Hannah Boone Muchmore-Gibbs, Kentucky Pioneer 1759-1850
Dedicated to one of early Kentucky's Pioneers, Hannah [Boone] Muchmore-Gibbs, whose birth is given as 1759 in Cumberland, Pennsylvania,[1] awaits further research into her and John Gibbs' life. Gibbs, the son of John York Gibbs, came by way of Virginia and North Carolina, along with Hannah to Frozen Creek, in Eastern Kentucky where the Gibbs family settled. John Gibbs after serving in the American Revolution, from North Carolina, is indicated to marry Hannah during 1783; she, a cousin of Daniel Boone, whose early explorations into Kentucky may have been one considered reason for their own movement to Kentucky, is remembered this Thanksgiving weekend here, by indicating this marker to her burial in Frozen Creek, dated as 1850.
It seems apparent from these dates not only were they among some of the first to arrive west of the Appalachians and open up Kentucky, as a new western US frontier, but reflected in their own lives those founding years to the new American Republic. Contemporaries with the Founding Fathers and others of those first decades, it does not take much thought to conclude they were aware not only of those persons and their lives, but various events and movements shaping this history to the American Republic. Hannah's final year, only a decade from the start to the Civil War would seem to indicate some potential knowledge not only of the personalities but probable affects those decades brought, both to Kentucky and the then 50 plus years for American founding. Kentucky alone seems to have been an early mini-melting pot for these new Americans both North and South. Quite possibly as example, their son Nathan Gibbs, who survived the mid-century American divide, was named after one such early Revolutionary hero Nathan Hale. It seems entirely possible; early research into genealogy indicated this American Revolution generation and that which followed, the first post-Revolution generation, found reason to name children after various original Founders, such as Washington, etc. This indicates, would suggest, considerable impact from our Revolutionary era upon that first American expansion and its families.
Remarkable, historical records such as this [picture] grave marker, have managed to survive and make possible here, remembrance of those whose earliest efforts to establish a new Republic and Kentucky, while giving a view into that past and continuing to work thru history to this very present from these lives that have made possible our own. It is a passage deserving this moment.
footnote[1]: Dates, etc. based on preliminary research for genealogy and sources, including online Muchmore Family records, Find A Grave records and Kathy Wilson[Iowa PH.d candidate research].