990) 1,885.