Old picture postcard of Joppa Cemetery

News article from The Landmark bi-weekly publication, Statesville, Iredell County, NC - Shows this cemetery was full as of 4 Sep 1885. A proposition for a new cemetery did not pass at that time.

Old section of Joppa Cemetery 4-18-2015

On 04 October 1750, Squire Boone received a Land Warrant and Survey for a 640-acre tract "lying...upon Grant's Creek, alias Lickon (Licking) Creek" in present Davie County. He received a grant for this 640 acres on the present Elisha and Dutchman creeks 30 April 1753 and a second grant on Bear Creek 29 December 1753. (A roadside marker locates this Bear Creek site on Highway 64 west.)

Eleven children of Squire and Sarah (Morgan) Boone all came and lived in present Davie County. They were Sarah (Boone) Wilcockson, Israel, Samuel, Jonathan, Elizabeth (Boone) Grant, Daniel, Mary (Boone) Bryan, George, Edward, Squire (Jr.), and Hannah (Boone) Stewart Pennington.

Squire Boone's nephew, John Boone (1727-1803), and wife Rebecca (Bryan?) Boone (c1735-1820) received a 630-acre grant on Hunting Creek 21 December 1753. Their nine children were born there. Most of this family migrated to Tennessee, though some of their descendants lived at this Hunting Creek site until the 1850's and some distant relatives still live in Davie County.

In addition to Squire and Sarah Boone, John and Rebecca Boone and John Wilcockson are buried here in Joppa Cemetery in unmarked graves. Israel Boone and his wife are probably buried here also.

Squire and Sarah Boone deeded the Elisha and Dutchman Creeks grant to son Squire Jr. on 12 October 1759.

On the same day they also deeded the Bear Creek tract to Daniel and Rebecca.
Daniel Boone (1734-1820), son of Squire and Sarah Boone, married Rebecca Bryan (1739-1813) in Davie County on 14 August 1756. For some eight years, from about 1756 until about 1764, they lived on what was probably Bryan property in the forks of Sugar (tree) Creek in eastern Davie County.

Only tradition locates this homesite. Their first two sons, James and Israel, were born there. Though Daniel farmed some, he was primarily engaged in hunting and trapping. He is said to have killed as many as thirty deer a day, selling the hides in Salisbury, North Carolina.

Daniel and Rebecca moved to Wilkes County, North Carolina, about 1764. In 1773 an attempted settlement of Kentucky failed because of a Shawnee Indian attack and the murder of Daniel's 16-year-old son James and five other youths. Daniel and Rebecca with most of their relatives and many friends migrated permanently to Kentucky in 1779.

Daniel Boone, the archetypal frontiersman, acquired in Davie County the experience, endurance, resourcefulness, and expertness with the rifle which enabled him to become the great explorer and pioneer settler of the trans-Appalachian American West.

October 2016, the old portion of the cemetery is in poor condition.

State Historic Highway sign installed in 2022 at Joppa Cemetery that replaced the old one from 1938. Photo by Robert Alvin Crum taken 18 Feb 2023.

Joppa Cemetery gate leading to the old section of the cemetery and showing the Boone's graves at the back center of the photo. This photo was taken by Robert Alvin Crum (a direct descendant of Squire and Sarah Morgan Boone) on 18 Feb 2023.